Dropbox worked very well for me.

Just ignored them! I have heard so much unpleasant and upsetting comments over the years. Some said it's just writing 80, 000 words if you just write 100 words everyday you could do it in 3 years time, some said you must enjoy being a "professional student" very much otherwise why you would want to spend so much time on your thesis. I know none of them meant to hurt my feelings but for people who are not in this, they just can't understand how hard it can be.

So, try not to let those negative comments affect you, stay positive is crucial to get you through this. I found spending time with people who understand what you are going through help great deal. Sometime, we just need a bit of understanding and encouragement to keep us going, which you can always find from this forum. :-)

Hi Huhu, I had similar experience before and understand what you were saying. My primary supervisor didn't spend time reading my thesis and I doubt very much he knows what my thesis is really about. Luckily, I had a secondary supervisor who was more supportive, and in the end I did manage to submit and pass the viva. Don't give up trying, not only because it's your right to have a supervisor guide you through, also that you will rely on your supervisor to make suitable examiners choices for you, and he won't be able to do a good job if he doesn't know much about your thesis.

My advices to you would be to lead the discussion whenever you have meeting with him. Rather than waiting for him to give feedbacks, you might want to list down specific questions to ask. Pushing for his answers but be polite. Be assertive about gaining the guidance you need, but also be realistic about what your supervisor can offer you, for instance, you can't expect your supervisor to do anything about your English. Yes, proofreading cost, but I am afraid it's an inevitable cost for people whose first language is not English (I am one of them, as you can probably already tell :)

Be assertive and be polite, the last thing you want is to annoy your supervisor when you are so close to finish. Good luck.

Hi Skig, I panicked for you when I saw the title. So so so glad that you have a back up. I was just thinking the other say that if I lost my thesis at this stage, would I have willpower to re-write them all over again? Thanks for the reminder, very much appreciated it.

======= Date Modified 15 Sep 2011 07:18:38 =======
Good Morning, everyone!
Hope we all have a productive day today.
Skig and Batfink27, hope your heads feel better today.

My goal since last Friday has been working on one of the core chapter. Progress has been slow and I don't feel a sense of achievement because it has been the same goal everyday. I think I need to break down the task to motivate myself better. So goal for today:
1) re-write two sections of the chapter
2) re-structure one section

Afternoon!

I am behind schedule with the challenging chapter I've been working on, the only goal for today and for next couple days :$ will be continuing amending this chapter.

Hope everyone else is having better progress than me!

Naturalme, it is hard when hitting a wall,so well done on finding a way to make it through(up). I've re-structured the whole chapter, hope it will get slightly easier from here. Let's press on, we will get over this hurdle :-)

Thanks Skig and Ady ;-), I will keep your advices in mind and use tomatoes as a reference to compare my concentration level, would be interesting to run a regression for their correlations, he-he!

Goal for today:I've been working the scary chapter 6 at snail pace, so keep revising this chapter is my only goal for today.

======= Date Modified 12 Sep 2011 18:11:49 =======
Sneak,some info to share about the length of chapters: We don’t have a rule to follow in our department but I’ve read that for a thesis with an overall text of around 80,000 words with 7-8 chapter, the chapter lengths is suggested to not go lower than 8000 words or higher than 12,000. But I am sure this is just a guideline, you know your project best, so I would agree with Skig to trust yourself. If you are not comfortable with the new structure, how are you going to defend it if it gets questioned in viva.

Now this reminds me of a couple of quotes, my supervisor “suggested” me to add in, which I can’t see any sense in adding them but I haven’t figured out what to do about this.

Thanks, Skig, for the clarifying and kind concerns:-) I understood Ady is not sleeping due to the stress. I wanted to cut down sleeping hours because I sleep 8 hours, sometimes more which I think can be cut down a bit:$.I did sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and thought of my thesis and got a bit nervous but generally my sleeping quality is good. So I wanted to see if I can focus as good with 7 or less hours sleep.

As for the viva,according our regulation viva will take place at least 8 weeks after submission. So I will be really pushing it if I submit in the end of Oct and wish viva to happen before Xmas. But you were right, it doesn't mean it's entirely impossible.

Many thanks(up), Ady and Skig, for sharing your experiences. I will be working harder and squeeze more time to work, will reduce sleeping hours, take a leave from part time job but keep exercise routine.

Ady, I share your worry about being unemployed after submission but I try not to think about it too much at the moment. From what I gathered, you are almost there so don’t let the worry drain your energy, just keep going and you will be there soon.

Skig, I think end of October is more realistic. I wanted (my supervisors too) to submit by end of September so that there is a chance I can have viva before Christmas. But by the look of it, if I am to submit by 30 Sep, I would be making a very challenging schedule without a day to spare. Both of my supervisors are away on holiday until late September. I am working on draft2 and won’t be able to have their feedbacks on it until they come back, which means I will only have a week to revise draft 2 according to their feedbacks.

Hello everyone,

I was just making plans to meet my submission deadline on 30September. While I am trying to keep positive, it just seems impossible to meet the deadline with the amount of work ahead and the slow pace I've been working.

So I am thinking to give up social life, exercises, part time job.....basically everything except eating and sleeping to squeeze more time for the thesis. I work on the thesis from 8am to 6pm 4 days a week, and 2pm to 7pm for th other 3 days. I really want to meet this deadline but I also know there can be reverse effect if I force myself too hard and over do it.

Can you please share your experience? Many thanks.

Morning!

Thanks Skig,I am struggling with this chapter but it has to be done:( I understand what you were saying about slow pace when taking a day off from work. My friends (those not doing PhDs) often say to me it will help you to progress better if you just take a couple of days break from your work. I never manage to let them understand it actually is the opposite. The longer you leave it, the harder you can get back to it. I hope you progress better today.

Goal for today
1) continue amending the core chapter
2) re-structure the core chapter
3) make plans for next three weeks

naturalme, my pace so far has been 2 pages (just the minor amending,not yet get to the restructuring bit) per tomato.This chapter has 45 pages,still a long way to go.I've been taking deep breaths along the way....

Good afternoon!

I am working on the most demanding chapter of my thesis, which needs restructuring and lots of amending.I hope I can get it done by next Wed. I had 5 finished tomatoes this morning, aiming to have another 5 in the afternoon.

1) continue amending one of the core chapters
2) make writing/revising plans for next 3 weeks