doctorate hell....

[hettie]

Don't normaly post here.... but am reaching the end of my tether and wondering how other people have got past this phase....
I just had a meeting with my supervisory team....Suggesting I re-write and reorder my analysis. I am sooooo over this bloody thing and I have the re-write and discusion to do (plus inevitable re-writes and edits of the other sections).... I am struggling with motivation and enthusiasm, I just want it done (wails). I work three and half days a week and have primary age children so am squidging it in a the weekends and evenings. It's really impacting on all of us (dh and dc).. Oh and it's quali/social science and I'm dsylexic (I know, I know-madness).
Please tell me there is some miracle way I can get this done without goinf mad!

Hi hettie, sorry no advice but your post totally put I me of my idea to do a PhDs

How are you getting on now? How much longer have you got left? F/t or p/t? Hope things re picking up.

Hey Hettie, sorry for delayed response I've not been on this board much recently. I can very much relate - I am almost at the end of first draft but I have so much restructuring and additions to make already and I'm waiting to find out re: extension as I am at the bitter end of yr 4 SOooooooo sick of it.
What's your deadline? Can you break put into manageable chunks?
Is the new structure clear to you?

Signing in with interest, as I am thinking of doing one.

I've been through this and it is hugely stressful. All I will say is that in the end it is YOUR PhD, you are the one who will have to defend it. If you don't think that the changes are defensible by you then you have a big decision to make. There comes a point where you really do have to take ownership of your own work. My internal examiner gave me a great bit of advice once (before we knew he would be the internal) which was "never respond to a question in the VIVA with the answer 'because my supervisor told me to do it that way'". I did not go the route my supervisor wanted, we have had no contact for years now. I was very happy with the structure and argument I had in the thesis and felt fully able to defend it, so I went with it against the supervisor's advice. It passed with no corrections, not even a typo. It wasn't so much that I was brave, but that I knew I did not have the emotional resources to keep making changes - changes that I didn't believe in. I had to go with what I believed in.

The important thing is to demonstrate that you have made a contribution to knowledge in your discipline. That you demonstrate that coherently, that you prove you have 'a thesis', an argument worth listening to. If your supervisory team are not getting it then you need to either present it to them in a way that makes them see your contribution more clearly, or concentrate on writing it for your other readers - the examiners. Do you know who they are? what their take on this is likely to be? will they be convinced by your story?

Make sure you do the classic, "this is what I am going to do" etc. Tie in all your chapters, refer forwards and backwards "as we will see in Ch2" "as was demonstrated in ch4" "in the next chapter we will take this and show how it can be used to ...." . Take time to get it properly proof read, make sure it looks fabulous in terms of layout - make it look like you really really know what you are doing and good luck!

Oh catsrus thank you so mcuh for taking the time to respend (and sorry I haven't been back to the board for a while).
You make some really good points. I have now re-written my results and do feel like I 'own it'. Frustratingly it is actualy very close to the original way in which I suggested presenting the data when I met with the supervisory team last year (before writing it up). But they suggested an alternative way of doing it which I went with....
I am now neck deep in discusion chapter and struggling again- I am sure it's just tiredness and and lack of enthusiasm. but am finding it very hard going. I know who my examiners are and they are well published so there is lots to go on....jsut need to plug on with it I guess

OP, I can see this post is from a month ago now, but if you haven't got is sorted out yet- to reassure you: my supervisor was away sick for a lot of the last year of my PhD. I got drafts checked over by a postdoc, but other than that wrote on my own initiative. I sent the final draft to her a couple of weeks before I was due to submit (but was hoping to take it in before then, as the university was 2 hours on the train, I was working almost full time while writing up, and had a 1.5 year old, very little help from her dad (separated)...), and she suggested adding a whole extra chapter on something I had done no previous experimental work on. Needless to say, I didn't.

I still passed with very minor corrections.

You'll be fine! As long as you can defend your ideas in your viva, and have actually produced original research, your supervisors can want perfection all they like, but it is your thesis and will pass on its merits, not on how closely it fits with their ideal.

Have (somehow) found a renwed enthusiasm. My supervisory team are actualy really good and did let me choose to re-write or not. I just can't cope with the thought of major edits and so want it go to viva with as much chance as possible that it is good enough. Since I've never done this before I felt I had to take their advice. Latest feedback is good and I feel I can see submision in sight!
Thanks to all the lovely mumsnetters who ahve given me a good pep talk