Christiana,

Another thing that you need to think about is that at the end there should be a story you are telling in your thesis, an argument that you are supporting with each section of each chapter. When you went to collect your data, you already had part of that story in your head, based on the literature you've read. After collecting and partially analysed your data, that story evolved due to what you found there that you didn't already know. It is only natural that after that, you have some questions since the literature review you did do not perfectly match the new story, so you have to go back and try to fill in those gaps. Even after your revision of the literature, there might still be some gaps remaining, but if you can make sense of them, that's where your contribution will be.

So, you do not necessarily have to update your literature review, what you need to do is to make sure that the combination of theories you have reviewed support your argument. If they explain the phenomenon you are seeing through your data, then say so; if they are not, then try to explain why not and make it your contribution.

======= Date Modified 23 07 2008 16:07:29 =======
In the interest of giving the people who manage this forum some feedback on features that would be regarded as valuable by the users, I'm starting this thread so anyone can post their suggestions. Mine are:

...send notifications on new post in selected threads.

...keep track of read posts.

Hi Billy,

Just noticed that your thread was lagging behind, I hope you are doing OK and that you are making progress. Keep it up 8-)

Hello everyone,

Well done Lara! Looks like you have mastered the art of procrastinating without losing productivity. Which means that you are not actually procrastinating but taking proper breaks, which make the working hours much better taken advantage of. Good for you (up)

TG, good luck with that chapter 7. You are doing great, just tackle one section at a time and once all the sections are finished, linking them up and editing whatever needs to be edited so the whole chapter makes perfect sense should be much easier.

Mira, I hope your report is finished, and if it's not surely there is very little left to do. Keep us posted.

As for me, haven't had a very productive week since I've been busy at work (yes, besides the PhD I've got a job), and I took Wednesday off to go to a wedding. Anyway I'm planning an intensive writing weekend to catch up and seeing that it works, I might just follow Lara's lead. So, this is what needs to be done this weekend:

Finish structuring chapter 3.
Organise papers that have to be re-read (if any) for each section.
Finish writing section 3.1 tonight.
Start section 3.2 tomorrow at the latest

Good luck 8-)

Hi Mira and Freelouise,

Welcome to the forum and to the boat. We are all pretty much in the same situation here. I would advice you that instead of thinking to much on the overall job of finishing the thesis, you concentrate in doing those smaller tasks that can get you going. For example, the book I'm following recommends that you start by taking stock: put together everything that you have already written, organise it and find out how much your current progress is. After that, you'll see the structure arising and gaps that need to be filled. That way it will be clearer what you need to do.

It is not a linear process, so do not think that because you haven't made progress so far, you can't at all. The more you write and get into it, the faster you'll make progress. Momentum is also important, so do not stop, keep going and the best of luck ;-)

Lara, even though you are using 'stuff' from the papers, the way you are combining it and using it to make sense of the data is unique. You do not have to reinvent the wheel or come up with a novel prize theory; your own contribution is the way you are putting all that previous knowledge together to explain a phenomenon. Just make that explicit and label it "your own ideas" for the benefit of your supervisor and other readers of your thesis ;-)

The edit function doesn't work. It reopens the post so you can edit it, but it doesn't update it so you never see the corrections. I use firefox 3

Well done Lara,
That's precisely what you need to do; keep going. I'm also working on Sunday, so my aims is to do some reading. I started reorganising chapter 3 and found some gaps for which I need to re-review some papers. So, that's what I'll be doing all day and hopefully I'll have plenty of things to write about tomorrow when I go back to the office to keep working on the actual document.

You might also want to consider:

The tools you'll be using for your qualitative analysis. Some people just use word processor to handle the data from their interviews; which is something that I do not understand since it is like walking barefooted on the rocks. That obviously takes a lot more time than using software purposely designed to do it.

The kind of analysis your are doing. Pure grounded theory where by you approach the field with out any predisposition towards specific theory, can take much longer than the analysis of a case study or a survey. On the other hand, with qualitative analysis it is almost impossible to tell when the analysis stops and the writing up starts, since you'll find yourself analysing as you are writing (again, depends on your project), which makes writing much slower than reporting what your findings are, as in quantitative projects.

The other thing you need to consider is that it is not a linear process; the more you get into the analysis (and writing up) the more progress you can make in less time. At the beginning it feels like you are only reading your notes, with out finding what to write, but once you pass that initial barrier the story unfolds a lot more easily and at some stage it becomes just filling in the gaps and feeding in the data to what you already have.

The best advice I can give you is to tackle it right away without too much thinking or planning, you'll be doing a lot of thinking while you are writing and analysing, and you might have to stop anyway at some point to do some planning before continuing, that's ok... it is impossible to plan for everything and then just follow the plan, you have to let it be dynamic and evolve as you are making progress... so, do not stop, just keep going.

There is a LaTeX support group here if you are intereted:

http://www.phdcomics.com/proceedings/viewtopic.php?t=194&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

You can also do it iteratively. I' guessing that you are not still fully focused on the specific subject of your research. So what you can do is check the primary data and do preliminary (very simple) analysis on how what you observed is treated by the secondary texts. This might give you some idea on how to further focus and go back to the primary data to learn more; which in turn will require more secondary texts to explain, and so on.

Unfortunately qualitative data analysis takes time, but you do not have to be rigorous in your analysis (as I said, it's preliminary) until you have found the focus you are looking for. By then you'll be managing primary and secondary sources with greater confidence; and you should have improved your look-up skills as well, which will make it a lot easier.

I hope this helps...

Hi Billy,

Good luck with the transfer on November and with the PhD in general. Keep posting, and if you need anything just ask away. We might be able to give some advice.

:-)

Hi everyone,

How are things? I hope that people are making progress. It turns out that I did finish chapter 2 and handed it to my supervisor (up). I think it only happened because they cancelled football last night for lack of quorum, and I stayed in the office until I finished. Anyway you can not have it all :p

So, for today:

I'm going to bring chapter 3 out of hibernation,
figure out what's left to do in it,
put together notes and papers that need to go in,
and work out a plan to finish it this week.

Lara, thanks for that article and good luck in you meeting.
Celesmai, good luck with the notes and the baby clothes, just do not kill you self trying to stay on top of that (the baby, that is), it's impossible, I know
;-)

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately I haven't been able to finish that chapter 2, but I did make some progress over the weekend and yesterday. I have two small sections to go and the wrap up. So my aim for the day is to finish it and hand it in to my supervisor for comments.

Good luck with your own writing

I do not know anything about basketball, but the ladies just got a bronze medal in synchro 10m platform diving... Yayyyy!!!