oh no, I wasn't thinking of getting someone else to do the stats for me! :) I just wanted someone to say "yes you chose the right test". I think I will hunt around my department to see who is a stats guru :)

thank you for giving me advice on this, it's such a murky area isn't it?

Patience - I have similar worries about sup not being experienced enough to maybe spot errors and omissions in the thesis. Is it possible for you to get someone else, either a colleague that has already got thier PhD in a similar area as yourself or even an external person?

Thank you so much Ady, I sort of agree with you and that's why I wanted to see how other people felt. Someone I know did the whole sending raw data to a service and they told him what to say thing (it was their supervisor's idea!!!), and I thought this was wrong. I can see how what I was thinking is only one step away from this.

But I've also heard of departments who have specialist statisticians that everyone else goes to to have their stats checked... how does that go ethically?

wooo Batfink, please do take care of your shoulders.

Has anyone thought of hiring a statistician to double check the stats? I was thinking of getting a statistician to just go through what I've done, and just tell me yes I did it correctly. Would this be viewed as unethical?

Anyway, have now redone the stats for the ones I did wrong yesterday. Going to get on with the new stats....

Thank you you two :) don't worry, I *think* I've sorted it after hours of reading and I'm glad I did, because now I know for myself how to pick, rather than having to bug you lovely people everytime I have to do a stats test :)

so today:
redo my stats I did yesterday with the right tests
run stats on two more variables
write the discussion, limitation and contribution of this study

drop in the second study from a published paper
adapt the second study to fit in better with the chapter

phew! lots to do today, better get on with it. Hope everyone else is having a good day!

another one joining in the bad-afternoon thing.

I *think* I just spent the last two hours trying to do the wrong statistical tests. Would you guys mind double checking my choice of stat tests for me please?

Right, so same as before, two different format of questionnaire. within-subject design. half did mode A then B, the other half did B then A. Everyone did both modes at some point.

I don't think the variables are parametric. (well, one or two are, but most are not).

If I want to first prove that there were no difference between the different order of delivery (mode A then B, and mode B then A) then I think I am suppose to be using the Mann-Whitney Test? I came to this conclusion since it is independent samples and not parametric.

Secondly, if I then want to prove that there was no difference between mode A and B, am I right in thinking I use the Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Test? I was thinking this because everyone did both modes (matched pair) and is not parametric.

Is there like a big no-no rule about assuming that the data is not parametric even if it is? I have one or two variables that sort of fit into a normal distribution in a histogram, but obviously would be easier to report the data if I just carry out the tests assuming if variables are not parametric.

Thank you for your time in advance :)

Ady - I love what the lecturer said, it's good to know that even the people look up to go through the same thing as us mere mortals! ;)

absolutely not! I totally go through the same fear as you everyday!! I've had a panic attack in the middle of the night in early January.

I think the trick is to find strategies that make you 'less fearful' about it all. I'll write down my strategies here in case it helps someone else :)

1. schedule, schedule, schedule. I have a diary with monthly views. For each chapter I need to write, I have a strip of thin post it notes (the ones you use to mark pages in books) with the chapter title - this represents a week of work on that chapter. Sometimes the chapter will have two strips if I think it'll take two weeks.
I stick these strips around my monthly calender to tell me that, yes I do have enough time to get it all done! I do it on post-it-notes now because from previous experience, I know some chapter might take longer, or I want to write them in different order. So it's easier to move things around on post-its than having to rub out some writing.
This system lets me know that it's all in hand and that I just have to worry about the current chapter I am working on.

2. Knit-crochet-knit! I find that fear sets in more in the evening, after I finished working for the day. So now, I knit or crochet in the evenings to keep my mind off work. Of course it doesn't have to be knitting or crochet, but something that can occupy your mind, not too taxing and can be done for several hours. My mother is slightly confused as I am suppose to be writing my thesis yet I am churning out knitting and crochet stuff faster than ever!
In some strange sense, this also teaches me visually that doing a little bit each day will get the job done... does that make sense?

3. Writing goals. I've set myself the task that on a working day, I have to write minimum 1000 words. Assuming I need to write about 10,000 words to be cut down later to 80,000 words, writing 1000 words a day means each day, I am completing 1% of my thesis.... so I need 100 days for the first draft.... this way, it's a lot easier (for me) to keep track of how far I am from the goal, and ensure that I have enough days left. It's only a rough guide, but it's better than no guide for me :)

Hope this helps xx

Morning everyone :)

my goals today are: write up study 3, write up study 2.

Teek: well done for coming back! I've just got back to writing my thesis a month ago. The first two weeks were really hard because I was so out of shape in terms of churning out writing. I struggled to write 1000 words a day. The mind is an amazing thing though, and it soon got used to churning out words again, and more importantly, my brain now WANTS to write the thesis. So just keep at it for couple of weeks and I promise it'll become fun again!

Wow I'm so glad to hear that you got a viva date so quickly! I'm sure you'll be great, you'll sail through the whole thing and be Dr Walminski in no time :D

sorry, tried but I don't have access to it either :(

can you use 'unsuitable' instead?

I would say a phrase that contained ill-placed would be like:

"Elephants in Asia are ill-placed to carry out research on penguins since the elephants are far away from the natural habitat of the penguins"

I too would think ill-placed would mean that the polar bear was in the wrong place.

I actually can't find a definition on the internet for ill-placed! who'd thought there is a phrase/word that isn't defined on the internet!

I originally wanted to post on this thread to let you know that I had a good chuckle at your example, I love it!

Thank you ever so much for replying so quickly Sneaks.

I do have Field 2009, so I will look into kendall's :) Sometimes, you get so overwhelmed with such a big book that you don't know where to look, and you need someone to say "ok, start by looking into that bit", which is exactly what you did, so thank you very much :)