Hello! I have recently started a PhD (musicology) and am keen to hear views as to which chapter people think is the best to start the writing process with first...if there is one, that is? I'm thinking about starting with a contextual chapter I want to include, but does anybody have a strong opinion about another part (eg methodology, literature review) Also, is it normal to worry about the validity of your topic, whether its original enough and how on earth one goes about producing a methodology chapter...is this all normal PhD beginniner's angst??? Thank you for any advice!

start with the chapter that you want to start with.. the one you feel like writing first or if you can't decide, write a outline for each chapter, and work abit on each one, until one grabs ya! and you feel inspired to continue working on it.

wow musicology phd, sounds very interesting!!

I started with Lit Review (16 months write up time), then methodology (8 months write up time), then analysis, discussion, findings (about three months write up time), then introduction and conclusions (about a month).

The order is dependent on the subject and many other factors,but it makes sense to start with a literature foundation. You can then work with this foundation and it will help you to make more sense of your data. it will also guide you in the right direction whilst you collect data.

Continuous reading and knowledge of papers in the area will be important throughout the entire duration of your doctoral studies. So why not writing this chapter whilst you go along and have to read anyway?

Thank you both very much. I will probably combine your respective pieces of of advice. My supervisor advised me to start with what was "easiest" to get into, so that would be the contextual material, but I will start forming a basis for the Lit Review, too, and see how things go. Thank you for the projected time periods; very helpful!

You may want to check with those who deal with the admin side as here they like to see the lit review as one of the two you get ticked off before you go before the upgrade board and are left in peace to get on with the thing your own way.

Read the 'suthoring a PhD' book by Dunleavy it has lots of useful advice for sorting out chapters etc. and is well worth reading. Actually the number of times that book appears on this site suggests we should be getting some kind of commission!