Hello all,

I have been thinking about my progress so far and I have to say that I have achieved only 2, 2.5 chapters in 2 years of Phd in a social science. The empirical work has not even started! :(
Maybe I am not cut for this? :(

Don't stress too soon.

I'm also doing a social sciences PhD and I've had that thought more than once as I'm sure many others have. I'm nearly 18 months into mine, I've got no chapters wrote at all, I'm still trying to get my survey finalised so that I can start sending it out to participants, I constantly feel like I'm behind where I should be at this stage so you're not on your own.

What is your relationship with your supervisor like? Do you feel like you can speak to him/her for support. I would suggest you tell your supervisor how you feel and they will either say, your doing fine just keep going or they will say you need to get your finger out and get on with it which will give you the motivation you need to crack on.

Hope this helps x

It should be noted social science PhD research is very difficult - you have to write a hell lot more than scientists who can sometimes 'bash' out their thesis in 3-4 months at a push. I was doing fieldwork about 16 months in but had to still go back to my literature review into my third year. It was annoying and then the requirement from my uni to finish in four years even though I was self-funded. I took nearly 5 years but had one year part-time (So I class it as 4.5 years).

My partner had a bad experience and we had to go elsewhere for a second go. Its tough living with someone doing a PhD I can tell you - others are going through the same. Key is making notes from your reading and don't do what I did for years - make them electronically! Trying to convince my partner but she is still trying to read whole papers and understand them even thoguh English is her second language!

I think this is pretty normal in social sciences.

I had done nothing at all that could contribute to my thesis at 18 months. But since then things have been moving a lot quicker.

It's funny how every field thinks others have it easy, eh? It should be noted hard science research is very difficult - you have to write approx 50,000 words whilst simultaneously being in the lab from 9-5, and we still have write literature reviews and rewrite them in our third years....

I agree, my biggest problem is that I do not like at all doing literature reviews. The point is that I do not know how to do them...my main problems are 1- I never understand what is relevant and what is not 2- Should I read whole papers? 3 - what do people expect to find in review?

The worst part of it is that my advisors keep giving mee contrasting feedbacks....I am totally confused