I managed to do another 2 paragraphs on my chapter 1 - so little, but mainly cos I found a report which has all the stats in that I have been searching for since I started a year and a half ago. So I had to go through and update everything!!

Just don't be afraid of selling yourself (not in that way!). No one else will do it for you.

I would search, rather than for a specific topic, a good supervisor. I have a very prescriptive proposal, but I know my supervisor wouldn't mind me doing something completely different if I wanted to, as long as she felt it was good enough.

ooh and I tidied my desk too!

Hope you are feeling better Maggie! A116 - my supervisor seems to suggest different studies everytime I see her, so will probably be able to sort something out!

My main prob is alhough the organisation is huge, my target sample is small and its a nightmare trying to get people involved. Going across different organisations could help but worried about time scale. Waiting on an email to see if it is feasible and have a meeting with sup on Thus.

I managed to get the lectures planned - although I have only just finished it, there was a lot of seminar exercises that I had to sort out.
Now moving on to Chapter 1 completion - it is an intro chapter, so is more about setting the scene and saying why I am doing the project. My sup wants that AND lit review by end of Jan and I'm so busy - I have already put her off for months, so very least I need is chapter 1 complete and 2nd chapter (lit review) very well planned out!

AAARRRRGH

is there a pasta theme to this forum this month??

It really depends on the speaker I find. Some 1hr interviews can be 30 pages, others can be 15. I tend to either get people who give me very succinct answers (even with open questions) or those that take it as their chance to get everything off their chest, cos I have booked an hour to listen to them speak.

I usually get about about 6 questions, although for each question it has about 4 prompts underneath. Having a nightmare with mine at the moment tho :-(

oh my god, you people are so good at working. I make it about 2hours a day most weeks and then have the odd week of panic where I work about 6 hrs a day. Altho I never include admin as working, so I tend to do all my emailing etc in front of the tv at night!

actually 1st thing is to write my to do list for today! and rest of week

Good luck A116 and sorry to hear you are ill Maggie.

I have spent the morning replying to emails. At the point now where I don't know whehter my 2nd study is feasible, so trying to establish if appropriate participants are out there or not. Plan B would be crying to my supervisor, then possibly going across different (yet similar) organisations?? have no idea really.

Plan for rest of today.

- completely finish off my lecture planning so its ALL done and doesn't ruin any more days this week
- sit down and work out what I have to do to get my 1st chapter done - the one I was doign before xmas Maggie! :-(
- do some non-PhD work but is related and do that ALL night until complete
- sort my desk out for interviews tomorrow.

Use 'transcription buddy' available for free download at www.download.com
It has a free 30 day trial (but if you uninstall it and download it again, it lets you).

It is great because under view>options it has 'variable pauses' so you can set it to for example,
play 15 secs
pause 2 secs
rewind 5secs

So once you have set it up for the speaker's speed (e.g. sometimes, I only get it so it plays 7 secs, pauses 3 and rewinds 5 or something), you never have to press pause, stop or play becasue it continually loops until it reaches the end of the track. It works with most files.

I'm back! - been away doing data collection duties. Hi A116 - nice to have someone else on board.

Unfortunately my data collection went a bit pete tong lol, and now feeling completely demoralised about the whole project - participants booked in didn't turn up or turned up having not read the brief and were totally unsuitable. :-s

Anyway, feeling totally exhausted now so am off for the weekend and will post back on Monday.

in my old uni, you got done for plagarism if you repeated content from your essays during the year and your exams and if you plagarised yourself across different years - which was harsh, they never caught me tho :p

Actually hate the way people say undergrads are spoon fed, they may be, but only cos they have been through exams every year of their lives (SATS and AS levels started in my year) which means they are less interested in the subject and more in 'how to pass the exam'. Lecturers often can't understand this but when you have been trained into passing-the-exam behaviour, rather than just being knowledgeable generally then you do all you can to get the most precise info possible with the least amount of effort.

I really focus on gaining buy-in from participants. I have a research statement which gives a little bit of background, what the interviews are about, how long they will last, how my research is feeding back to the organisation. Then also make sure all participants know that there will be a feedback report (AND ACTUALLY WRITE ONE!). Most participants I get are through a support network in the organisation, as mine is a specialised topic, and from there snowball sampling i.e. I ask participants to recommend people. Generally people either participant or ignore the emails etc. so no one every gets annoyed. Does take a lot of perseverence tho.

mmmm day pyjamas. Unfortunately I have to step outside tomorrow so will have to wear rubbish jeans rather than my 'sports world' lovely warm lonsdale joggers and jumper - sooo warm! Next week I will have to even wear smart clothes like black trousers - nightmare! Think I must be crossed with some sort of hibernating animal, perhaps a hedghog, or maybe a tortoise - the way my PhD is going