...lit review (social sciences)?

mine is about 20,000 words. I spent practically my entire 1st year on it.

Oooh, ellay, you don't know how glad i am to read that. I dont have a 'lit review' as such either and keep worrying about it. I don't really want to have a methodology chapter either but my supervisor is insisting. We've reached a compromise that i am allowed to put it as an appendix rather than a chapter.

8 inches...

*giggles at coastman*

Thanks for the replies

I've been itching to make that joke for hours

Purely out of interest, but why don't you want a lit review chapter or methodology chapter? I just assumed i had to have one, & would like to know the arguments for not having one

I am interested to know as well?
I could happily do away with methodology - but thought a thesis requires this so you can justify why you have done what you've done and the ideas that theorectically underpin your 'method'.

Wow - really surprised you're getting away without a lit review! I tried to argue that I could get away without one, but my supervisor wasn't having any of that! LOL

Bit of wishful thinking on your part there Coastman?

I didn't mean you weren't working - just that most supervisors would insist on one

My stuff is theory-driven, and I've found I'm bringing in the literature all the way through like Ellay. I did do a couple of chunks of 'review' type writing in my first year, but although I am drawing on them they are not forming the basis for distinct chapters.

I've kind of come round to my supervisors way of thinking that I need to say something about methodology, because I need to prove that I know what I am doing and am competent to carry out research on my own. Having it within the thesis would really disrupt the flow of my argument though, but at the end i can use it more as a 'reflection on doing research' thing. At least that is the plan at the moment.

My supervisor is a grounded theory kind of guy, so we have had some interesting 'debates' about methodology!