Cheers for the reply Sneaks.

Hey Everyone,

I'm currently struggling with the methodology chapter of my PhD.

I need to include a section which tackles ontology and epistemology.

The focus of the PhD is 'Processes of recovery from gambling addiction' and shall involve me interviewing people who have experienced gambling problems.

However, I'm not too sure or confident about the ontology and epistemology aspect of what I should include.

I submitted a previous draft that was criticized for being too 'textbook'.

Does any kind person out there have any advice how I should approach ontology and epistemology?

Cheers everyone,

Thanks for any advice

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Hi everyone,

I recently had a meeting about my 2nd draft of the PhD methodology chapter, and was once again told that it was not at doctoral level and I seemed to be stuck writing at Masters level.

I was gutted and really upset. The advice I'm being given isn't brilliant, but I'm being told that I'm not defending and justifying the project in the correct way (which I thought I had done).

My project looks at recovery from gambling addiction, and the fieldwork (should I ever be allowed to undertake) shall involve interviewing people who are in support for problem gambling.

Is there any advice any of you kind and intelligent people could offer me with regard to the methodology chapter? At my last meeting, the 2nd supervisor who was there hinted that he personally found his own PhD methodology chapter to be the most difficult.

For example, in my first draft I had epistemology and ontology as two headings to draw attention to, but a large criticism was that I was describing their definition too much, rather than applying these premises to my research. I can see that being too close to Masters level, but I'm confused how to escalate that into an acceptable level.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks everyone,

Lylio

Hello everyone!

I've just finished a literature review for my PhD which is 10,000 words long, a length requested by my supervisor.

I've found a useful chapter structure which I shall be sticking close to:


Chapter 1 – Literature review
Chapter 2 – Aims of the study
Chapter 3 - Methodology
Chapter 4 - Analysis
Chapter 5 - Findings
Chapter 6 – Discussion of findings
Chapter 7 - Conclusions
Chapter 8 – Applications and limitations

I've now moved onto the 'aims of the study' section and I was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice on how long they think this section should be. I always find it helpful to have a rough idea of word lengths before starting a new chapter.

Many thanks for your time,

Lyle

Hi everybody,

I'm in the literature review stage for my PhD which is concerned with recovery from gambling addiction.

My supervisor told me aim for about 10,000 words for the lit review.

I'm about 2000 words in which covers one main theory.

But I'm not sure where to go next. For example, I could cover another 4 main books/theories and spend 2000 words on each, would that be acceptable?

I understand that literature reviews should support the student's 'eureka' argument, but I find with social science work the thesis often does what it is says on the tin - e.g. I'm researching how people go through recovery from gambling and so I feel my lit review shall really only be about a half-dozen or so current and dominant theories on treatment.

Thanks for your time, I'll look forward to any replies.