when i was working quantitatively, i was constantly tweaking, too. i suppose i would have gone on forever if it hadn't been for the deadline.

i do think that every little tweak did make my work a tiny bit better, and in the long run quite good. i think it would have taken quite a few more tweaks before it would have become redundant. but the deadline was looming... deadlines can be good things sometimes!

i believe in Cambridge and Oxford you get MPhil's instead of MA/MSc by default.
no, i would not say that it is comparable to a doctorate. taught course with dissertation sounds more like any Masters. doctorates are usually not taught courses. except in the US where they often do entail some taught elements, but even then, the majority of the "course" is your thesis which usually takes several years.

might be different for "professional doctorates" and medical doctors, as medical doctors just "borrow" the title of "doctor".

Rick: EASST is "European Association for the Study of Science and Technology" (I think), and SSSS is something like "Society for the Social Study of Science", the American pendant to EASST. Every four years they do a joint conference. It's huge. 2 years ago I was at the EASST only conference which was already enormous. It was very good, so I'm hoping for this one to be good too. The webpage is http://www.4sonline.org/meeting.htm there is a draft program there, too. Check it out to see if there is anything interesting to you!

I'm glad you got your 4 focus groups! Good luck with the rest!

hard to say, as it was done over several months, but always doing other stuff, too.
we had to submit our first year report at the beginning of May.

however, be careful when comparing these kind of things. at some places, a first year report is 15'000 words and constitutes the upgrade report. at mine, it was 5000 words and nothing like the upgrade, which is due between 18 and 36 months in and needs to comprise 3 finished chapters. other places again, it's just a few pages of "report" on what and how you have been doing. so not really comparable at all!

another edit: just read on your diary thread. so sorry to hear that. but mostly, i can hardly believe it! i mean, seriously, helping you to get from a vague research interest to a well defined, relevant, and doable research question is one of the key jobs for any supervisor! or at least to guide you in that they judge, critizise, feedback on the questions you come up with before you embark on a long study of them. at least in my book it is. if they are getting at you about your QUESTION at this stage, they are seriously just admitting that they haven't been doing their job! aaargh that makes me so angry, just hearing it! i hope you are not letting it get you down - it is them that should be in trouble, not you!

edit: i DO still have the slides, i don't just think so

jojo, i've found one lecture from a methodology course very useful. i think i still have the extensive powerpoint slides (from which just a few are very relevant, but the rest help to contextualise them). if you'd let me know some sort of anonymous e-mail address, i would send them to you.

have your supervisors been criticising your framing of the research questions?

rick, things are coming along. slowly. i'm enjoying the actual fieldwork, but the transcribing is very tedious. i will be going to the EASST/SSSS conference in august - any chance you will be there, too? (as you are working in a similar area)

and how is it going for you? have you managed to get the number of focus groups required together?

yeah, the eligibility criteria for RC funding are tied to residency. however, if you are abroad currently, it depends lots on your reasons for being abroad and the length of your stay abroad. particularly within the EU, if you can claim "temporary stay abroad due to job or education", you are still fine - you still count as a UK resident. also, i think if you are abroad due to you or your partner being in the armed forces, you still count as UK resident. so that's worth looking into.

i'm not doing focus groups but rather individual interviews. i think the scope you have for changing your question schedule depends on the methods of analysis, the approach to your data that you intend to use.
like in my case, it is significant which topics appear by themselves. thus it is important for me to always ask the exact same starting question. these initial narratives will then be analysed separately, as initial narratives, to the question of what topics appear or don't appear. but then i am mostly interested in HOW people speak about the topics. so i will use discourse analysis. thus, after the initial narrative, i pick up on things they said with further questions, and i also introduce things which previous interviewees said, and topics of my special interest. obviously, i cannot analyse the rest of the interview as to what topics come up or not. but i can analyze how they talk about the topics. for this, i need to get them to talk about the topic.

at my uni, we have to pay a "continuation fee" from year 4 onwards (FT students). i think it's something like 500£/year for home students. already year 3 is "only" 75% of the full fee.

kind of weird, considering that i'll be expecting more advice and feedback and generally work from my supervisor when i'll be writing up and nearing submission than ever before... but i'm not complaining about having to pay less!

on the other hand, a job as a lecturer: yes, you get caught up with the teaching bit for much of the time. but by doing that, you earn your right/money to do your research about exactly what you are interested in, to exactly the degree of precision that you find necessary, in the rest of the time.
you could just work in any non-academic job for 9 months a year and use the money to finance a 3-months sabbatical each year for some research. but if your "job" is teaching at uni, you are more flexible to keep up in small parts with research even during teaching times, you keep your job after the 3-months gap, you stay in touch with colleagues and new developments...

oh, i don't know - i've had a bit of seeing into consultancy and think-tank work, and don't find it quite satisfactory. the problem is, you don't get to define the question, you can't decide what is important to think about. your client/customer says: i want to know X, and there are so many more interesting aspects, but nobody is paying for those. so you stop doing the thinking/researching the second the money is out - no matter if you are doing the issue justice or not. and also - you might have told them exactly what they need to know in order to make that big change or whatever - but the change never happens. or, you never learn what finally gets done with what you produced. in the long run, terribly frustrating and definitely not for me!

however, many such openings are never formally advertised, or the ad is not distributed widely (meaning, they are simply nailed to a door at the department, for instance - no further publication). lots of such "jobs" go to former students of the university, who are known by the prof. so to maximise your chances, you would have to start getting to know the department now. you have plenty of time, so: why not go visit some public events/lectures they hold, to get a feel for the department. go explore their library. read a book or two written by their interesting staff. then, when you feel you know your way around there a bit, start making yourself known to them. about a year before you would want to start, everybody there should know who you are and that you are looking for an opportunity to do a PhD. then, when a position opens up with one of the profs (a former student graduates or something) - they don't advertise it, but rather they give it to you... bingo!

and you are expected to do your PhD in the "other" 50% of your time - or it could mean that you have all the time to yourself, to your PhD. that's a big difference so it's worth knowing exactly what you are getting yourself into.
as to how to get such a "job": PhD positions would be advertised as "Assistent/in" by the professor/supervisor/boss. you apply to the advert as you would apply to a job ad; send your CV and everything. don't hesitate to get in touch informally beforehand. some ads would mention a particular topic/area of interest, others would be totally open. obviously, your chances are highest if your interests match those of the professor/supervisor/boss.