PhD thesis writing motivation/support thread!

[JumpingJellyfish]

I know there's a few of you lurking out there and thought we could have a new sparkly thread to coerce encourage us with thesis writing....

I'm in my 6th (or is it 7th) year of a part-time PhD in marine biology- and writing up (though still occassionally dabbling in data analysis which I shouldn't be!! but it's always more interesting than writing...). Hoping to submit 1st May 2009. have to really for my sanity and that of my long-suffering DH & DCs. Need to finish my first draft by end of January I reckon to give me time to make corrections etc.

But I am having long periods of self doubt and general procrastination so could do with some motivational support from anyone going through similar (Acinonyx for example?! ps. I've name-changed from madmarriedNika )

I don't know whiteflame - reworking the lit review is so painful and extensive I think I might have been better off just starting from scratch. And the way my thesis is organised (or disorganised ) means that some of the lit has to go in other chpaters and I am puzzling (too much) over where to put what. The organisation is overwhelming me.

even now on what hopefully is my final draft I am not sure that the organisation is right. I redid chap 2 recently and my supervisor commented that it was better organised than she anticipated, but even so I am not sure. It strikes me more and more that there are parts of the thesis that I am less confident should be included. Sometimes, they have got their plac as I like them rather than whether the data justifies it- argh!!

2 weeks of push to go and then it'll have to go to my supervisors, so head down girl and get on with it!

Thinking about starting a PhD with OU. I have an 18 month old and a 3 month old.....it feels like a good idea, but maybe too ambitious??....but if I don't do it now, I'll never be able to! I'm running my own business as well, but I've cut clients whilst the children are small. So I thought I could write whilst I'm at home with them. But it's taken me almost a month to find time to email the OU guy, which doesn't bode well!!!

Hi
I have just moved hemispheres (Australia to the UK) and am meant to start work again on my PhD in March, as well as caring for an over-active four year old at home. Yes I am mad. I have a good supervisor in Australia and he has organised a British co-supervisor who I am yet to meet, but I am already feeling anxious!
Luckily I have a very understand DH who says raising a child and working on my thesis is two full time jobs so he is happy to continue cooking dinner every night (when he is home) and knows I won't just be faffing about at home.

Oh, and to the PP who wrote about her mum asking when her exams are - neither of my parents have a clue what my studies are about or what a PhD is. I have given up trying to explain!

I'm in cyprus and my supervisors are in the UK, so I mainly communicate via email, with the occasional tutorial if it co-incides with trips to the UK. I am sure that you will make it work.

Yes parents are wonderfully blissfully ignorant aren't they. Mine, bless em, can't get their head around re-writting sections and all of that!

Well I am almost sorted with this draft, but before I send it off at the end of next week I want to print it out and read the hard copy as i think I will more easily spot if I have repeated myself. At just under 200 pages excluding refs I guess the rainforests will have to roll over on this one!

Had to take DD to med centre here as she has a poorly wrist (Dry ski slope!) and she wanted to come home, but managed to persuade her to try school as her friends would love to see her bandage..now feeling a hard heartless mother but if she;s here i can't work...speaking of which my timed break is almost up
Speak soon and keep believing!

keep going...xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

no study today as DD hurt her knee badly yesterday and dr has advised rest and home care!
So am getting practice in nintendos/colouring in (don't go over the lines Mummy!) the thesis will just have to wait!

Dh has taken dd out so I can work, as usual.

toddlerama: 'So I thought I could write whilst I'm at home with them.' With them awake??? I have never found that possible myself but only you can know if that might work for you. The kind of reading/writing just requires too much uninterupted concentration.

Megami - so you've swapped the Aussie summer for our winter - are you mad?

Sunny - I bit the bullet and got a couple of cartridges to print a new draft. I do feel guilty but I can't keep browsing on screen - I need hard copy! Cartridges sure don't last long though

welcome megami. i am in the southern hemisphere. the sun is shining brilliantly today, so perhaps it would be easier to write during the winter. bet i could still find an excuse not to write much though!

how's it going today, everyone? is your dd's knee better suunylabsmum? i have done bugger all the last couple of days as i have had to take my car to the garage, and generally get it sorted out. it's still not done unfortunately - it has to go back next week. it's costing me a fortune... still, i might get a chance to write a decent amount at home on monday and tuesday at least (i hope!).

yesterday i tried to take out a chunk of my methods, and i'm beginning to see what you mean about it being bloody hard to re-work bits acinonyx!!

keep going everyone!

Good morning all, haven't been on mumsnet for a while but sadly not because I've been working hard on my PhD, just had lots of paid work to do, a wedding, and poorly DCs (& now DH too!). Feeling a wee bit anxious as I'm now behind schedule to make a May submission...and have to decide next week to put the forms in to submit then. It's just so hard with children to be able to accurately predict how much time you'll really get to write (especially as I'm a part-timer)... I'm hopeful that as spring approaches colds etc. will become less frequent...

My DCs are starting creche 2 afternoons a week so I can use that time to work on the PhD (in addition to the 2 days a week they're with a childminder for me to do paid work)- feel kind of bad putting them in, especially my eldest as he's going through a real mummyitis phase and with preschool as well I'm worried he will be exhausted. I hope it'll only be for a couple of month but know that might have to be extended.
Anyway I'm hoping having not looked at my thesis for 10 days means I'll be refreshed and raring to go this afternoon

I am one of those who's left their lit review to the end. My reasoning was that as I'm pt and have had to be fairly 'opportunistic' with data gathering/research ideas my original project would evolve substantially over the 6 years- which it has (and of course the literature now surpasses a lot of what was available 6 years ago). Still I am dreading writing it- am planning to do it at the very end and basically glean the papers I've used in each chapter plus a few more and try to tie it all together...But think there may be some duplication with what I've written in the research/experimental chapters...

Anyway, have results and discussion of chapter 3 to try to finish today as promised supervisors to get it to them next week, somehow!

Keep going everyone! x

well, hopefully final draft is now winging its way in cyberspace to my two supervisors, so I can have a rest until the comments come back- lets hope it isn't doom and gloom!

Great sunnylabsmum, must be a relief. Do you know when you might hear back?

How's everyone else holding up? My writing has unfortunately been on hold for a while - my computer decided it had had enough and gave up. Got a fancy new one now, but am a bit behind schedule. So it's back to the writing today!

just heard back that apart from three paragraphs that need reworking slightly to show the progression of the research question ,as well as the editing it is ready for submission. So relieved, just one more small push and it should be done. No work this week though as we are back in the UK (shivering loads...what cold weather compared to cyprus!)

keep going everyone

I'm still aiming for end March but I think I will probably still be finalising the Appendices and bibliography. I get so little feed back there's just know knowing what will happen after submission. I wonder if anyone is ever going to read it in any detail.

Very torn now between getting finished and drafting a paper. The paper will take a while to finalise as it has to go past people in another dept so I'd like to get that process started asap.

Hello all, not been on for ages as have been focusing on relocating - new job, starts mid-April. Scary. But now have sorted house (part exchanging on a new build) childcare and school for DS. DD has had 2 ear infections since Christmas so all of my study days have been studying her eardrums, unfortunately. Although she is very cute at the moment, so none of it is time wasted! It's just that the thesis (or 'the thing' as my mother refers to it) seems to slip down the list of prioritie. Although never as far down as my hair appointment which I have so far cancelled just the three times.

But I have two days at home with kids at nursery to try and wrap 'the thing' up.

Every time I look there are new references, though. I'm thinking of putting in a disclaimer - 'references correct at time of initial research but cannot be arsed to add all the new ones'. Perhaps not.

So how is everyone doing? I feel like the end is really in sight Just a lot (well megalot tbh) of bits and bobs to wrap up - bibio, appendices, trillions of graphs....

Anyone else distracted by wanting to publish? I so badly need to just submit and it can surely only be weeks away but I also really badly want to publish. My main splashy paper has 3 other authors so it won't be a quick job and I'd really like to get that moving. Very hard to restrain myself and get back to the SO boring biblio etc.

Hi Acinonyx - good to hear you're at the tidying up stage! I'm doing ok too - have 1 and a bit chapters since last time. Am hoping to really get down to it in the next week or so and have 2 chapters very soon... I sympathize with the paper/thesis problem. I was also a bit torn, but now have it worked out with my supervisor that I will write my thesis and while it is being marked (can take ages here) I will write the remaining papers, which hopefully already have a good starting basis in my thesis. Do you have the option to present submitted papers basically as they are in your thesis?

I had originally intended to submit as papers but somehow that got totally derailed and the papers will need a lot of rearranging to be pulled out of the thesis - hence the dilemma.

These end-jobs are so tedious though. My references are not quite as organised as they perhaps could have been!

When are you hoping to submit? Marking can take a while here too - but it's very unpredictable - especially over the summer.

I see... I've also thought about submitting as papers, but have been put off by papers (quite reasonably) being dependent on the authors (the papers have to be submitted to be included, not sure if it's the same everywhere!). Decided that I wanted my thesis submission dependent on as few people as possible!! So my thoughts on it now are to get the thesis out of the way, and then concentrate on the probably more rigorous task of papers.

I hear what you're saying about the tedious bits - they take so bloody long don't they?? I have wondered how I can possibly have spent a whole day trying to sort out one small graph. Still, I suppose it's the details that count in the end.

I'm hoping to submit at the beginning of July. Going to have to speed things up a lot to make it, but hope I can do it! Are you still aiming for the end of March?

Realistically I think I'll have to admit defeat (yet again) on that deadline. But it will be basically done - so all is not lost. But April should finally see the back of it and I can't wait

I can hardly believe I'm in danger of actually finishing this blasted thing!

Well April certainly isn't much of a difference! Must be a great feeling to be so close. I wonder what it will be like when the theses are actually submitted, perhaps we will all feel lost (yeah right )

I think I'll be delirious with joy for about a week then gripped by 'what next' panic

Could their be life, especially employment, after a PhD?

me too still wrapping up the loose ends, and getting it edited...same dilemma about whether to publish papers or not, but major hurdle is to get a job for when we return to UK in summer. Actually have been given an interview (Sec SENCO) next week,although I have to pay to get to the Uk. So mega bucks have been spent on flights and just hoping that it works out ok.

wow, good luck for the interview sunnylabsmum, when is it? everything sort of hits you at once doesn't it - finishing research, writing thesis, papers, applying for a job... I wish somebody had warned me about that. even if i couldn't do anything about it, at least i would have been prepared!

Wow - there are people nearly finishing! I am in full on panic / avoidance mode. It all seems far too mammoth and like Im never going to finish it. My supervisor is awol and ignores me, my DH doesnt understand at all and always seems to be out working, DS is a hyper nearly 3 year old and DD still wakes up at least three times a night at 6 months. Its meant to be in in July.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, feel better now. Going to go watch mistresses and shuffle some paper about and pretend to work.