I'm about to do a section on why my mixed methods approach is SO great.

But I'm not really sure why it is :$

Anyone got any good references/books on the matter?

oh I feel so out of it, I've very briefly read KB's thread and have to agree with you Bug, CC is "way out of order" as my chavvy sister in law would say.

On another note, I had to look up non sequitur and I still don't know what it means :$

anyway....

right I've cleaned 2 bathrooms and run around with a bin liner picking up credit card bills which have been discarded all over the floor :$ (have shredded the important bits). Also put away 3 loads of washing and have another 2 on the go (one in dryer, one in washing machine).

Going to take some (boring PhD) reading to bed with a hot chocolate

how do you keep your eyes from getting tired??? I have the right prescription for my glasses, have the text zoomed up, but they're getting sore again :-(

Done goal 1. I need to really get on and do the housework.

obviously your science, I'm social science so its a big difference. I personally wouldn't go near a PhD for employment prospects at the mo, but if its necessary to progress in your field, then maybe you should consider it.

Just be aware that its 3 years with very little money and A LOT of work, and potentially a year of unfunded write up afterwards - that's 3 years you could have been earning and saving money for mortgages etc.

well I've eaten. I feel SO tired. I also have a friend popping by on saturday and the house is a complete tip - I really need to clean 3 bathrooms and the kitchen and go round with a black bin liner putting all the discarded paper in it, but must put in at least an hour on the PhD before then.

Goal 1: summarise section.

oh dear, its nearly 7 and I still haven't started the PhD work :-(

Not even sure what I should be doing tonight on it and my eyes feel so strained :-(

Anyhoo I'll dig out a goal and update.

thanks little star, my hubs will be pleased to hear that - his is 31k and counting (he's writing the discussion this weekend, but will only be 2-3k words I suspect) and he was panicking, but short of putting in a load of waffle, there's nothing to add. His is very mathematical though, and he's made a huge contribution to the field, so we think he'll be ok.

I've just checked our uni's (although it took so long to track this info down I doubt any examiner will realise it exists!) it says it should be "not exceed 100,000 words or 20,000 words for the award of PhD through the submission of publications"

So I take that as - word count = any you can decide on haha!

I haven't even upgraded yet and no one seems to in my department, I've spoken to 4 people who are now Drs. and they never did, so its so shambolic, I'd doubt they'd notice if I submitted a one page abstract of the overall theme!

I mean, if your copy hasn't been sent to examiners, there still may be time to intercept it and hand another copy out. i'd go and see 1) supervisor 2) doctoral admin team and see if there's anything you can do - even if its putting a note in with the existing ones saying pages xx and xx will be removed.

If a final version hasn't been sent to your external and internal examiners then there's a fair chance you can submit a changed copy - you might have to pay for it to be re-bound etc. but given the circumstances then I'd say that's money I'd be willing to pay out.

Maybe run it through turn-it-in one more time before the final final submission

i have a general number of about 10,000 per chapter. BUt now I'm getting freaked, because I'm about to finish my methods chapter which will be more like 7,000. I've also written my 3 studies up for publication, so they're under journal limits (typically 6,000). I talked to sup about how I should lengthen them and she said I shouldn't - so I'm very very confused. However, I think she only said don't lengthen them because she wants to see it all together before I do.

I reckon I'll be looking at 60-70k words overall though (have NO idea what our uni limit is! seems like a stupid thing to have a word limit - surely its contribution to the field that counts??)

Hubby's thesis is in a maths-related area and will be about 30k in total, excluding references etc.

I should get 2-3 great, groundbreaking publications from it, but with the lack of jobs out there, I'm starting to feel I won't be going into academia anyway, so is probably a complete waste of time!

finished! just in time for midnight...need....sleep....eyes bleeding (well feel like it!)

I need to do more RA work tomorrow and try and squeeze in some PhD stuff.