Yes, I 'lost' my thesis today, at around 12:42pm (thesis RIP), microsoft word couldn't cope with the size of the document and my file got corrupted. I'd removed a small chunk of it and did some formatting to decrease its size yesterday but that obviously didn't stop it happening.

After a few hours trying to recover it, I gave in and called for help. I then found out that, even if I'd managed to recover it, it probably wouldn't be the whole document, there could be parts missing, formatting gone awol, etc

No sweat though, I regularly back up my work so it's just today's work that's been lost, well morning and lunch really as I spent the afternoon attempting to savage it,-) bit stressful but hey ho, not the end of the world.

So for those of you who don't back your work up, start doing it now! And regularly! I can't possibly imagine what would have happened to me if I'd really lost everything weeks before submission...

I think it depents on what methodology you're using and the contents of the interviews. If you're using IPA, for example, the short answer is 'yes' regardless as it relies on the researcher's interpretation anyway. If this is not the case, I'd be more careful if I were you. Have they said they don't consider fish important? If so, go for it, if it's your take then maybe you can raise the fact that they didn't mention it?

As a whole, I tend to stick to facts so I'd flag the absence of any mentioning altogether and speculate that fish may not be important to them. However, if they did not specifically state it, then you need to be careful with how you say it and you may want to expand on how you arrived at that conclusion.

I hope this makes sense, I'm no expert on quals, well, I don't think I'm an expert on anything, but I'm just giving you my takes on it and what I've done/been told by sups.

Good luck.

Don't want to take over the thread so I pm'd you. Hope that's ok.

Nice...8-)

Thanks Moomin, I'll pop into one later to see how the prices compare. I think I'll have a feel for both 80 and 100 gsm papers whilst I'm there too before I decide which one to use.

Good luck!!

Past couple of days have been very slow, so I'm going to try really hard to stick to tomatoes today. Still not finished my appendices so these are my first goal. Hopefully will be done by lunchtime.

@Sneaks, personally I believe that all verbal communication is meaningful so I wouldn't leave it out, maybe just *** it so that readers can still make it out without offending anyone? It's not you saying it after all! You're just relaying the info!

@Emmaki, I wouldn't worry about taking too long, some things take longer than others;-)

I have a mixture of both pdfs and phocopies (books, articles, etc) and these have been filed differently. My virtual filing cabinet is simply sorted between what I need and what I don't (which I keep just in case I might need!). But with the names of the files being self-explanatory, I can easily find what I'm looking for. I back these up every so often in 2 different places though. Paper wise, I have three sections, one for books, another for articles and a third for everything else. These are then subdivided by topic. I can't remember who wrote what so filing by author would be a nightmare for me, but I can remember the type of resource, hence my choice for filing. Good luck!

I haven't gotten that far yet but although I'm very grateful for the help and support received, I believe that students have done most of the work and therefore we should be first authors... plus I've seen well published and known researchers being last authors in papers so I can't see any support for his argument either. Surely if your sup was right, these very well known peeps would always come first on these articles??? Good luck!

I had a few things to sort out this morning so day starting after lunch. I didn't manage to do everything I needed yesterday so first goal is to finish what's left from yesterday...

======= Date Modified 28 Sep 2011 12:47:55 =======
I've done similar to Fm but only added an intro statement, then quote, then explored the quote further on the following paragraph if that makes sense. (Borrowing your example, Fm, hope you don't mind!)

For some interviewees the effect of the thickness of potato skins when eating chips results in a change in the perception of the flavour:

*and then put a quote here that supports the above statement.

(I then added a paragraph where I explore the quote above, this is where I add some of my findings/relate to theory as well rather than just the describe what's been said by the participant)

While others discussed how an increased perception of flavour, resulting from increased potato skins and additional salt influenced the joy of eating chips:

*another quote here that supports the above statement.

(Again, I explored the second quote, related to theory/findings but also compared to why this participants' response was different from the previous quote)

What qual methodology did you use? GT?

Thanks Moomin. That's what I normally buy too! I'm just considering upgrading it for the thesis as I've been asked to use 'good quality paper'... will you be using that paper to print your thesis on as well?

I know this might sound silly but I need to ask! What printing paper have people been using/thinking of using to submit their work on (prior viva so not final binding)? I was aiming at 100gsm but I can find anything reasonably priced (I normally buy the cheapest available :$)

I think whether you name them or not is more of a personal choice rather than anything, I only had a few so I named them but I agree with Rick, with 40, it's unlikely people will be able to make connections between who said what and when. I've read papers where the participants were given names, others numbers (I remember one where there were only 12 or 14? and they numbered participants). Maybe you could give them an initial to each group and name them? so females and males F and M?

I also added a table with participants demographics and any significant info so when quoting, I didn't need to add age, etc.


As for adding quotes, I added everything I thought was significant, the common aspects amongst participants and some exceptions that I thought were significant. I structured it with something like this:


Chocolate was found to be consumed more often by women than men.

'I really like chocolate, and eat it most days' (F1).

'I'm not really keen on chocolate really, I can take it or leave it so I don't eat it very often' (M3)

(The paragraph after I'd explore the quotes) So whilst F1 eats chocolate most days, M3 rarely eats it.

Good luck!