Hi, I have used an Olympus WS-200s for several years now, both for my MA and PhD. It is small, relatively cheap (well, it was anyway) from Amazon and pulls apart to give you a USB key with the recording in WMA format. I use Express Scribe (free download from NCH software @ nch.com.au) because it recognises my Infinity (again, cheap @ about £45 from Amazon) transcription footpedal. The recorder microphone is superb and I usually use this, however I have used a seperate tie-clip microphone when there is a lot of background noise. Hope this helps.

I can empathize because I had similar problems with my lit review.  After a couple of false starts, I worked out that what I needed was a framework or method to guide me - otherwise how do you know you have reviewed all the pertinent literature? So, I found a couple of guides to Systematic Literature Reviews such as Cochrane(cochrane.org), York Uni (york.ac.uk) and a couple others, and made a start with that - I have adapted the methodology to suit my needs, but I have found it quickly shows you any gaps in your reading and you can point to your systematic searches and say that you have considered everything that was relevant.  This would help sort out any question of academic rigour.

This section is almost stand-alone in my thesis, in that it has informed other chapters but could be read as a paper in itself.  I am sure it could be adapted to be more integrated if you needed. I am happy to supply the pro-forma that I have used which lays it out logically.  I used it because the method was new to me and I felt as though I needed a helping hand.

Good luck!

Hi Gemma,

Sorry to hear about your awful experience. I had similar problems in my masters course, where my supervisor had all the power and I had none at all. I managed to hang on through sheer bloody-mindedness and, when I had confirmation I had passed, I submitted a complaint. I included photocopies of my diary detailing the (bullying) conversations, details of the additional work I was being asked to (unfairly) complete and a breakdown of the University's student learning contract detailing how my sup had breached almost every clause. My sup refused to acknowledge my complaint and was subsequently 'released' from future supervision, which in effect has damaged his career.

All I can suggest is to write everything down. Even if it is retrospectively, write as much down as you can remember and note the time, date and who else might have been present. Check on your student contract - after all, it is there to be used. Finally, seriously consider complaining. It takes time, effort and a fair amount of guts, but it may prevent anyone else going through something similar. After several weeks of being ignored by the head of dept, I finally cc'd my complaint to the VC with a query regarding the professionalism of the department - I had a reply the same week and a final decision within 28 days.

Best wishes, MF

I think it is an incredibly exciting topic and wish you the best of luck. I'm not sure of the need for a large sample size though. How are you looking to analyse the data? For example there is a good book by Smith, Flowers and Larkin that advocates Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis for situations that '...consider experiences in their own terms...' and Linden West suggests individual narrative accounts can provide huge amounts of data to demonstrate linkage between themes.

Hi, yeah I ordered a few bits last year for someone's birthday - postage makes it expensive... more so because on my first delivery (t-shirt) I was charged extra through customs. Delivery time not bad as I recall - a couple of weeks. Sorry, can't remember the conversion rate. Would I buy from them again? Hmm... probably not tbh, the shirt wasn't particularly good quality although the artwork was fine. The other bits just worked out expensive given delivery etc.

The best general phd study book I have read is "How to get a PhD" by Phillips and Pugh. It is very readable with shed-loads of advice incuding a very notable section on 'how not to get a phd'. 'Hope this helps.

Do you mean team roles?

I would agree with the 500 *quality* words a day target - although I usually write more, by the time I have reviewed what I have written and redrafted it, 500 words is about the average. With this in mind, a month per chapter is reasonable but I would also consider allowing time for rewriting given that your supervisor may ask you to make changes that you hadn't considered. Hope this helps.