Today my co-supervisor told me on the phone that my supervisor is a p****. Made my day! Happy bunny face here!

Sadly, the HOD is my Prof/super!

In my field, you need a Uni affiliation for decent journal publication. Sadly, I'm the only person in my Uni to specialise in autism/education. In fact, I'm the only person in the UK to have ever specialised in it at PhD level. As I said, a splinter in a niche....

Autism.

Thanks Doodles. Yes, it's a pretty big falling out. A couple of months after my viva it all kicked off. The problem was that the two related faults in my viva were things that should never have happened, as he should have seen them (I put some quantitative stuff in a qualitative thesis). Methodology was my big weakness as I don't have an academic background, just a writing background) He saw 6 drafts in all. I passed, however, but with revisions. For two months afterwards he was all sweetness and light, while I took charge of the copy-editing phase of our book. Then he got a bee in his bonnet, wanted me to change the whole thesis to mixed methods, said I must have done the work behind his back (!), and turned what was smaller than a molehill (I just had to remove the qualitative stuff which was only a few pages - seemples) into the Himalayas. He became obsessed that my thesis was too theory-driven. He started sending me nasty emails. I knew he was overworked and over-reacting (I'm an agony aunt!), but it wasn't helping me, and I was getting more and more confused and depressed, especially when he suddenly announced that he was going abroad for four months in three weeks' time.
I just stopped seeing him or sending him anything after I sent him the first 5,000 words of my rewritten methodology telling him that's what it was, and he knee-jerk replied to tell me that 5.000 words was too short for a Methodology chapter, and where was the Method etc and this just wasn't good enough. So I took myself off to the Uni Student Study Support, and with the most extraordinary luck found I was given a tutor who specialised in Methodology and was a PhD examiner in a closely-related field to mine. She told me just to get on with it all, my way, and to cut him right out because he was destroying me, and that his comments verged on the 'nutty', which I knew anyway. She gave me the right to take control again, and I ended up, in the next five weeks, completely re-writing the last 40,000 words of my thesis. I never let him see it again, I just submitted, and the examiners thought it was brilliant. I haven't seen him since, even though I've sent him a couple of chatty emails and he's kind of replied. So that's dead in the water.
Looking back on the whole experience is pretty depressing. I had to take 8 months out to work for him as I couldn't afford my self-funded fees. I thought he was saving my life. Actually he was getting cheap skilled labour. I was only paid for 6 of those 8 months. It worked out to £6 per hour. He had grandiose schemes and work proposals which came to nothing, and I trusted him and believed they would.
Don't get me started! Anyway, it ended OK for my PhD but it's now just scrap heap for me as he's the Prof.
So I have to get some papers written (should have done that along the way) and have to get back as an Associate Tutor, which I used to be. I just have to try to get a gig from another source in the department! I have until the end of July before I lose my affiliation totally and I can't publish without a Uni affiliation. Hope springs.....

Because I submitted in early June, last year, my viva could not be held before the end of September 2010, so there are considerations like time of year to take account of, too. Summer does tend to disrupt things. However, having said that, it hasn't disrupted Keenbean's in the same way!

Me, too!

"it"

I did ot. Was my usual sardonic self.

Leave them in!

Why can we only give stars to people who post on a thread we've posted? Actually many of us may not want to start a thread, but have had help from reading replies to others which kind of help our own situation. Currently there are at least 6 people whose comments and advice have really helped me, and many others, I'm sure, but I didn't start the thread, so what can I do?

Also, you're only allowed to give one vote to each individual. Why?

Could we please make the star thingy a little more flexible?

I used the Review mode of Word to do what I'd have done manually with highlighter pens and handwritten comments. I used different highlighting colours to highlight which interview sections (in big chunks) might relate to each sup-question (and did multi-options on this where necessary) And I used the Comment facility to add my thoughts as I went along.

I then created a Quotes and Notes file where I placed all data relating to each sup-question, and dragged those with the Comments into each. It was a techno kind of use of the Review facility. So basically, I colour-coded everything, and also had the notes attached as Comments. It was fairly speedy, and very useful. I like colour-coding. It gives you a visual map.

But I only did that at the very end, and retained as a whole all transcripts with their variation of colours totally intact, throughout. It worked on a perceptual and a conceptual level.

PS - just checked my Findings chapter, but please bear in mind that it was ALL qualitative, and was an holistic view of data with long quotes in places. And that I divided it into four sections: 1. What did they say? 2. How did they say it? (ie was it evidential, experiential, or socially constructed) 3. What mediating factors did they access to expand, limit, or explain that view? 4. What were the themes arising from an holistic/multi-standpoint view of 1,2 and 3? So it was 17,000 words! The Discussion was a further 7,000 words. My biggest chapter was the Lit Review 29,000, followed by Methodology, 20,000. References (thankfully not counted!) were 20,000 words. All told, I did 95,000 as a special dispensation because it's such a complex subject!

Sounds good to me, too!

I try not to truncate quotes, either, but in the case you illustrate, I'd say that was totally acceptable truncation, in context. However, if you were writing about the way people can digress and faff during an interview, then the quote in full would be useful as it illustrates that point.:-)