Hi
Hopefully some of you getting towards the end of your PhD will have some tips for me....
I'm 5 months into my PhD in a health related subject. Proposal has been agreed and approved by supervisors, the next step is getting ethical approval as I will be recruiting hospital patients. Im expecting there will likely be a delay in this process, with getting collaborators to sign and approve ethics forms, the committee only meets every 4-6 weeks so if I miss a committee meeting, its another month waiting before I can start recruitment and data collections.
Im keen to get on with the practical side of my PhD and due to my age and finances, I really want to finish within 3 years. I'm very organised and task-orientated, so I hate the idea of wasting time not being productive.So what things can I get on with now that will save time in the write up stages?? Friends who have done PhDs have suggested getting references and papers catalogued now and starting on literature review, methodology chapters........but what if my results mean I go off in a completely different tangent and this is a waste of time.
Any thoughts/advise ??Thanks

I think your friends are right - you need to do the literature review and methodology chapters before you start fieldwork, even if you later end up revising them substantially. Why - because the most messed up, drawn out PhDs I know were when people rushed into fieldwork and later realised they'd not done it in a methodologically justifiable manner or hadn't asked the right thing. With human subjects you normally only get one chance to interview / survey them - it's not like a lab where you can repeat experiements. You need really to have identified the gaps in the literature to make sure your work is original and that you know enough about the methods others have used to make reflective choices. It really can end up as a more haste, less speed outcome if you try to skip these steps. You will almost certainly need a literature review completed for your annual review / upgrade process at the end of year 1 - it's also worth making sure you know exactly what is required, as it takes time if you've not planned for it.

In addition to the great advice from Bewildered, I'd add that it can be really easy to 'put off' the lit review to some extent, so be careful about finding reasons not to start it.
You will change and adjust the review later on no matter what, but then you will change everything, because that is what happens with a PhD.

It doesn't just follow neat and tidy steps-which can be very frustrating for organised planners. I think a lot of the material and writing generated in a PhD actually is 'waste' that is finally disgarded from the thesis write up.

However, this isn't really wasted-it is the extra material generated in any creative endeavour that is distilled into the final product. And some of those ideas and perceptions that couldn't go into the product might be useful for other ideas or projects later on.

I agree with all the advice that's been given so far. I would also suggest becoming familiar with Mendeley or whatever program you prefer as these can be really helpful and also create your bibliography for you and find out exactly how your uni likes the thesis to be presented. Look at previous theses (ideally from supervisor's former students). You can then create a template before rather then after when helter-sketering towards a final deadline. I also created a document called 'deletions from thesis' to dump stuff into which I felt didn't need but also wary of completing losing in case became relevant later. If you are doing any qualitative research you may want to become familiar with the programs for that and download transcription software. I also kept notebooks for whatever I was working on - just now it's write up! This kept me focussed and good to jot down ideas and start next day with a look back at previous day's thought and aims. Oh, and register on mytomatoes.com as is great for keeping focus. And em... don't get distracted by the Internet...doh! good luck!

Thank for your replies, good tips! I think you hit the nail on the head when you said "You will change and adjust the review later on no matter what, but then you will change everything, because that is what happens with a PhD. It doesn't just follow neat and tidy steps-which can be very frustrating for organised planners". I think this will be my biggest frustration/learning curve, my nature is to be very organised....I like to get things done and tick them off on a list, plus I'm really impatient, so waiting for people to get back to me before I can get on with the next stage of a project annnoys me. But slowly I'm already trying to adapt to this way of working, my supervisor is great, but really busy and chaotic, so im adjusting to fit in with her work style. Just knowing that its normal to change the focus and direction of your PhD and "waste" alot of work will help me to accept that its inevitable!

For health related PhD, "literature review" may not be the best thing to do in the first place. Strauss and Corbin (1990) suggest not to conduct a literature review beforehand but that the researcher should analyse their own feelings and prejudices. Of course, this is just a school of thought as we could be "brainwashed" by current literature. :-)

I seem to remember that Strauss and Corbin advise this if you are using grounded theory as a methodology but this advice would only apply to fairly pure grounded theory-and I know that in my seminars that I attended last year for the course work component, when this was brought up by other students, some quite sceptical looks and responses were given by the academics giving the seminars. Could just be some academics prejudice against grounded theory I guess though.

It doesn't apply necessarily to other methodologies for qualitative research-grounded theory is basically only one method of a suite.

The other thing I have found is that without any real background 'which is what comes across in your lit review', you are pretty much faffing around in data collection without any real purpose at all. Which is fine if this is your third or fourth study, you already have the PhD and have moved on, and you have quite a bit of experience in knowing what to do or what to look for but can be pretty dire when doing the PhD. Basically this is our 'apprenticeship' for research so it might be difficult to know what to look for without any 'grounding' in the literature.

But I guess in this case, you would need to go back to the literature for your methodology and create a plan from there. Anyway, up to you...better stop finding excuses to avoid my own literature review this weekend and get back to work:)

I was trying to be less explicit; but you did not seem to get the idea. :-(

In responding to the question, “What can I do now that will save time towards the end of PhD?”, some PhD candidates might skip *writing* the chapter on literature review by claiming that this was based on Strauss' grounded theory. Note that they still did their literature review, but at a slightly later stage. There is good reason: not to be influenced immediately by current research such that breakthrough idea is possible. Anyway, I'm aware of PhD thesis who wrote that there is no literature review... Not sure if this was intentional in order to save time towards the end of PhD… But this is not good...

Hope you get the idea now. :-)

Hi Meaninlife, I did understand what you were saying but perhaps my writing wasn't clear enough in expressing what I was trying to say.

I was trying to say that even when using this approach in grounded theory, I have read counterclaims to this when reviewing the approaches for a brief methods explanation for my ethics review. We (Research students at Postgrad seminars) were given general advice in seminars last year that this (not doing any lit review type reading in grounded theory) is still not necessarily a wise approach to take as we wouldn't know enough to really recognise the theory and we would need a preliminary lit review or background for our ethics applications anyway. What was recommended was a sort of hybrid if you were going the grounded theory road with lots of caveats and stern warnings.

But I do understand the approach of not beginning with the lit review for pure grounded theory and why this approach is posited.

However it is fine anyway as it is up to all candidates finally to choose their own approach and work out what is best for them. We are all only giving advice based on a position and limited experience and certainly don't expect people to take it if it doesn't fit.

Have a nice day ...my day is all at work today so I'm hoping that I get a lot of admin done at workso that I can clock up an hour of intense reading tonight without being too tired.

Hi Pjlu,

You remind me of a seminar I’ve attended years ago when grounded theory seemed to be something scarry; one is sort of groping in the dark in this methodology without knowing the end-point… But I feel that it could be summarised below:

There are at least three types of grounded theory: Systematic design (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), emerging design (Glaser, 1992) and constructivist design (Charmaz, 1990). The systematic design involves the use of preconceived categories, open, axial & selective coding... This has been criticized by Glaser (1992) to be overly emphasized rules and procedures...

While Glaser (1992) may skip literature review completely, Strauss & Corbin (1990) still suggest literature review, but at a later time. In other words, PhD thesis may have literature review or not depends on whether you adopt Strauss or Glaser’s approach etc... However, grounded theory is often misinterpreted by some scholars. Many journal papers claimed that their results are based on “grounded theory”; but it could be more appropriately termed as “grounded approach” or “grounded theory approach”. They don’t really follow Strauss or Glaser’s approach completely. Anyway, there need not be *one and only correct grounded theory* for all kinds of research studies.

Let me know if I’ve interpreted grounded theory wrongly. Let’s not make GT sounds eerie. :-)

Hi, no, I think Ive hijacked Bradley's original post enough and grounded theory isn't the methodology that I will be using anyway, so I'm going to keep this short (for me that's hard:) ) Your summary reads well and i like that you are making sure the academic 'warnings' are taken with balance.

I really do have to go on to my own lit review though because unfortunately I don't have any options at all about whether I will do it or not or when I will do it for that matter :(. Good luck with your study and good luck to Bradley as well...off now to dinner and then some reading.

Definitely lit review, methodology and methods. Even if you change your methodology and methods you'll still need to explain why you did it so it's worth writing about it now to have the groundwork laid out.

I managed to do this in my first year and am very thankful I did, now that I'm in 3rd year!