I'm finding that I want someone to read through my work. Now obvious choice is supervisor, but she tends to delete/change stuff as she goes (rather than reading it once and then going back) so she'll delete half of it and then not read the other half because she's got confused :-s

Anyway, its got to the point where I won't send her any work at all - I want to wait until its finished before she can tamper.

But I want someone else to see if what I'm writing makes sense. My hubby hasn't got a clue (even though he's just about to submit his own) and I can't think of anyone else :-(

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My thesis has been written in dialogue with a friend/colleague and his thesis is emerging in dialogue with me. Others read our work too, but we have become each other's regular respondents in the sense that - if I am writing and am stuck I send it to him and he critiques it relentlessly (often in a few hours) and sends it back to me with prompts to write it better and I do it as well lets say to his ongoing paper. We have entirely unrelated topics but somehow this has happened for the past year.

I'm SO jealous bug! I want someone like that :-(

I'll happily have a bash if you want Sneaks,

My areas of interest are neuroscience/neuorpharmacology, but will happily turn my hand to most things. Whether i'll be any good for your stuff I don't know, but am willing to try if it's general stuff eg punctuation, grammer etc. I can probably manage a turnaround time of about a week for documents under 30 pages, but as I say, if any field specific expertise is required, i'll probably be fairly useless

Hi Sneaks, I've used mixed methods in my research to develop a questionnaire. Although I have no connection to your specific research area, if you really need an objective outsider, I would be happy to read bits of it and tell you what I think. :-)

My former boss used to edit my reports as he went then delete large chunks unread at the end if he thought they duplicated what he had added in further up which got quite annoying. I resorted to only ever giving him printed copies for a first read through so at least he had to get to the end before rearranging it. Would your sup accept print outs or pdfs?

ooh thank you cakeman and walminksi - I may well take you up on that offer (you may regret this!) I'm working my way through my methodology (which is kind of a theoretical review, mixed methods justification and context mish-mash) so should have finished that in the next week.

I might try hard-copies with my sup, good idea. I still have the trouble of her not reading anything (ever!) all the way through. I've just submitted a journal article with her as 2nd author to a good journal and she just said "well I haven't read the results or discussion.." What!?? :-s

That sounds like a great set-up Bug. One of my best friends is an excellent writer and a journalist in Law so I send thing to her quite often, she is really pedantic with grammar and sentence structure which is helpful, even though she doesn't know much about my subject area. There is also a staff member in my department who I am on quite friendly terms with and he reads through my stuff as well and writes really helpful comments.

Oh and apart from him, this time, (i am submitting my thesis in mid May), I have requested 3 other PhD buddies to read 3 chapters each. So he reads the full thing next month and they read a third each, plus sup reads the ful thing.

Plus my mum is proofing and copy-editing it all... :-)

I have to say that I have my parents proof-reading too as they are more particular about old-school english grammer than I am lol! Fab job they are doing too :-) Otherwise I have no other mad people willing to read mine through, parents will always help out where they can!

ah yeah, my mum does grammar-proof everything, as beyond what a verb and a noun are, I'm pretty stumped with all that!

I have a few PhD friends in my uni that I *ahem* abuse the generosity from time to time with reading. I don't really mind that they don't have a full head of what my topic is because they are far more likely to point out jumps in my arguments than somebody who can think through it. I don't know what I am going to do come the analysis and discussion bits when having a grasp of the lit is essential.
I think it depends on what sections I am flogging my friends with for who gets to read it.

Hi Sneaks.

I have my viva shortly .... so, hopefully, deep breathes etc etc, will have time and inclination to help :-)

I had fantastic support from my sup and would be happy to pass it on. Wasn't there a film about passing on good deeds, making the world a better place ? 

Offer, sincerely meant, on the table.

Chuff 

Pay it forward - Kevin Spacey and Haley Joel Osment and Helen Hunt

Random acts of kindness - www.randomactsofkindness.org. A bit touchy-feely but still...