thanks krondodile and fluffymonster. I am planing to submit in September, so need to get examiners finalised in the next couple of months. I have a first draft written, so I know what my thesis is going to look like. Sups seem to think it is totally obscure and there's hardly anyone who working with same but i didnt think it was that out of the ordinary. Its social theory so an empiricist wouldnt be good, and its constructionist which i know is sniffed at by a lot of people. sups are rapidly empiricist and i think they just dont know the sort of people who would be ok with what I've done.

What about asking the person who is going to be your supervisor? They'd be in a position to find out, if they don't know already.

Having spent an hour discussing examiners with supervisors yesterday, being told it is vital to get them right, I am panicking. What criteria are important?

- is it important to pick people whose work you have cited, used, engaged with?
- should it be people you have totally agreed with, how dangerous is it to pick someone whose work you have criticised?
- what are the problems with having someone outside your discipline working on different things using a different approach (as suggested for my internal)
- how difficult is it really to get someone to agree to examine? I was told it is usually reciprocal (you examine one of my students; I'll do one of yours) which wont work with my thesis cos as one of my sups said yesterday I am in a minority of one here doing this stuff.

I'm being asked to say who i think would be suitable, but every name I suggest (based on authors whose work I have used a lot) i get blank looks. I am really starting to worry that i will end up with someone who just doesnt get it and will have failed before I get to a viva.

Driven, I sooo know how you feel. Had meeting today to discuss my first draft (of whole thing), which I've been sending as I've written with last chapter a month ago.

One supervisor didnt turn up - but had declined to read it anyway so I suppose not much loss

One supervisor (main one) 'hadnt had time to read it yet'

Third supervisor read it, explained that it wasnt written for him as it was out of his field, then proceeded to nit-pick.



And we had about an hour discussing examiners, which is turning into a nightmare. They keep emphasising how important it is to have the right examiners otherwise it'll fail and then asking me for suggestions and looking blank when I come up with names.

oooooh how I wish I'd done something very mainstream in a dept where everyone was doing the same thing

I like the idea of a thumprint in blood at the end of my thesis. IT seems suitably symbolic.

How about asking the author if they could send you a copy of their article?

I empathise with the pen and paper thing. Although I use endnote and like having papers in pdf as it makes them easily searchable, I ended up printing out all the stuff I've read, just so I could scribble on it. I also find I 'remember' things from papers I've read as paper - I see the relevant bit in my mind on the paper. Just doesnt work electronically. And reading stuff on the screen gave me a headache! And (another plus for paper), I kept re-organising my filing system as I went along, and as ideas emerged (but mine is a theory based PhD, so all ideas), it was a way of thinking through things.

Give the electronic stuff a go, but if it doesnt work for you go with printing stuff out. Yes, it means accumulating a lot of stuff, but you need to find the way of working that suits you.

ooooh, stuff about the role of the expert is part of my thesis. sorry to lower the tone here, but

[rant]
Yes, academics are denigrated in the media etc but part of it is the fault of those academics who promote all this rubbish about 'lay expertise', which has led to riduculous notions such as the whole 'public participation' and 'personalisation of public services' thing, in other words the tyranny of the terminally stupid.

I defy anyone to come up with anything more depressing than this, from a recent press release from my uni about a new research project:

'One exciting aspect of the research is the inclusion in the team, not just of academics, but of three members of the public ... who have been involved in designing and managing the study and ensuring that the information it produces is interpreted appropriately'

I mean, why dont i just shoot myself now, as you are clearly better off without a PhD if you want to do reasearch.

[/rant]

I love doing a PhD. I used to work in research, which wasnt a bad job, but doing a PhD is even better.

And I love MY PhD . OK, i am in a ridiculously optimistic mood at the moment, but I can see my thesis start to take shape, I can believe I have something worth saying, and that I am capable of saying it. I read through one of my early chapters earlier, and was thinking to myself 'that really sounds ok'.

I'm having a good day today

brunch? does that fit between elevenses and lunch? or is it a horrible american bastardisation of elevenses?

is it time for elevenses yet? I'm a little peckish and could do with something chocolatey.

well my prefered night-time snack is a glass of whisky and a slice of cheese on toast - but 'hot chocolate and marshmallows' has a better ring to it.

Having said that, if your research is driven by a comparision between uptake in groups socio-demographic groups, then that is find as a justification, but bear in mind you will have to be ensured of recruiting sufficiently from each variable. And it sounds as though you have quite a lot of variables already - different sorts of hospitals, primary care, possibly different professional groups (GPs, consultants in different specialities, managers). I mean, it can be hard to recruit in the NHS, and you don't want to make it harder for yourself than you have to by pinning yourself into a corner before you start with the specificity of your question.

Well, I think that pragmatic justifications are good ones. I did my research in the area in which I live - I never thought about doing it elsewhere, it would have made no sense to be travelling across the country to do interviews all the time. And access is another huge factor - it is where you can get people to let you in to do the research. Are you part of a group with established contacts in hospitals etc? Cos the governance and COREC processes are sort of linked, so for me it was more about knowing I would be able to get to work with people from the region than trying to find any 'scientific' justification.

Your supervisor has been at the mimimum very rude, and certainly if your data is being used in a publication then you (as a PhD student) should be involved in the writing - how else are you going to learn about getting published?

I think there are consequences, and I think you need to sort this out now. OK, having papers published helps with the PhD as it is a validation by your peer-community that your research is worthwhile. But will being third author on a paper that you havent written but to which you have only contributed data help you in this regard? I'm not sure. It could work the other way around - that it looks as though in the PhD thesis you are using stuff that was done by the first and second authors.

Can you go and talk to someone else? Do you have other supervisors?