Hello everyone - haven't been on for a while due to moving to temporary address, house-hunting and other such delights. Anyway, am FINALLY in a position and head-space to work on my research proposal and am doing (may I say) rather well in the days off work I have booked especially to work on it... discipline is the name of the game!
However, I am anticipating some problems when it comes to writing a brief timescale for completing the PhD, as I have never done a PhD before so am not sure when I will be doing what etc etc. I was wondering if anybody could give me a rough idea of when you did what/in what year etc...so, was it reading and background research in the first year, empirical research in second?
Hope that makes sense - don't worry about being tooooo detailed, I know tou are all busy ,) just a bit of an idea would be fabulous.
Many thanks in advance,
Emma

Can you say what subject you're in EmmaB? Might help people tailor it a bit.

I'd say that your intuition is probably about right regarding first and second year. In third year (if it's a three year funding) your aim would be to perform follow-up experiments to clarify your results, finish analysis and begin writing.

Ideally you might spend most of the first year on literature, setting up protocols and defining the research question. If any work requires ethics and/or sample collection then you'll want to get started on those asap as they always take an age.

Thank you Teek, that makes sense :) My subject is Women's Studies/sociology so my research will involve face-to-face interviews and the data collection that goes along with that...

Well, I am in a similar field. I am doing my PhD part-time so if you are full-time you can change it to match your needs.
Year 1: Background research + pilot study
Year 2: Main research
Year 3: Analysis of findings
Year 4: Write up.
My schedule has changed. I am now in my second year and have already started analysing my interviews (so, I am about 6 months ahead of my initial timescale, which is fine by me (I will be more relaxed) and by my supervisors (they are happy with my progress).
Goos luck