Hi. Can't believe I am actually writing this but anyway! I am a final year PhD - well hopefully final year... Had to defer a couple of years due to full time work/financial reasons but have first draft done. One previous criticism from my supervisor was that he felt my literature was always quite 'dated'. So for the first draft he advised I update considerably. Which I did. I should point out all data was collected at this point. Of course this has resulted in literature from 2011/2012 when data was collected in 2010. I don't even know if I have a question..... Am just so very tired of rewriting and encountering more and more problems! I feel as if this will never end....

I expect this must happen a lot. I'm intending to do a last 'sweep' of the literature when I get to that stage, which will mean reviewing literature that will be newer than my own data. I'd never thought of it like that before, but it must happen to lots of PhDs!

Thanks for the reply Chickpea..... how to 'get around it' though....! Redrafting at the moment and it's just soul destroying (oh the dramatics!!)

Hi Fitzy,

I don't know what your field is, but there's nothing wrong wrong with citing old references in your thesis: I submitted last year, and the oldest reference I cited was from 1912! It may be that not much research has been done in you field, so a lot of what you've cited IS quite old.

However, PhDs are - by their nature - current, as you're doing novel research. Therefore notwithstanding the personal reasons for taking a break from it, doing so increases the risk that your work will become irrelevant before it's finished. Yes, it's always important to keep an eye on what's published in your field, even when you're in the advanced stages of writing. Trust me! Having to add references or rewrite bits is part and parcel, unfortunately, though in my case, I always saw it as adding weight of evidence one way of the other. As for when your data was collected, is that actually in your thesis? Depends on your field, I guess...

In fact your worst nightmares would be that someone's published something lately that torpedoes the justification for your work or even duplicates a significant part of it thereby beating you to it.

Hi Fitzy
I guess what I would probably do is try to incorporate some of the newer literature without drawing too much attention to the fact that it was published after my own data collection, if that makes sense. As Simon has said, the big problem would be if there had been a breakthrough with this new literature that made your study irrelevant, but if not, then I wouldn't think it would be a major issue. I'm thinking that this situation must arise more often than not with PhDs, as we spend at least three years working on them and a lot of stuff is published in that time. If we follow the guidance to keep looking for literature right up until the last minute, it follows that some of it will be from studies more recent than our own.
Hope it's not doing your head in too much!

How does your supervisor suggest you approach this? It may be that you incorporate the new literature into your analysis and conclusion to bring your data up-to-date with current thinking. I've seen this done by academics where data they have collected years previous is 're-treated' against new literature. I'm not sure it could just be a case of citing new literature in the lit review if you're then not going to mention it elsewhere. The new literature might even be a positive nad help you see your 'older data' in a new way.

Thanks all so much for your advice. I really appreciate it. Unfortunately a subsequent meeting did not go so well so it would appear the PhD journey is in jeopardy... but thank you again.

Why, what happened in the meeting?

Well I submitted a first draft in December. Then I was asked to clarify a few points which I did but found it difficult as I didn't have any feedback on the draft. After sending in the second piece of info I then received very detailed feedback which was great. A lot of work to do but I felt it was achievable. Went to meet yesterday and was told that it's not a first draft.... Major issues with the literature and research model etc. I have two supervisors which is also difficult. Yesterday's meeting involved a lot of silences as we tried to figure out what to do! There was a suggestion to look at a totally different area of literature (which I would not be familiar with) but I don't know how that is going to work. The research has been problematic from the start. It was a sponsored phd and a large multinational wanted to look at certain issues in the org but were very vague and didn't have a specific issue in mind. The data (survey and interviews) yielded some minor results but really, all those surveyed were actually quite happy with their lot so that's not exactly mind blowing! So I'm running out of time, I do feel that both supervisors have different approaches e.g. Written feedback makes two references to this being 'commissioned research' yet when I mentioed that I was told very specifically that it's not commissioned. I know it's not the end of the world but am just very down hearted and don't know where to start to try and fix it.

Could you do a short period of follow up data collection to see if anything has changed? How long do you have left?

I was criticised in my viva for not updating my references. I just kept the old ones in and updated my references where applicable, probably adding about another 50 in my corrections plan. I used Endnote, so it wasn't any drama doing it really. I suggest updating as much as your thesis as you can so as to avoid it being an issue for you your examiners.

Good luck!