Hello

Am really touched by your posts and situation, and wondering how you're going since your last post? I'd like to check that you're ok. Can you update us at all? (only if you want to though).

Hope to hear from you soon :)

Am very glad to hear of others having similar lessons! Please keep the posts coming!

Catalinbond, I can really relate to a lot of the things that you're saying.

Looking over my original post, I can see that I was probably overreacting on some of the points listed (the scoping issue for example, wasn't a problem at all, I was just probably panicking at the time). But I definitely need to work on my project management skills and organisation skills. Trouble is there wasn't much in the way of workshops available to us, and I thought that I would learn this from my sup, but as it turned out, I didn't. So I plan to fill the gap with my own reading and learning now that I feel I have some time to do so.

Overally, I think it just takes me a long time to absorb things (literature review case in point!), and to be fully aware of what I'm doing, what's involved and what the real outcome is - it's like I know on some level, but it must be a superficial level (unfortunately!). I don't know if this is normal and just 'part of the game' or my shortcoming or what...

But at least I know I'm not the only one out there with the same issues...

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Wow, I can relate to all of this too. So glad someone posted; as yes, it's somewhat an unmentionable...I had always just thought that I clearly wasn't very good at what I was doing, and to make it worse, I also didn't really get to learn much about why the changes were made. Though, in some cases I did, and really I do think that a lot of the changes/edits were things that I would have picked up on myself, had I had the chance to have read back over it after taking a step back (but I never had this chance, so I used my sup's changes as a replacement for that - which I rationalised as because I didn't have time to do it over myself - and this was true given my circumstances). However, I am left with residual thoughts of 'I needed too much help and didn't do it on my own', and feeling I can't really trust my intuition/work/thinking. I plan to have a discussion about this with my supervisor actually, with the aim of trying to get past that. I guess it felt like I was dependent upon my sup, and I worry that I won't be able to perform very well without their help. 

I also know of other students in my department (working with other supervisors) who have had their work very heavily edited, and in at least one of the cases, the student was happy to just go ahead and write what the sup had written because it meant that it was something that she didn't have to think about it (I didn't ask her about it further).

So glad to hear others have been in similar (from what I understand) positions.

As I'm heading toward submission and reflecting on the journey thus far, I'm thinking of all the lessons I have learnt about conducting research and writing a thesis. I can't help but feel embarrassed with the realisation of how hopelessly underprepared I think I was when I started the PhD. I really hope it's not just me who feels this way (and to this extent!) when looking back?? Honestly right now i feel really inadequate and I'm hoping that it's in fact mostly generic-type mistakes that most students make. Under a cloak of anonymity (most people never openly talk about their mistakes) I would dearly love to hear of the lessons that you learned along the way - what did you find you hadn't done well enough, or what mistakes did you make, how did you realise it, how did you change your methods to fix it ?

I'll go first:
Literature review - I had no idea on my topic and how it was researched, and the lit review i created (mainly in the first year) was more about learning how others did the work and talked about it, than me being able to be critical about their work.
I didn't keep a research journal - I kept ongoing notebooks, but these were probably not as 'thoughtful' and reflective as they should have been, and didn't help me with a line of questioning.
Planning - I seem to continuously underestimate how long it will take me to write and make revisions. I don't know why after three years I'm not better at this?!
I didn't keep a specific data notebook - again, I kept notes in my notebooks, and consolidated these every so often, but there are still gaps in labelling variables (ie when done in haste and i didn't revisit them).
After all this time, there are questions related to the scope - these were clarified earlier, but still are resurfacing as still a bit grey - is this even normal? i think not.
In general, I think all my methods of operating were underdeveloped...although I thought at the time (when first starting) that it was adequate. How could I have been so wrong?!

In a positive step, right now I'm building my 'lessons' into personal research notes so that I will never make the same mistakes again.

I would love it if others would be willing to share their lessons...

Can you possibly seek financial help from your university? At mine we have a service that allows short-term interest-free loans for living expenses and such.

We all make mistakes - don't be too hard on yourself. Lesson learned :)

This is terrible! I'm surprised too that it hasn't been detected.

Honestly, plagiarism scares me - it can be a grey area. I always worry that it might be considered by someone else that I've written too closely to something, and consequently put lots of references in at pretty much every idea to cover myself. But then I run the risk of someone perceiving that I haven't used my own voice or contributed my own ideas...but then virtually no idea is a new idea. So for me, it's really difficult sometimes. I try to write from my separate notes, but sometimes it's hard and i need to go back directly to the original article because i need more detail than my notes (or need to revisit from a different angle).

Am curious to hear how others deal with referencing (to check if my own methods can be improved).

I have my viva in a few days and am really freaking out about it. In going back over things I see holes in the thesis, typos, I have trouble recalling what I did for some parts of the analysis (but managing to check over it to refresh my memory again). I'm very nervous about what questions i might get, and worried that i won't be able to answer them adequately under pressure (e.g., particularly technical aspects). The topic is complex and I find the thesis a little messy and worry that things won't be clear to the reader/markers, and then the same trouble will translate to the presentation. My supervisor says it's fine (both thesis and presentation) but i can see there are problems and am concerned that my supervisor just doesn't realise them, but the markers will. In fact I fear at times that I will need major rewrite of the thesis.

Also am having trouble talking to the presentation - it's far too wordy but I fear by not putting as many words I will forget to make the points.

Why are things still so unclear in my head, after 4 years of work on this topic???! I feel inadequate, and I just want it to be over with.

Any advice, calming comments, shared experiences very much appreciated at this point. I am just dreading the presentation :(

Have been following your posts, I do hope everything went well for you. Please update us and let us know when you can.

I'm preparing for my own viva in about 2 - 3 weeks and am convinced i am going to fail/there'll be some pretty major corrections. I've felt sick with anxiety ever since I submitted. I just want it to all go away!

Anyway, I hope you had good news today, we're thinking of you! :-)

I am a PhD student and currently at 4 yrs 6 wks into candidature. Although it’s not always been the case, it’s been tough lately at write-up, with conceptualising everything adequately and getting a consistent picture from lit review to hypotheses to results and conclusions and with the nuances of my particular topic and research method/samples.

My supervisor is very helpful (although very busy and a mistake I think is that earlier on we didn’t spend enough time to really conceptualise everything concretely and think about the research questions and analysis more specifically), and has given me a lot of feedback and editing on my drafts. But I just feel inadequate, and think things like – why am I still, at this stage, drafting things that need so much editing from my supervisor?

At the moment I really struggle with:

· Constantly, every day, feeling stupid.
· Taking more than the allocated 3 years to complete the PhD. Because I have taken 4 years to complete (and still not there) this triggers me to think that I am too slow to understand and grasp concepts and apply them (have always thought this about myself), and slow to write up. Those that have been able to complete in the 3 or even 3.5 years and have won an awared for their thesis must clearly have been able to ‘get it right’ much earlier than what I did – so what am I doing wrong? (People constantly asking when am i finishing doesn't help either! :))
· I look to others’ intellectual ability and progress to see how they are doing to see if I really am right in thinking this - I KNOW everyone says not to compare yourself to others, but I do it to try to check for evidence for my opinion that I’m slow – I’m actually looking for evidence that I’m being too harsh on myself. My supervisor has pointed out chapters and things that I have done very well, but I feel that there is so much that I haven’t done well.
· I feel inadequate in almost every way: other people always seem to have more things of value to say, they have accomplished more or they have more issues to deal with (eg., health problems) and yet they still achieve more or had higher grades than me, people seem to be able to respond to things quickly and yet with more forethought than me. I get easily confused – for example, keeping all the knowledge in my head at once (literature review findings, statistics, my results, etc), I feel I haven’t managed the project well at all (see first para re not having concretely conceptualised at the very beginning) and the time it is taking me is evidence of that. I also am struggling a lot with stats (despite having studied it for 4yrs as part of undergrad – with the time pressure and because everything seems to take me so long, I don’t have time to go back and relearn everything that I need to).


How do I deal with this? Right now I really doubt my ability to conduct good research and I feel of so little value to my colleagues and peers professionally and personally.