This may be classed as an odd query. I’m currently coming to the end of my PhD (science) and the thought of writing up is terrifying me. I’ll end up with three chapters of results. The first of these will be fine. I’ve been able to get a paper out of it with another following. My last chapter is an amalgamation of random things I’ve tried which could be furthered in the future as individual projects. What really concerns me is my middle chapter. I’ve been working on the experiments for it for the last 18 months and I can’t get anything to work. When it comes to writing up the work, it’s not going to take too long. How do you think the examiner is going to react seeing this? I’ve done a ridiculous amount of work but it’s not going to show when it comes to the thesis. I know that your work should be publishable but this chapter really hasn’t worked.

Am I over reacting? After seeing the major corrections thread I really hope so.

What did you Supervisor say?

Unfortunately he lives in La La land. I only see him once in a blue moon and everytime I have a meeting he seems to invent reactions I haven't done and glosses over the problems. He then starts to compare me with the the other third years saying all the things they've done. It's starting to give me a complex

hi worried,
academic publications have a strong bias towards things that worked. nobody is going to publish something in a journal that says "I tried this and it didn't work". however, lots of academic work consists of exactly that. and it isn't useless either, as every such try helps devise further research. only nobody ever gets to see it as it isn't published.
i suppose you need to discuss this with your supervisor and you need to abide by your university's and discipline's guidelines, but overall i believe in a PhD thesis it should be ok to write also about the things that didn't work.

Sometimes there's more to say if something hasnt worked, particularly if there was good reason to expect it to work! I've got a couple of studies where there were hardly any significant results and its given me scope to explore differences between my studies and previous research etc. Try to think of it like that and I'm sure you'll be fine, nobody's studies all go smoothly!

Thanks for the replies. I was never a major worrier until I started my PhD. I know we're trained to be precise, but the last three years have made me a little too critical of my work (as my time in the lab draws to an end I'm becoming more and more tense). I've already decided that if I pass my viva I'm booking a weekend trip with the girlfriend (even though she doesn't do a PhD she's shared my ups and downs), to New York to celebrate