TreeofLife is right, the question is way too broad. I'm also not sure if you are interested in various 'official' stages, like initial period of study, intermediate viva, etc. or if you ask in terms of content/research plan only.
Try give us more details, I'm sure you'll get useful responses then.

Well done BlackTrinity, congratulations!! :-)

Oh, I'm soo much looking forward to the day in which I'll be looking at the first complete draft!! Still 3 chapters to go, plus conclusions. I've spent the last days drafting the content of one chap in article form - probably the last article I'll send off to a journal before submitting the thesis.

Still some analysis to as well, so this week it's first analysis-time!

How's everyone else doing? Wish you all a great working week!

W xxx

Do I understand correctly, the actual analysis you would present is not the one you wrote about in your abstract? Meaning: different data and/or different analysis procedure?

If the actual data and/or analysis are not the one you proposed, I think it is necessary for you to ask the committee in advance and see what they say - but being blind reviewed I fear they won't accept the change.

It the data and analysis remain the same, but the interpretation/context is different, then you won't probably have issues with that.

I've seen speakers starting by stating that the title was not the one in the programme, since in the mean time they won a different perspective or understanding of the data at hand. This is ok. Changing data is another story.

But maybe I'm out of topic, I see your PhD is in practice-based art. Then maybe it is more a kind of theoretical paper the one you're preparing? I'm also in the arts domain (music) - but not practice-based. May I ask which conference are you aiming at? Practice-based conferences that I know, e.g. reflective conservatoire in UK, may be more flexible about a change of perspective than more scientific conferences...still you would need to contact the organizer and make sure they're ok with that.

w

Hi Janer,
can you be more explicit about the change that you should do in your presentation? A shift in perspective or a slightly different design etc. may be acceptable, and you won't need to explain this to the conference committee before hand. However, if you actually submitted an abstract for a certain study/analysis and you're now going to present a completely different study/analysis or even topic, well, this is something you should clarify with the committee.
Also it may be worth knowing how the submission process worked: if the abstracts were blind reviewed it may be difficult or impossible to get a different paper accepted at this stage.
A few more info may help the people here to give a focused advice! :-)

xxx
w

Thank you for sharing with us this positive and encouraging experience!! And tons of congratulations, Dr.!!!! :-)

I absolutely get it, Chickpea! I also had that pressure, and I think it is very important indeed to start publishing and presenting at conferences as soon as possible...maybe you could submit now an abstract to a minor post-graduate conference, to have a first outcome, and then plan a bigger conference for next year, submitting the abstract in a few months, when you'll have the first results...?

It depends on the conference and field of study, but as a rule of thumb it is not very well seen if you submit an abstract about a study that hasn't been run yet. It is also difficult for the reviewers to decide if your work will be worth being presented or not - since you don't have results so far.

That said, I've submitted an abstract in my first year about a study that wasn't completed yet. I clearly summarized method and preliminary results, explaining that only a part (ca. 70%) of the analysis was completed at the moment of the abstract submission, but that the work would be done by the time of the conference. They accepted it, even though one reviewer (abstracts for the conference were blind-reviewed) commented that it was a bit risky to accept the paper, since results weren't complete yet.

How important is this conference for you? Couldn't you apply to another one - submitting the abstract after you've at least begun with the study?

w

Hi all!

Here I am again, in the past 2 month I had to put the PhD work on stand-by to prepare a grant proposal for what I hope will be my first big post-Doc project!

After several stressing weeks I finally submitted the proposal yesterday evening!! Yuuhuu! Which means that starting today I can re-focus on my PhD work and officially begin my 'final sprint' towards the conclusion of this journey.

I also had a lecture last week in which I gave an overview of the whole project (with preliminary results of the last work package) and this was well received, which gave a nice boost to my self-confidence and some new perspective on the narrative of the whole research.

Goal is still to submit in September. I aim at having a first draft of the complete thesis ready at the end of June to send to my sups. :-)

@Emmaki: did you already hear back from your sups? How much time did you plan for the revisions based on the sups feedback?

@Liah and BlackTrinity, how is your writing up going?

My final-year-PhD-fellows, I wish you all a fruitful working week, and to enjoy this moment, no matter how stressful it is.

xxx
w

Ooh..Congratulations Emmaki!! :-) I'm sure that was such a great feeling! How's going now? Did your supervisors say till when would they send you feedback??

Still working on my analyses, I thought of getting material for 2 chapters (and papers) out of them, but now it seems I'll have to divide in 3 chapters...which is good and bad, since it means more work to do in the same (small) amount of time!

How's everyone doing? Are there other printed draft ready to be sent to your sups??

Wish you all a productive day!

This is of interest for me as well. May it be that the answer differs depending on what you aim to do with your thesis? I have colleagues who published their theses at the end of the PhD (most in the humanities), and others who didn't (most in sciences), but published the thesis material in form of articles/chapters along the way..

Almost each of my thesis chapters is also published (or in the pipeline) as article/book chapter. Even though in the thesis you have more narrative and more data, there are large blocks of texts that are simply the same. My sup told me to do so, and at the beginning of each chapter to acknowledge that parts of the texts have been published in X and Y.

At the end of my PhD I won't publish the thesis as a whole, it will only remain in the Uni archive..

Other experiences??
Thanks
wanderingbit

Here one more owl desperately trying to turn into a lark..In these months just trying to force myself to wake up 'on time' (meaning: alarm clock at about 6:45-7:00, a second one at 7:15 and hopefully I'm up at 7:20-7:30!!) independently from when I go to sleep..

My hope: making myself tired enough to convince my body to fall asleep sooner in the evening. So far I'm only turning into a zombie though..no larks on the horizon..exhausted from early morning till evening, but still unable to discipline myself to go to sleep before midnight!

...I'd be very happy to hear about other experiences with this issues!

xxx
wanderingbit

According to what I've been told so far (I'm on my final year, my PhD is in music psychology/performance science) it shouldn't be a problem if you have your supervisors as co-authors, as long as you're the first author! It is usual practice to have your supervisor as last author in Social Sciences, i.e. readers will also interpret it this way.

What can create issues, is to have publications where you are second author, in that case the commission would question what was your actual contribution to the work. What might also be a grey zone I assume is when you are first author, and an other researcher (not the supervisor) is the second and last one...? But I'm not sure, my sup says that as long as I'm first author, I'm fine.

I have so far one or both of my supervisors as co-auth in most of the publications I got. :-)

Cheers
w

Hi Peterx, I have access to the article, just give me you email to send it :-)

Good morning everyone!

TreeofLife, your words lead me to a question: how many of you have already published parts of your theses? And how many and what types of publications do you have?
I managed so far one journal article, one book chapter and two conference proceedings (either published or in press). My supervisor is pushing, saying that I'd need at least one more journal article accepted before submitting the thesis. But there is so little time left..I'll try to submit a new paper in April/May, but get it accepted before end of Summer seems unrealistic.

What is your experience?

Wish you all a prolific working day!
wanderingbit

Hi guys,

I'm too in a similar situation, I have funding for working half-time till September (the other half is busy with other projects, fund acquisition and teaching - I'm employed full-time). I used a different approach, and wrote up chapter-by-chapter as the data collection and analysis proceeded (I think how to organize the writing up depends a lot from the kind of project you have, my field is psychology of music and I have a mixed quantitative-qualitative study, that could be split in 2-3 parts to be written up / published separately).

But I still have a large qualitative analysis to do, and 2 more chapters to write (and one journal article to submit). And then also the 'what's next' chapter and conclusions. And of course revising the chapters I wrote already and updating the lit review (which was written one-and-a-half years ago!)...

I'm too overwhelmed, also because I'm supposed to really only invest about 4 hrs a day on the PhD, and I feel there is still so much to do! It's very nice to hear I'm not alone though!

Wanderingbit