======= Date Modified 21 46 2009 09:46:38 =======
============= Edited by a Moderator =============
Right, I recently had a meeting with my supervisory team and, the loves that they are, they have informed me that I have to begin writing up as I continue to collect and analyse data - so an intense 9 months for my poor brain. I have done stacks of writing, much of it s**t, and I'm sat here now realising that I have forgotten much of it :-( I've been so intensively focusing on one aspect of my research that a lot of stuff that I used to know has just gone out of my head. So, I can't re-write it because I don't really understand it, and I don't feel that I can spare the time to begin intensively reading again to fully understand it, so it's catch-22. It's definitely been a down day for me today because of this.
Does or has anybody else found themselves in this situation? I don't suppose I can naively suppose there's a simple solution to this?

You probably won't need to read it that intensively again, as you have already read (and understood) it all before. It might just come back to you if you have good look through it again?

I hope you have a better day tomorrow! :-)

Hi Walminski

Good to know that others forget things too! I'm in a similar situation - I wrote my lit review and a huge context chapter back in 2006, and now need to go back and rewrite and update. I've also written loads, but am a slow writer, and it takes me a long time to redraft so chapters are not a complete embarrassment to me. As the previous OP has said (sorry, forgotten who that was - see! Too much info and some just falls out of my brain! ;-)) you won't need to reread it all again. I'm intending to go back and flick thru all of the lit, as I know that now that I've completed my field work, other things in the lit are important as well as the initial points I picked up. It just has to be done I'm afraid, and there's no way around this.

So, you're not alone. I too have forgotten lots of my area and need to rewrite lots. I think once I get started it won't take me that long. It probably won't be as bad as you think.

I've got a dementia-like illness so this is a major problem for me. I can barely remember much that I've done during my 6-year part-time PhD. Nor can I remember much of the secondary literature. There isn't much that I can do to overcome this. I'm just going to give it my best shot. The examiners are going to have to be primed about this and other disability issues in my case for the viva. Hoping for the best.

Hey Walminski...I don't really think I can offer a solution but your post reminds me of problems I had in my undergrad degree. I had taken a year out after first year due to ill health (bipolar) and had had several courses of electro-convulsive therapy as a treatment for depression. Basically they run an electric current through your brain whilst you are under anaesthetic, and somehow this 're-sets' your brain chemistry and makes you better...nobody really knows how it works, but the main side effect (aside from a killer headache!) is that is can severely disrupt your memory. When I went back a year later to start second year, it was like I had never done first year- I effectively had to do first and second year in one year! I had to have the treatment again in second and third year and it was such hard work- I was constantly going back to stuff I had done years, months or weeks before, and starting again. Needless to say, there wasn't really an easy solution to this, but I did start to make brief 'summary' pages that I could keep looking over to refresh my memory, and had lots of spider diagrams on my wall linking up topics and research associated with that topic etc. Just to really take the piss I also lost all memory of two lovely holidays that my parents had taken me on to France and Switzerland whilst I was recovering...I reckon they would have gone for a cheaper option if they had known I was going to forget I had ever been there lol! Oh well...good luck with your remembering :) KB

Thank you for the input everyone, I'm probably just worrying unduly about things. When you start to read through it, it does sort of come back and I've got stacks of notes I can go over too. Such is the demands of mixed methods. I sort of wish that I'd just stuck to a qual or quan study now. Ignorance just creates extra work in the end.

Hey Walminski! I know what you mean about mixed methods...I am trying to balance both and have just spent my weekend swotting up on how to do this qualitative analysis I am trying to do, with no past experience whatsoever! I do like my stats, and all of my previous research uses quantitative methods, but I have to say I am becoming more and more fascinated with my topic through trying to do a qualitative analysis and I am only just starting really- I feel as though I would have missed so much in my topic by just doing a quantitative analysis and reducing my participants and data to numbers, although the quantitative side is hugely valuable too. Anyway...it's one more string to our bow etc!! Good luck with it all! KB

Keenbeen, Methodspace has a very nice mixed methods research group that you can have a look at and there appear to be a lot of like minded people on it that you can discuss ideas with and share papers on the subject. Here is the link (http://www.methodspace.com/group/mixedmethodsresearchers). Also, I know we've gone past Halloween, but there's a scary paper to read regarding the use of mixed methods here: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/174130.pdf

Enjoy :-)

Hey thanks for that- will def check it out! It does feel a bit overwhelming to be learning such a complex new skill whilst trying to fit everything else in... I need all the help I can get! Cheers, KB.

I'm planning to use mixed methods too - those link look interesting, thanks! :-)

calm down! i am a ph.d candidate now, and know that i will start my ph.d courses soon. but i really have a very bad memory, u can't imagine how i forget what i ate 2 hours ago!

Ah, I had this same problem during the last 6 months of my Ph.D. I had to start clearing days of lab work so I could just read and write for chunks of time. Once you re-read something it usually blows off the cobwebs and something clicks in your mind and, viola, you remember.

I found a disciplined approach here paid dividends. I would spend an hour printing the journals for the day (usually 10-15), then read and write while going along, not stopping to print more journals, just making a little note where needed to be expanded. It was pretty overwhelming to begin with but I soon found my groove.

At the end of the day I would print important publications and leave little notes on the front of them for the next writing day.

As a semi-moronic male of the species I find that I need to be focussed on one project at a time; my poor brain can't cope with multi-tasking.

Good luck with the write up, don't overdo the coffee!