and also at that point i couldnt produce a summary outline of my thesis, as i had no idea how to organise my thesis. it was only when i produced a first draft, was i able to organise it.

i have a different approach to the one that my supervisors seem to impose on me.

i work by Joan bolkers and Flowers method. make a mud pie mess, and madman, and then bring in the arhitect and carpenter.

i think they should respect my own personal approach as to how i am writing my thesis.

in fairness, i did use alot of the content of the papers. but that was becuase this was just a first draft, i was going to change the sentences into my "own simpler way" once i was working on the 2nd draft.

i used the sentences from the papers, as a skeleton framework to build up on.


to circumvent this problem that he seems to be having of plagerising my two papers, i will make damn sure no sentence in my thesis chapters is the same as the papers.

but since i only had 3 weeks to produce a first draft there are alot of missing sections, and so my main supervisor told me to produce a full draft version and then send that to them, and how hes too busy at the moment anyways. which is fair enough. i dont expect him to read my thesis in full until its in its final version, and only expect him to read it once. he has many many other phd students, and im not even his official student. i dont really have an official supervisor.

but then my 2nd supervisor suggested i do the summary of the outline and i agreed. and told them i would send it to them asap, and when it was convenient i would be happy to come in for a meeting to discuss my thesis.

in fairness, to THEM they did ask me to produce a summary outline of my thesis, but at the time, i was told by my uni postgraduate tutor to produce a 1st draft by 7th of july (my main supervisor knows this). my postgraduate tutor, told me I MUST produce a 1st draft by early july and send to my supervisor, so that he will feel reassured that i can finish my thesis before my sept deadline and SIGN my examination forms. my postgraduate tutor told me that my supervisor probably thinks i cant write a thesis in the time, so to make his feel reassured produce a first draft. so thats what i did.

(2) The thesis is written by you. This also relates to the above. If you really do understand your work then this will be apparent in what you write. At the moment there is a lot of copying and pasting from the papers and it is difficult to evaluate what you have written and what has been written by **** and I. If you make glaring errors we will point them out. But we will not have the time to pour over the content, and change sentence structure like we do with the papers. There has to be a writing style you adopt, and when you read it back, you will need to judge it and appreciate whether or not feel it all makes sense."

"(1) The content of your thesis and your understanding of that content. It is important that you are scientifically on top of the research you are presenting and can defend it completely. You need to have a better understanding than the people who are examining you and anticipate criticisms before they come so you are ready to respond. Susan and I will be pretty severe on you and test your knowledge to the limit over the next few month. We're not going to do this to be mean, but because you need to go into you examination with the ability to fight your corner and convince the examiners you know what you're talking about

he wrote:

" ****and I are getting a bit dispirited about the process with which you are conducting the preparation of your thesis.

We suggested a long time ago that you really should come in and talk to us about it so you didn't waste your (and our) time going back and correcting large sections of your work.

We certainly said you needed to draw up an outline first and foremost. We have worked with you for a long time and really do think we can help you if this is done properly. Currently my concerns are as follows:

so update:

i recieved an email from my main supervisor today.

they are going to help me prepare for my viva and with my thesis. now i am feeling stressed about my viva, and havent even finished writing my thesis.

i thought once i submit my thesis, i could worry about preparing for my viva, as you have a couple of months. but my supervisor wants to test me over the next couple of months whilst i write my thesis. i guess this may help me with writing my thesis ?

he made some good points. but now i am stressing about the viva and havent even written my thesis!

but thats because im not really doing any "new" writing, just summarising each and every paragraph that i have written in my first draft, into one sentence (which is harder than it sounds!)

most of the time, my one sentence, has turned into a couple of sentences..

but in another way, its helpful, in learning new things i didnt even realise lol.

as they say creativity and original thinking takes time..

oh and in answer to your question, my writing is going at snail pace!!! lol

alot of my friends had to do major corrections, its uncommon to get a thesis passed without no corrections. the examiners are there to help you aswell. they are not sadistic dragons waiting to fail you. some examiners even go as far as helping the student improve the thesis, this happened to my friend. she had to completely rewrite and restructure her thesis. but the examiner helped her!


Patrick Dunleavy speaks about how no chapter should be more than 12,000 words.

if combining the chapters will make the chapters longer than this, then its best to split it up. so that its easier for the reader to follow and understand. as they say divide and conquer!

go with your own gutt instinct. and dont worry about anything else.

if i were you. i would go with the option of what i personally feel is right. and then just go with it, it really wont be as dramatic as you think, pass or fail. its just splitting or merging. every one will have an opinion about it. all you should care about is what YOU think and what the examiner will think.

remember this is YOUR thesis, at the end of the day, YOU decide on the organisation and content. they can simply advise you, but its the examiners that decide. not them. i assure you, you wont fail, based on whether you decide to merge or split. if worst case scenario if your examiner doesnt like it, he can suggest a correction. almost all phd thesis go through corrections. they wont fail you cause of one minor thing like that.

hey tractorgirl! i will join you in the midnight oil burning!!

i have to finish my thesis summary by tommorow morning!! that's my own personal deadline.

i totally understand about being piggy in the middle. there was this one time, i had a meeting with my two supervisors, and they were arguing with each other about, how results should just be description and the other one was saying, no we should put in some discussion in the results aswell.

i felt like the child and mommy and daddy were arguing! they wouldnt even ask my opinion but were literally arguing with each other.

i didnt know who was right! but felt sorry for 2nd supervisor, as she looked quite upset, as my main supervisor can be abit aggressive. her point was better though, and i agreed with her.

the best ever advice that i read from Patrick Dunleavy, was to keep a "paper memory notebook"

where i could jot down, ideas, problems etc. this is beacuse the human mind can only retain 7 (plus or minus two) ideas at the forefront of the brain. (p35 : authoring a phd by Patrick Dunleavy).

psychologically we counteract this fear of forgetting by recycling the information. thus to circumvent this problem, its a good idea to write it down, then you're psychologically secure that the idea or problem is written down and you can then move on to think of new ideas ..

{quote from Patrick Dunleavy"
"so what mentality" - what has the examiner learned from your thesis
"nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small parts"
"the human mind is only capable of absorbing a few things at a time"
"originality involves encoutering an established idea or viewpoint or method, in one part of your discipline or neighbouring discipline and then taking that idea for a walk and putting it down somewhere else , applying it in a different context or different purpose"
" originality - cumalitive achievement"
"new ideas most often reflect the patient accumulation of layers of small insights and intuitions"...

sorry i think i got abit carried away there!!

one more piece of advice i found useful from the book by Patrick Dunleavy: "Authoring a phd"

{quote}
"don't write literature review chapters in a perfectionist tone, focusing on smallish deficiencies of previous work, without realising the extent to which similar difficulties are likely to recur in your own research

"examiners will not closely scrutinize your small critical comments and sicussions in your introduction chapter, until you have established your own credentials as an original 'researcher'. -