I had research council funding, then I got a full time job and gave it up, even paying some back! Madness I know!

But it's essentially the person's own decision, I wouldn't get involved unless they were a friend and you were concerned for them. Its up to them to take the risks and potentially face the consequences, although I've never heard of anyone getting into trouble for this.

Hello, congrats on getting the interview! You'll probably be asked what interests you about the topic, what skills and knowledge you bring, and to talk about your masters or BA project so you could do some preparation in these areas. Perhaps you could read a couple of papers on the topic as well. Before my interview I read some papers my supervisor wrote on the topic which helped to inform me about the area. I was asked which particular aspects interested me most, and I was asked questions about my research skills.

It certainly sounds like you are enthusiastic, that helps loads!! Good luck!

that would be geat, many thanks Zelda and Postgrad forum team!! I really appreciate your help.

ha ha you sound like me! I have even written on my fridge 'I can finish my PhD and I will do it!' to try to convince myself. You still have a long time, its amazing how much can be done in a month if you set your heart to it and know its the last month! So my advice is to go for it, and at the end of the day if you submit a week late, so what? You still will have submitted!!

Hi Tina, to the best of my knowledge you wouldn't be penalised, but there may be implications for your department if you are funded and you go over their deadline. Its probably best to check with your supervisor.
I spoke to mine last week and extended my final submission date. When is your thesis due?

I put 'Postgraduate Researcher' on the letters I sent out about my study, that worked quite well.

I have had 2 types on card, the first time I didn't put a title, it just had my name and contact details at the university.

The second time the department made them they put 'PhD student'. I got better treatment with the first type!!!

I found this on google yesterday. I's written by a doctoral student, doesn't really come up with solutions as such (not for me anyway) but it has some good references to other material on this topic:

Understanding Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research

http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR8-4/golafshani.pdf#search=%22reliability%20validity%20qualitative%20research%22

At first I was stressed because I kept reading methods of validation that I hadn't done, e.g. respondent validation - taking your findings back to your respondents and seeing if they agree. Even if I could get hold of my respondents now it would severely delay submitting my thesis, and most reports say you only get a very small number of responses anyway, essentially you get more data rather than validation. It seems there are criticisms for every suggested method of validation. DJWickid you're right there's so much contradictory info.

Now I think I am beginning to piece together my writing based on why quantitative approaches aren't suitable to be applied, some suggested criteria by qualitative researchers, and what criteria I am using and why.

Zelda, my field is sociology but my topic is often studied in psychology, so any refs would be useful. Thanks all!

Wow, thanks all so much for your responses and the references!! I really appreciate it!! I have been trying to work on this all morning and it was so nice to turn on the computer and see these messages and some references to follow up. Ann you are a star! :)

Pea - my supervisor didn't mention it before either, but now just before I am due to submit has let me know I should include a section on this. It's essentially about demonstrating that your research is credible and rigorous (or based on 'reality' and whether someone else would get the same results, depending on who you read) i.e. you haven't just put a load of quotes together in an anecdotal way.

Hello all, this is a question for the qualitative researchers amongst you. My study involved in-depth interviews and I'm currently working on my revisions before submitting. I need to include a section on reliability and validity in my methodology chapter, but I'm finding it quite hard, because a lot of the literature seems to be transferring measures from quantitative studies onto qualitative research and that's not appropriate for my study. Does anyone have any references for articles on validity and reliability in qualitative research that could be useful? Thanks

Sorry that should have said:

I borrowed a transcribing machine from my department. It is controlled by foot pedals to allow you to slow down the speech to your typing speed...

How are you doing it? I borrowed a transcribing machine from my department control with foot pedals to allow you to slow down the speech to your typing speed. Once I found out about this machine (I wasn't told about it until I had done quite a few tapes!) I found it a bit quicker than using a tape recorder to play back the tape and having to stop it etc.

wow Anne, I just read your post, I don't know how you managed 3 finished chapters in 3 weeks! I need some of that!

Hi Tina, I'm in a similar boat, not long to go now! I'm finding hard to stay motivated on a day to day level, but the thought of this thing dragging on for months more is terrible, ah the guilt!

I'm trying to do the revisions my supervisor gave me on my last version, but it's so hard. Sometimes I think that my brain has got blocked! But the reality of trying to finish is that I've got 2 days max to revise each chapter (10 chapters in total), and some of the revisions /re-writes are quite substantial so I can't just take a break until I feel better!

Have you produced a whole first draft already? How many words have you written and how many left to go? Best of luck and keep us updated!