I've just found this paper on working with literatures to create identity & an authoritative voice, I found it so helpful I thought I'd share it!
Barbara Kamler & Pat Thomson 'Doctoral writing: pedagogies for work with literatures' Paper presented at AERA annual meeting April 2006, San Francisco, in the doctoral writing symposium.
Writing is still a struggle, but at least now I struggle authoritatively!!
Mog  :-)

Hi Dafydd,

Do you have the opportunity to use both? Initial group interviews could produce stories that you could then explore in greater detail with some individuals, creating rich & living data with more depth than a focus group alone might provide. Some people may be more likely to open up to you in an individual interview once you've already created a rapport with them in a group scenario too.

Mog

Hi
I'm with Hazyjane on this one, printing & lots of scribbling/annotation works well if you like the solid nature of a piece of paper in your hand. It's easy enough to make notes on papers to make links to other literature, then I've put all mine into separate folders by subject & ranked them in the folder - good ones at the front, poor stuff further back, really poor stuff in the recycling!
Having good notes obviously makes life easier when it comes to writing up too; then reading & re-reading, reading, reading some more...
Good luck!
Mog

Hi Brainy,
Sounds like an abstract to me, like they're thinking 'can this person take the key points from a piece of work & summarise what it means'. I'm only guessing, but I ask students to do this at interview, so it's an educated guess!
Good luck!
Mog

Hi Hildagarde,

There's some great advice here on a previous thread: http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=20620

If you have an hour's session that's not long, but you should be able to get in some discussion or debate around a topic; keep PPT slides to a minimum, & get them thinking.

Good luck!
Mog :-)

Hi all,
In my findings I want to refer back to my 3 objectives to establish how they have been met, I also wish to foreground my contributions to knowledge, such as they are! The objectives read best in their current order but I've not found anything really new for the first one, one key conclusion straddles the last 2 objectives, & the other main result doesn't really fit any of them.
All tips on how to lay this out will help enormously! For me, today is just not a writing day!!
Many thanks, Mog :$

Hi!
I guess it depends on how 'generalisable' your empirical findings are. For example, Maslow must have seen that so many people experienced a hierarchy within their needs that he could make a model out of their experience that was applicable to virtually all - a theory of sorts, albeit in model form.
My findings mean that I can contribute to overall knowledge, but I don't know that my findings apply to all people, so they remain a contribution rather than a theory.
My experience (education) is that creating a model from your results is A Good Move, so if it's possible to somehow schematise what you have found then you can create 'Nearlyfinished's Model of XYZ'.
Hope this helps!
Mog

Go West - the Pet Shop Boys!
It's raining Men - The Weather Girls!!
Mog
:p

Morning! I'm sorry you feel so low. And you're right, it's easy to help others & almost impossible to apply to yourself what you know will help them. You're up horribly early - do I take it this is disturbing your sleep?
Do you have a chance to take some proper time away from the research? I know it's simpler for me to write that than it is for you to achieve, but it sounds like you need to be good to yourself and put the PhD out of the way for a bit.
That's probably not very helpful but I just wanted to say hello at this time of the morning & say you're not alone.
Mog :-)

Congratulations Dr D! That's great news (up)

Thanks too for the recap of your experience, it's very helpful.

There should be a glass of champagne icon we can add here!!!

Mog :-)

Hi Swetch,
I've been advised against mentioning that any research comes from a larger piece of work, & this was by my second supervisor who is editor of a big journal. I don't know if this is true of all disciplines, I'm in education.
Congratulations on getting the consideration, it must be a good feeling!
Mog
(up)

Hi J_T
I'm trying to recall - my first 2 weeks are a while ago now! After floating about on a cloud for a bit, thrilled to have been accepted, I read. I bought a highly recommended tome on research methods to familiarise myself with terminology I'd not heard in some time; I started hunting for journal articles on my main topic, & I read. I can't recommend reading enough & it made me feel like I was achieving something right from the start.
Congratulations on getting started & welcome to the fun!
Mog

Wow, I was hopeless!!
Looking forward to the results of this one.

Hi Swetcha,

I sympathise with your struggles, I'm bogged down in a political context chapter - ugh!

I would say that 'implications' suggests "What does your research 'mean' in practice?" So, if you concluded that yellow walls in hospitals have a calming effect then your recommendation would be to paint all hospital walls yellow. The implications include cost, choice of specific colour, practicality of task etc.

Or, if your findings were that there are significant gaps in the training of doctors, what would be the 'meaning' in relation to how training would have to change? It's more than just recommending change, it's recognising how that change would have an impact on training in general.

I don't know if that will help, & I'm sure there are many on this forum who are much further ahead than me & better able to articulate this, so we'll see who else posts here!

In the mean time keep positive, you are clearly near the end of this process, & good luck!! Mog (up)

Hi Billy,

I know I'm not the best to answer this as I'm not there yet, & many others will have much sharper advice, but I do know from this forum that 5 key questions are: 1) originality, 2) contributions to knowledge, 3) methodology, 4) weaknesses or gaps & 5) what you would do differently if given the change to repeat. I've also known questions around purpose of research & what have you learned.

There are a number of posts here recently from those who have had successful vivas recently & posted lots of good tips so it's worth a hunt.

Good luck! Take water, keep breathing & remember you're the expert. Let us know how it goes, Mog (up)