I want to reassure you as well.  I know some people have a hard time of it but my perception of it is that you have to grow together as a couple (oh my gosh, I'm making myself sick) and if you don't grow together then the relationship perhaps wasn't meant to be.

I'm almost halfway through, moved in with the boyfriend 3 months after I started and have been together for 6 years now. He has a job which I don't understand and he's not all that interested in my PhD topic.  But to be honest, when we talk about work we live in the same world, I moan about being rubbish and procrastinating, he moans about his boss giving him an even bigger workload. I don't know many people who moan about the intricacies of their work.  Everyone seems to have the same issues!

I also think it helps that I try and maintain a working pattern, i.e., I don't do weekends (mostly) and try not to do too much in the evenings after 7. I know that's not possible for some people but worth considering.

Take care

A

Hi All,

First day being accountable and...I failed! Whoops. Monday is jogging day (when I say jogging I mean about 2 mins of vague fastish movement and about 10 mins of walking...repeat til home!) - I empathise with the whole "doing a phd makes you ugly thread" - so I had to leave at five then was exhausted. Anyhoo, got all but three summaries done so, plan for today, finish the summaries, write my discussion, go to supervision. Tomorrow is conclusion and final check day. Thursday is hand in day. Super!

My name...hmm...it's to do with my location within my department. Don't want to give away too much!

Good luck for today. It's great that you really want to understand in your head exactly what your questions are. Too often I start writing and then realise I haven't defined things enough.

A

Hi all!

Does anyone mind if I join in and play?

I guess I should give a little back story. My background is in Psychology (health) but I am doing my PhD in a Medical School. Not that unusual but not without it's issues. I am in my 16th month of my PhD so just a little under half way. I WILL be handing in my thesis on 30th September 2010. Last year I a needs assessment with took the form of three studies. I have analysed one of these (interviews/fgs with patients), next week will start some quantitative analysis from the needs assessment and still need to harass my GPs about the final set of fgs for this. I am doing a big exploratory study which, fingers crossed, starts in two weeks. This will last for a year.

I have upgrade issues - not yet upgraded and my panel have recently asked for, basically, my literature review chapter. Now I want to make it very long just so they have to wade through it.

So, short term goals. I am trying to write a chapter (which will defo be a very first draft) for the results of my interviews/fgs with patients.

Today - I am writing introductions/summarys for each theme from my results so that tomorrow I can finish my draft of the discussion and conclusion. The deadline for the chapter is Wednesday or Thursday. Hoping for Wednesday.

Hope everyone is having a productive day.

A

Ditto Badhaircut. You need to go to the leeds clearing house website for more information.

I have friends who did the MSc at Bangor and none of them have gotten onto the DClinPsy course yet.

Good luck

A

I just wanted to make a quick point about my experience of this. I've had a upgrade viva nightmare that's been going on since earlyish last year. My sups told me I'd have no problem getting through but the process, according to the higher ups who've been brought into my case, just isn't established enough where I am to remove the rather subjective nature of it.

I guess my point is, your sup may well have meant her positive comments but the guidelines for upgrade weren't specific enough for them to be able to ensure you were providing the panel with what they need (or want/quite fancy in my case!!) to pass you.

Sorry if I don't make much sense, birthday yesterday, still a little groggy but wanted to suggest that it's perhaps not as bad as you think it is. Then again, all departments have their politics!

A

Sorry to hear that!

Go and talk to Student Support. I crashed my car (nice huh?) while I was waiting (approximately 2 months) for my records to be updated so I could receive my studentship. I was given a loan of £500 to get me through. All Universities have such funds and hardly any of them manage to give out these funds to students in need every year.

If this is not an option then could you ask for a temporary overdraft extension??? Not ideal but at least you'll be able to eat.

A

Hi All!

Am on holiday with my lovely undergraduate friends but thought I'd check in to let you know I'm all still working too (thought it might help with the motivation if we know we're not alone). Stopping at 9 for Big Fat Quiz of the Year and perhaps a G&T or two.

Hope you're all having a suitable amount of fun alongside the work!!

A

I'm still working.  Stupidly signed up for a mid January deadline. Have booked a lovely week away with my undergraduate friends and am now going to be racing through books on methodology for a lot of the week.  Very frustrating!

Also have to deal with ridiculous bureaucracy tomorrow. Wish me luck that managements Christmas cheer will get me through the meeting!

A x

If you have 1500 references then I would like to suggest that you need to narrow down the question you want to answer. You should treat it like you would a research question (as it is a research question!). In health we have the PICO method, i.e., define population, intervention, comparators and outcome.

I am also doing work in a very new (as well as fairly controversial) area which is based in public policy (mine is in health), using a particular format of media, with a group of participants who are traditionally all below 25 (all deliberately vague). When I conducted my major systematic review in my first year I wound up with more than 10,000 hits. By the end of the process I had two papers which had made ANY attempt at answering the question I wanted to know the answer for. I am now expanding my question because the area is so new I'm having to look at applications in similar ways, but not quite the same as I will be doing.

Firstly, have you looked for previous literature reviews which have attempted to answer your question - in health we have the Cochrane library which is a whole load of literature reviews which are classed as the gold standard. If they had done a review in my area last year then to be honest, there would almost definitely be little I could contribute by repeating this review so I would just do the same kind of review for the remaining years of my PhD.

Secondly, define your question! And be strict about it.

Thirdly, and I assume this is true of most disciplines, you should have some measure of quality. That is, for example, there is no point in including a paper which is methodologically flawed. Throw it out! It's meaningless and will possibly confuse you.

Hope this helps a little. Sorry if it sounds a little muddled. I'm having issues remembering my words today...

A

I have a meeting in the afternoon on the 23rd about a ridiculous ongoing saga.

Annoyed doesn't even begin to explain it. I may well take mulled wine in with me. What do you think?

A

I've had a paper in a peer reviewed journal and, technically, a poster presentation at an International. It was my MSc dissertation both times. 

I can't really advise on whether you should dedicate yourself to your PhD or submit to the conference. What year are you in?  I would however advise that before you start work on it you check who, if anyone will fund your conference. My poster was actually presented by the second author in the end because no-one would pay for me to go (boo, hiss!).

The paper, I started with the best relevant journal that we stood any chance of getting it in and, fortunately for me, they accepted (after I jumped through numerous hoops).  If not I would've started working down the list of relevant journals in order of their IF rating.

Good luck!

Thanks for the article Missspacey. Very interesting.

We all got an e-mail last week reminding us that the results are out on Thursday. Will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

Hi Hadim,

Some of my work crosses into this. What kind of advice were you after?

A

Do it!

I don't do this but have had a good few discussions about it. I think the thing is, if you do research without respondent validation then you have to acknowledge that what you have found in bound in time, i.e., not static. So I think what you'd need to do is take them the quotes, assure them of complete anonymity and remove details which could be used to identify them and then acknowledge in the thesis that these comments should be considered in context and may not be static...

Then start praying!!!

A