Hmm well goal 1 complete!

Goal 2 about half done and I should really stay and finish it but I can't imagine that I will be very productive as my concentration is aleady slipping so all-in-all I only got about 4 hours done :$ Which isn't good but there's no point sitting at the desk if I'm not accomplishing anything. So I am going home to walk my dog. I feel guilty though.

Goal 1 for today - get to the office - shouldn't be a problem as I'm feeling fine - just a bit tired.

Goal 2 read and make notes on all the stuff sup sent on - I expect this will take most of the day

Goal 3 - if I have time search for useful papers in the references of the stuff I need to read (otherwise this can wait til tomorrow)

I'm not allowed to use our heating ever - even in the depths of winter - on environmental grounds, To compensate, I strap many hot water-bottles to my person and eat lots of chilli - luckily I adore super-hot food!

Thanks everybody for your replies. I submitted the paper today outlining what the current methodology is but I stressed that it may be subject to further changes depending on the results from x,y and z. Bilbo I can certainly see your husbands point of view, hopefully I've written in enough detail so that won't be an issue but I do have another 6 weeks before the actual presentation to refine the methodology so if someone does decide to ask an awkward question I should be better equipped to deal with it at that stage.

I really do love this forum with so many knowledgeable people who are generous too. Please all have a sprout (sprout) I've voted everyone that I could as helpful users too (up)

Paper written and submitted woohoo!!!! :-) I think I'll take the weekend off for the first time in months 8-)

Oh Sneaks, your poor doggie - they can be so gross sometimes - I came downstairs to a lovely pile of grassy vomit this morning.

Well I'm still working on it and it's nowhere near finished and I still don't know how I'm going to address the fact that we can't do what we want to the way we had been discussing. Also just had 2 hours pulling my hair out over formatting issues (section breaks in a 2 column layout wreak havoc) and that's 2 hours that I really can't afford to be wasting. I suppose I should just keep at it but all I want to do is go to sleep. So back to it

Thanks for replying Bilbo. I would love for there to be more meat in the paper too but at this stage it's just too late to produce what they are asking for. We wrote the abstract about 6 months ago speculating that we would have something at this stage but due to things taking longer than expected and being very time consuming (experimental work), we haven't really gotten going on the stage of the project which we had indicated that the paper would cover. So I am finding it difficult to flesh the paper out as the research required hasn't been performed.

If a project is presented as a "work-in-progress" at a conference i.e. I'm can say what the objectives are but we haven't figured out how we are gong to achieve them yet. I've been using anticipated, proposed, possibilities include etc A LOT in this paper which consequently isn't very informative. My question is how much of a problem would it be if I said we may do something (i.e. solve the problem in a certain way) but we end up doing something totally different. I am very conscious of saying something which turns out to be untrue but my sups think the paper needs more detail which I just don't have yet. Please help - time is of the essence!!

AAARGH - paper is due tomorrow and sup wants to see it in the morning and it's still miles from being finished. And to complicate things, through writing it I've come to realise that one of the major things what we had planned to do can't be done really and that the plan needs to be substantially changed. It was the sup who suggested the original way and I need to tell her that it's not going to work but the paper was supposed to discuss this thing and now I really don't know how to approach it and I've only got til the morning to figure it out and write the paper. Sorry for hijacking the thread.

Goal 1 - re-read what Ive already got paper-wise and see what can be salvaged

today was not a waste because I had a really enlightening conversation with a colleague who confirmed my reservations about my project (basically it's enormous and needs to be streamlined) and told me that I definitely need to be more assertive with my supervisors and not be quite so accepting of everything they decide we should do. Also I made a small amount of progress with the paper I've been working on!

pertinent?? my research informs a pertinent question

I was wondering how everybody goes about writing. I think I've been following the Bolker lady's (I can't remember her first name :$ ) advice of writing anything down and refining it later. So what I do goes a bit like this.

1. Start writing with loads of highlighted bits saying "needs reference" and "verify" i.e. check that I'm not making this up!
2. Then I re-read and tidy up the arguments a bit and make sure I know what I am at least trying to say.
3. Search the files on my computer trying to find out where I got the info from/ find docs to back up what I'm saying
4. Add in the references that I found on my computer and make the modifications that come from re-reading them.
5. All the usual formatting stuff

How do you do it???

Thanks Teek!

Hmmm, well Goal 1 achieved also had a healthy lunch and making some progress with the draft. It's bulkier definitely but there's so much left to do!! Anyway - onwards and upwards (up)

Well I took most of the evening off yesterday as I got really sleepy at about 7pm. Yesterday I made a list of what I need to do for a paper due this week and made the minor changes. So today I really need to crack on with the list as it's rather extensive!! But struggling to get going this morning.

So goal 1: get to office

Hey Keenbean! It's great to see that you are so much more positive now. Well done on the presentation (and thanks for the reassurance on my thread about it not being so scary!!). I am definitely going to take your advice and take some time off once I get this paper written and sent off (up) Best of luck with the paper!