Since this is an issue in relation to my writing-up that has been raised during the progression meeting, we (my supervisor, other academic staffs and myself) have had an agreement on finding an external staff to help this out. We even think that the person could be a post-doc who worked on a similar topic when doing her/his PhD study, as such a person would know fairly more than us about the theoretical background. My supervisor does not know anyone in the area, this means I will also have to find an external examiner myself in the near future. We have considered, just as Dunni has suggested, first listing people who might be able to support and then trying to contact them. Aware of the difficulty if I contacted those people personally, my department has agreed to make an official request -- well, that's more than to be appreciated!! Hope everything will be fine!!!

Thanks guys for your comments and encouragement!!!

Terry

Thanks for reply Doodles! I am aware that some project such as yours involves effort from lots of people. But my case is that it is me who initiated this project but not my supervisor, and it is not a project covering a very broad area -- well, I may say so because at least it covers Psychology and Philosophy . I think you research had been a group project since the start point, but mine is not. So now I have to ask other people for the main purpose of writing-up. Anyway, what else choice I have?! I will just try to ask.

Hi all,

I just finished my 3rd year progression meeting and receive feedback from the research committee regarding the final thesis writing-up. My supervisor is not the expert of the field that I am working on, so now we are both concerned about writing on the introduction and discussion chapter. For the last three years, I have been pretty much independently working on my project, though my supervisor is definitely able to guide me through statistical analysis. That means all my understanding of the research topic could be very likely to miss some essential points, in which case an examiner would be strongly critical of my thesis and I would fail right out...

I've been recommended to try to find someone that I think would be the experts in my research topic, who, desirably, would be able also willing to help us. I was wondering if anyone had a similar experience and how do you handle this?

Thanks!!
Terry

Hi all,

I just finished my 3rd year progression meeting and receive feedback from the research committee regarding the final thesis writing-up. My supervisor is not the expert of the field that I am working on, so now we are both concerned about writing on the introduction and discussion chapter. For the last three years, I have been pretty much independently working on my project, though my supervisor is definitely able to guide me through statistical analysis. That means all my understanding of the research topic could be very likely to miss some essential points, in which case an examiner would be strongly critical of my thesis and I would fail right out...

I've been recommended to try to find someone that I think would be the experts in my research topic, who, desirably, would be able also willing to help us. I was wondering if anyone had a similar experience and how do you handle this?

Thanks!!
Terry

Hi, that makes sense! Thanks!

Indeed I need to think a lot regarding how to present these result to examiners in the (not long) future viva. Someone also said that when giving the presentation, it is better to give a general idea about your research and then introduce each study in the way that how they fit the general picture.

oh, just to reply you for the last question .. I am studying Psychology

Hi Keenbean,Thanks for your kind reply and encouraging suggestion!You are right that by 'negative result' I meant result that's non-significant in statistical term. I think I've got kind of frustrated not only because there is no 'significant' result, but more because there is always a trend ... that is, something in between ... this let me worry that it might be due to certain flawed method...Also, my supervisor is not the expert of the topic of my research. Initially he thought my idea was very interesting and encouraged me to pursue it. But given that both of us are new to my topic, we always face a dilemma of continuing or stop one experiment when some 'trend' appeared...

Something I feel indefensible ... along the course, my supervisor is definitely not someone to be complained. He did tried to help me (could not say 'tried his best', which is however understandable because my project is not his main) especially considering that he nearly had no idea about this research area. I am his first student actually and I think he was over-optimistic at the beginning.  gradually I just find he is optimistic about nearly everything. According to him, PhD is a course of learning and that's the aim. Alas, examiner committee would not think the same!

cool :), I guess I just need to track comments as soon as possible after they are posted so that i would know which user they were from.

ok, thanks! (see if this reply to you works :) )

Hi all,

sorry for this annoying simple question, but I could not find a link button for replying to comments from others on my own post. Could anyone let me know?

Thanks!
Terry

(test)

Hi all,

something I wish to have suggestions on...

I am now starting to write my thesis and, the more I write the more I worry about it. This is mainly because All my experiments did not achieve even a slightly positive result (i.e. certain result that would satisfy a publication criterion). I have now given up the desire of publishing my research since so... but my primary concern now is it would be very much troublesome when an examiner reads such a 'disappointing' thesis. I am at the third year and do not see a chance to have enough time refining any of those studies ...  plus .. my supervisor had indicated that he would be leaving for another uni soon. I think this means I have to solely rely on all negative results at hand ...

Does anyone have any suggestion on such a case? Any comment would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks!

Terry