i have mine stored in several places. two memory sticks, a 'work in progress' DVD, a first final draft DVD,on the computer, and I've e-mailed myself a copy of the almost finished version of each chapter, think that's enough? :$ and my supervisor has copies too!

Well I've just sent it off here's hoping he thinks its OK!

Interviewing is an accepted method - Do make sure you know exactly what you are going to ask, and how you are going to analyse the data you collect. The transcription can take ages, and some people say you have to do this yourself in order to get all you can out of the data. I went to a session on this at my uni, and they really analysed everything, every single word and its context. It also involved a paper mountain of post-its and a rainbow of coloured highlighters! so you need to know what you are after.

How many people is enough? well it partly depends upon the number available, if there are only 10 in the country, you should in theory do all ten  for example. There is a statistical table, I saw one I think in Cohen, Mannion and Morrison (2007) Research methods in education, that gives a breakdown of the number of people you need, might be useful. it also depends on availability, one of my supervisors said he was offered interviews, only to find that the place they sent him to didn't exist, or the person wasn't there. 30-40 seems a lot if they are indepth interviews though.

I've spent the last six weeks of school holiday getting to grips with my methodology. (everyone else is going to turn up all tanned, and its 'well I went to so and so, where did you go' and I say, well indoors mostly - boo!!!) Now I think its more or less there - at least for the moment, I'm about to send it off to my supervisor, but I'm hesitating a bit because I think there might be just one more bit, a couple more paragraphs ... etc. How do you make that final, right, I'm sending it decision? :$

I've spent the last six weeks of school holiday getting to grips with my methodology. (everyone else is going to turn up all tanned, and its 'well I went to so and so, where did you go' and I say, well indoors mostly - boo!!!) Now I think its more or less there - at least for the moment, I'm about to send it off to my supervisor, but I'm hesitating a bit because I think there might be just one more bit, a couple more paragraphs ... etc. How do you make that final, right, I'm sending it decision? :$

firstly, get yourself a copy of Dunleavy's 'Authoring a PhD', and read it. Then do a draft of the chapters you need, then a plan of your whole PhD process, it doesn't have to be one you stick to, it will just give you an idea of where you are going and when you expect to get to each stage, be it researching, rough drafts etc. This will give you a bit of a base to get going on. Plan what you are going to do and when, for instance 'on Monday I will got to the library and research X for a couple of hours, come home, write half a page or so, print it, file it, or however you keep your notes.' build in some spare time, go out and have some fun, if something comes up, go for it, your research can take a back seat for a while, it will always be there, other opportunities not so much.  If your supervisor is giving you too much to do, tell them, if they don't back you up at meetings, make sure the rest of the people know, say something like 'you remember whilst I was trying to do X you asked me to do Y, so I had to spread my available time between the two' or something that implies to the said super - well I had to do something for you, so why are you not telling them this then?

research always has peaks and troughs, go with the flow, sometimes you will be brimming over with enthusiasm, other times cleaning the floor seems a much better option:$ don't panic about where you are now, it will work out (p. s., if you do run away, the PhD monster will come after you ;-))

I work in a school, so although I don't have much time during term time, I make up for it during the holidays from school - even though of course there are loads of other things planned for that time too! I do some work during the term, but tend to concentrate on reading and note taking, and cataloguing all the odd bits of info I find in newspapers etc. and then do the mammoth writing tasks during the holidays. This hols I've just about finished one chapter and am about 3/4 of the way through another one, although the latter is ongoing from the last break. I'm in my second year - but hope to get through the next hurdle sometime earlyish next year, thats 2 chapters done and dusted and some other stuff under way etc.. I have until next November but I am aiming to get it done early. Next big step is going to be analysis of data, which I think I will be able to do a bit at a time, at least to start with. I have a rough plan, which has helped, and I also find updating my chapter headings and their contents helps me keep on track. I do have contact with my supervisor, but it may not be a frequent as suggested by the powers that be, however he is always quick to answer e-mails etc, and that is enough for me at the moment. The best bit about my uni is that we have regular Saturday meetings which allow all PhDers to meet and discuss things, perhaps you could try and arrange a get together sometime?

first of all, don't panic. Easy to say and hard to do. I expect you see a mountain of stuff that you ought to be doing, but there is so much in that pile that you have no idea where to start, hence the panic. The first thing to do is to convince yourself you are allowed a break, and you are. Productivity is not always linked to the number of things you have actually done for your PhD, a fellow PhDer who has just completed said she had the cleanest house in the world whilst doing her PhD, it was all displacement activities, but it was also 'thinking time', regard this time as just that, a break, a recuperation, a change. All valid reasons not to consider this as a negative thing. Your supervisor will understand the need for a break, your 'not being able to get out of bed' is probably due to thinking you haven't done any work and you have this pile that you must do - bit like when you hadn't done your homework :$ - only this time you can't get the answers from your mates. Not getting to sleep is probably panic about not having done your homework! You need to be less hard on yourself, if you feel you must set yourself a goal, set an easy one. say reading a chapter, or a journal article and write notes and give yourself, say, a week to do it. If you do it earlier, that's fine, if you take a week, that's fine too. Ease yourself slowly back to where you need to be. - I gave myself the target of getting two chapters into shape over the school hols, needles to say, I'm just finishing one now - a couple more days should see it in a fit state to send to my supervisor, but the other one is not even really started, owing to the fact that reading up stuff to write this first chapter has made me realise that a complete revision of approach is called for, so you are not alone with not keeping to your self  imposed targets, I think we all do that one. Think of your supervisor as Shrek (If when you see him next he looks like Shrek, back away, he has something nasty :$). Keep calm, you can do this.

i think this is quite common really, one year isn't a lot of time to get to grips with anything, your supervisor sounds a bit negative, but may buck up a bit once he is back in uni mode, I expect he is still in holiday mode at the moment, in theory if not in actuality. I would keep going if I were you, sometime it will all click into place (I'm telling myself that too!). I'm not sure if all unis have the same regulations about the masters/PhD thing, so I would check with yours to be sure, but don't rush into anything, if you like the experimental side of things that is a good start,  your big break could be just around the corner

This is my problem too!!! I decided not to have a lit review as such, and to put the lit for each chapter in as I went along, basically because I couldn't decide what went where, and thought if I did a lit review, well that would be most of the research done. I think its a social science thing. However I read the Clough and Nutbrown book 'A student's guide to methodology' and have decided I will have to do some kind of lit review, but its going to be just the basics to give an outline of different thoughts on the areas which I will expand upon in each chapter and I'm going to stick it in with the introduction. Can you get some of it out of the lit review and into its own chapter? Incidentally, my supervisor had two lit review chapters, but then his supervisor also let him take his entire methodology out of the main body and put it in as an appendix, but I suppose when you are top of your own particular tree, which he is,  people are not going to argue so much as they will with us lesser mortals (assuming you are a lesser mortal of course!):$ Incidentally, my methodology chapter is heading for the 'too long' stakes too, and at one point I didn't think I would have enough to put in it - such is life. Mines going to go;

intro and lit review
methodology
background chapter
3 chapters looking at various aspects of the problem as I see it with results of study put in as appropriate
a chapter linking background to this study
discussion tying all these together
what this could mean and how the research could be carried further
so there will be quite a lot of literature analysis to go in the chapters 'beyond the lit review' - now that sounds like a book title to me :-)

When I did my A levels - all science subjects, we had to do about a third of the syllabus for each subject on our own in our own time, for example in chemistry we had to do the entire inorganic section on our own - and one of the compulsory questions on the exam paper involved a huge grid where they asked you an awful lot about all of it, so there was no picking and choosing which bits to do - but this was simply because there was not enough time to fit it all in. We also did a lot of practical work. Now there is less practical work, and whereas we did at least one titration every week, now they do about half a dozen at the most. Also, since they have increased the width of the subjects - or so it seems- how can they manage to keep the depth? Is that why I have people in my dept who can't dilute sulphuric acid without me checking to see they know how to do it, have no idea when you need to use a fume cupboard when making solutions etc. and think that by having a degree you become immune to harmful materials? The system seems to have gone for less root and more branch, great for most I suppose, but not good enough for those needing a more solid base. So easier in one respect, but as hard in another I suppose. Times change.

However I can't see the need for A* they used to make sure that every year only a certain percentage got each grade, and adjusted the pass mark to produce this, they could do the same now I suppose?

thanks, that is what I thought, but it is one of those odd things - you don't want to get accused of using someone else's ideas do you! - but on the other hand, they are pretty general headings, better to be safe though.

I have been reading a book (yes, honestly) and it has, in a box, some points that I would like to use as headings for a discussion in my methods section. I don't want to use the whole thing as not all the questions are relevant, but how do I reference this? It is their words I want to use, but not the whole box contents. For example they have a heading about validity of answers in e-mailed questionnaires, which I want to write about in the context of my research, but I don't want to put in the rest of their thoughts on the subject. do I just put something like 'some of the headings from Jones (2006) box6.1 p.346 were used to inform this section'?

You are probably just too efficient for them!:$. I think sometimes they forget that if you give some people something to do, they get on and do it, and they just wander off and do something else, perhaps not expecting steady progress, so haven't prepared what is next on the agenda. I think it is quite a common problem though , I haven't seen my supervisor for at least a couple of months, and don't expect to see him until at least lateish September, but I'm just getting on with stuff. I imagine most departments are on a bit if a go slow at the moment, waiting for the start of the new academic year, so I would just try to relax a bit, do some background reading, get refs and lit stuff up to date etc. I'm sure things will pick up once they get going again. If necessary make a list of things you would like answers to, like 'I've done x, where are we going now, I think y might be worth a try' - that might not work in your area of course, but I'm sure you get the idea. Either that, or go get yourself a pointy stick and give them a gentle prod - perhaps they are asleep in the corner!!!:-)

Well in the dim and distant past when I took my 'A' levels, As were a novelty! I didn't get any As or Bs but my best friend got 4As, Physics, Chemistry, Pure maths and Applied maths! - she got her first choice of uni easily -they just asked her to get 2Es!!!). mind you, there was none of this going to school to get the results, they just came in the post. I was a sort of just averageish pupil, with lots of other things going on so study wasn't always my top priority,- I had to work as well, it wasn't out of school activities of the relaxing kind (However she hasn't done anything after getting her degree, so I may consider that I've caught up now after a late start too)