Sacha - thank you for the link, but I can't seem to get to the page... would you awfully mind double checking the URL for me please?

KeanBean - I don't know going without meds is a brave or a foolish thing!! I've lost my car license because I won't take meds. I've never been on meds... I've always felt that, for me personally, it was better to learn to deal with the symptoms than to medicate it. I realise this is very unpopular view, and I certainly have nothing against people that find medication helpful and I'm very glad to hear that you have found that suits you :)
With regards to having to come off the meds, have you tried giving up sugar? I've found this has helped me tons in evening out my moods. Obviously, I still get the ups and downs (clearly!) but I find the highs aren't as high and the lows aren't as low. Hubby says I'm like a different person in how I react to 'situations'. I seriously suffered from giving up chocolate, but I've now found that small piece of dark choc is ok once in a while *phew*!

Hey Ady, thank you for your support, I really appriciate it :)

I can't really do the 'woe is me doing a PhD with bipolar' because it was my choice to do a PhD (allbeit I didn't know about the bipolar when I started). No one forced me to do the PhD. It is frustrating though, as things were going so well with the thesis. I just want a break from bipolar, just enough to finish this darn work!

I will stick with it for the moment. Maybe not be so hard onlyself, and go from the 2000 words per day target to 1000 or even 500. On the other hand, I am scared that I am not going to get everything done on time.

Hi everyone, sorry I haven't been around for few days. I really had to take some time out as the writing was getting to me. I took 2.5 days off, with nothing but chilling. It's also given me the time to accept that I am going through the depressive stage of my bipolar. I just need to not expect so much output as before.

KeanBean - thank you for your support on the bipolar. Sorry to hear that your meds are playing up... no one can blame you for being up and down with all you've had to deal with in the last few weeks! I am not medicated, which drives my GP crazy. My thought was that I had enough to deal with my own head, without medication 'playing up' my head also!

My dilemma now though is whether to carry on for another 4 months dispite the depression, or to take a break. The thought of adding another three months to my PhD kills me though.

Dunni - I can't believe your 3rd sup hasn't read your thesis either! Do you think your 3rd sup would be able to add much more to the thesis? Is it really worth waiting for someone like that?

fm - I know exactly how you feel, I am at that stage too, not knowing how these rough chapters are going to go toether into one big thesis. I think Dunni's advice is really helpful though, and I am going to start keeping a list of tasks that I need to get done to turn them into a thesis!

Have you checked with your department/faculty that this is suitable to be carried out there? When I first started, my department was worried that I was going to end up with a PhD that is unrelated to the department. I don't think this would stop you from getting a PhD, but you could have issues getting the right help/advice.

It may be a good idea to see if they have someone in the history department that is willing to be a 2nd supervisor, or at least so that you can get advice on the validity of your methods?

In a PhD, you have to make a contribution to the knowledge.

that doesn't mean you have to make ground breaking discoveries, just that it is something unique that no one has ever done before. The focus here is being unique.

My PhD is certainly not ground breaking, but I believe it is worthy of a PhD because what I have done something that no one else has done before. It is a well studied field, but hasn't been applied to the participants I used. That alone is unique. Then I adapted methods and tools to suit this participant group. That's unique. I developed analysis method that is new - that's unique, and I made general findings between my group and those that have been done to death -that's unique.

If you want to find out more about 'what counts' as a PhD, have a read through this book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Get-PhD-Handbook-Supervisors/dp/0335216846/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1298559361&sr=8-3

lol I think that is normal. In a PhD, a process in which we learn to become professional researchers, I think the student need to become the teacher at some stage. In fact, I think that is the evidence of one becoming a fully fledged researcher - one that can think for themselves :)

It's your thesis at the end of the day, you should do what you feel is right. Have you seen any thesis in your fields that have talked about the different studies as being completely seperate?

one of the things that keeps coming up when I talk about thesis with people that already got a PhD is that a thesis should tell a story. They told me that you need to show why the work in chapter 5 followed chapter 4, etc, so that the examiner can see why these things developed. They don't have to be chronologically ordered (mine are all over the place!) but they need to make sense as a package.

I can see why your sup have said to write them as seperate things for now, since you have mostly been writing up your work for publication. I have been doing the same. However, for the thesis, I've had to connect all the different studies back together, so that it tells a story.

So on that basis, I would say you'd be better off stressing more about how the studies link :)

There are also other work arounds in that phrase bank:

http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/conclusions.htm
(go down to significance of the findings)

Sneaks, I have an intro section for each chapter, a bit like your hubby's cover page... I have intro, objectives, scope, contributions and structure in that section. They're all very short sections (2 paragraphs or so).

I first saw it in my sup's thesis, and I thought it was a bit 'much' pointing all these things out. However, it has made my life a lot easier in two ways a) it was so easy to find things I needed in her thesis - which I think it's important for the examiner also, and b) it made sure that I had all those things in my thesis, ensuring that I didn't have important things (like contribution) missing from my chapter.

I have read few other theses in my field who haven't had it so clearly laid out, and they are more difficult to see where things are.

hope that helps in any way :)

Thank you Bilbo and Ady, you guys are great :)

I think I am borderline moving from manic to depressive phase in my bipolar, which has always been a worry through this write up. I can write and write and write while manic but once depressed, I can't write for love nor money. I am doing my best to keep myself out of the depression so that I can write as long as I can (hopefully seeing the thesis finished!)

At least it's sunny here today, it's always much easier to get on with writing on a sunny day :)

Ady - sorry to hear that you're having a hard time too, but as you say, we will get through this!! Why don't you take a day off? I don't think you've taken a proper day off in ages have you? (and no, tidying up the house doesn't count as a day off ;) ) I am also getting paranoid about the "have you read everything in your bibliography"!!

contributions - I have a small section in the intro of each chapter that bullet points the contribution of each chapter... and then I go over it again in the conclusion section.

I will then summarise all the contributions in the conclusion chapter, and probably discuss what implications each have to the field.

I think contributions is our sales talk that justifies why we should get a PhD, so I don't see anything wrong in repeating it. Also, the contributions for each chapter justifies why the chapter is in your thesis.


As for research questions, I am going to outline the main one in the intro. I have issues that need to be dealt with before the main question can be answered, and these are highlighted through the literature reivews. I then recap the whole lot together at the start of my methodology chapter so that I can say 'to answer these questions, I used these methods'. I will probably recap them again at the start of the conclusion chapter as 'The research set out to find out A, B and C.... and I did it all'.

writing.

I often wonder what on earth was I thinking when I decided to do a PhD, fully knowing that I was dyslexic.

My husband says it's because I 'like a challenge'.... but I'd think there are limits to that!!

I'm absolutely fed up of writing right now :( I just can't be bothered to string up yet another sentence, or read another paper. I just want to get out of writing this stupid thesis.

Has anyone else felt like this? How does everyone else get out of a writing rut? I would probably say take a day off, but I don't think I can take another day off this week.

I don't think this is about being part-time, it can happen to a full-time PhD just as easily.

I think one way of avoiding 'being used' is by communicating a lot with other people, your colleague and other students/lecturers in your field once you start. That way, you will get a good understanding of what is expected of you as a PhD student, and what is not.