allo, I did my method yesterday woop woop!

Today, is the day for putting the method with the results (already written) and starting to re-look at the rubbish intro I've written

This is all for one study NOT the method for the whole PhD, but I'm getting there slowly!

quick Q - how many words roughly are your chapters - I'm really talking study chapters if you have them e.g. chapter with quick intro, method, results, dicussion??

Hi Sneaks, I haven't done it that way. I have a methodology chapter, methods chapter and then I'm trying to write the results chapters in a thematic way. So, I'm trying to make it al integrated.

And the chapters vary in size. So the methods is like 10, 000 words, methodology about 5,000 words, one of the results chapters I'm finishing now 6,000 words and so on.

I've just finished the method and results for one chapter and its 4,166 words. - wonder if that's enough? That means to get it to 10k, I need 3k in the intro and 3k in the discussion!

Sneaks, it probably will be enough. My methods are all integrated into one chapter, so although my studies can stand alone, I've decided to integrate everything together and organise it thematically.

Oh, forgot to update on my writing up. I've started results chapter 2 by designing some schematic diagrams.

Still designing schematic diagrams - hopefully I'll finish them all by the end of today. I wonder if I can have a results chapter that consists of loads of schematic diagrams. Hmmm...

There you are wally, was wondering if you were ok. I'd like some schematic diagrams, unfortunately I'm not very good at them, perhaps crayon doodles would suffice?

Well, that's all my schematic diagrams done. I hope 6 of them in one chapter is not excessive. It'll cost at least 4,000 words if I can't use them all. Watched all the third years graduate live online today. Curiously, I didn't see any PhD students graduating with them - and I'm sure there's more than me in the school.
So, where to next? Hmm, start writing the chapter that these diagrams go in, I suppose.

Word of the day: Concantanation.

Thought of the day:coulda, shouda, woulda

Oh, Teek, if you want to do some schematic diagrams, use Invisio. It's magical because it mysteriously puts all the lines in the right place.

I've had a horrible day today. Progress = zero. It's one of those days where I question my capability to actually get my PhD done. Meh, there's still a bit of time left before necessary sleep to try and salvage something. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. :-(

sorry to hear that you've had a slow day. I know that feeling, I've had it for about 2 weeks - prob why I was hiding away from work and this forum!

You know that a) it's only a blip, b) things will get better pretty quick and c) you're more than capable of doing the work!

coulda be a millionnaire, shoulda be a good housewife and woulda be a supermodel.

I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere - my supervisor keeps asking me to write up different things, so Monday "write chapter xyz" (this will take 2 weeks), Thursday "why are you writing chapter xyz? you should do chapter abc!" - result = nothing ever gets finished.

She clearly skim reads my emails because I sent her one saying "I will get the writing on chapter X finished by the end of the week" and she has responded "as it is finished, send it through today" - Maybe I'm a poor communicator?

I'm also struggling as to whether its better to write for publication or thesis, orginally I was going to write it all up for publication, but now I don't have anything for my thesis and its starting to worry me!

Sneaks - sorry to hear about being thrown about with your writing. why not tell you sup what you will write and when, not the other way round? Maybe she's waiting for you to take over?

I book a meeting with my sub every 2 to 3 weeks. I show up with what I've done (currently very rough drafts of chapters) and get her to go through it then, and discuss issues I'm having... my sup's never told me which chapter to write where. She might gently nudge me to write a paper for this or that conf once in a while (which I do listen to), but that's it. We end the meeting with a quick discussion on the next chapter I'll be writing, but I may not write that chapter if another chapter starts shouting for attention.

At the end of the day, a chunk of writing on topic x, y, z will come to you when it wants to, you can't hurry it and neither can your supervisor!

Okay, I've done about 1200 words today for the second results chapter. It's such asinine, mediocre rubbish. Hope everyone else has had a better day.