Calling all PS thesis-tacklers, researchers, and students!

[Delster]

Over in another thread Gwen and I were talking about starting a thread to support one another through our thesis-writing this Summer. So, here goes nothing!

For me, the thesis is officially due by the end of October this year. My personal deadline for a first draft is August 16th, and then there will be a rewrite. How much of a rewrite, I don''t know yet (long story). I have a schedule for the remaining weeks, with targets to be met at the end of each week. Basically, a cheering squad to help me meet those targets sure wouldn''t go amiss!

I was thinking it might be a good idea to check in here every day and kind of ''log progress''. Not in a ''must write x number of words today OR ELSE'' kind of way, more in a ''look what I achieved today!'' or ''today wasn''t great, help me work out why'' kind of way.

Does anyone else think this is a good idea? If you do, please, join in!

 

[Lorelei]

I will be happy to cheer you on!

 

[Delster]

Thanks Lorelei!

I knew we could count on you

OK so to start the ball rolling then, here''s what I''m up to...

I have my work divided up into about five ''segments''. Two of those segments are done and dusted, just awaiting the final rewrite to segue into the overall work. Last week and this week I have been working on a portion of segment three - without giving away too much about my topic (cos Ireland is that small!), this portion deals with Ireland and the rest of the segment is comparative analysis. The Ireland portion has to be finished by the end of this week, so I can move on to the comparative stuff.

So today I''m re-reading the main Irish text (''the tome'') in the area, re-digesting it, re-evaluating what I think of it, and writing as I go along. My aim is to be done with ''the tome'' by Wednesday so I can move on to some other sources I want to review, and then spend some time really picking my own thoughts and arguments apart.

I''ll let you know later how I get on!

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

Sounds like you are well organized. Good for you!

It has been a few years since I defend my thesis research, but I recall this was the very time I was setting up my interviews to be conducted over the summer....so I would have enough time to do the data analysis and write the results to be handed in early December so my supervisor could have it back to me by Christmas and I could defend the following Valentime Day and hence graduate....gosh this brings back memories! I never look at my summers the same was again!

cheers--Sharon

 

[mercoledi]

Geez man, I really need this, great idea! I''m writing manuscript draft that will hopefully give me the a-ok to stop experimenting and write my dissertation. Which I''m supposed to be already working on. But somehow I spend more time on PS than with MS word. This week- shore up the figures for the manuscript and get a whole draft together!

 

[Stephanie]

I''ll cheer y''all on!!

 

[anchor31]

Add me to the bunch of cheerleaders!!

 

[gwendolyn]

Yay, our support thread is alive and kickin'!

Ok, so here's the beef:

My master's dissertation is due July 14th. My rough draft is due June 16th. I've already written my chapter on methodology, and this week I am writing my Findings & Discussion chapter and am SUPPOSED to have it done by Thursday. However, since I was really sick over the weekend, my supervisor would probably not be too upset if I was a day or two late with it. But I want to keep on schedule, so I am going to try my hardest to get it done by then!

I just spent a few hours collecting some more articles in support of all the fun things I am writing about, and then reorganized my data codes and supporting quotes to make sure there's enough supporting material to go 'round (I think there is now, I hope there is now!). Now that I've got that reworked, writing the actual chapter about what's emerged from my study should be a bit easier. That's the plan anyway, Stan.

My next supervision is Thursday morning at 10am. That's when I get feedback about my meth chapter!

Hopefully it will be mostly good--I think this year has made me into a better writer.

Now, back to work with me!

 

[iheartscience]

Good luck ladies!

I''m in school (undergrad), but right now I''m just taking Modern Dance so I don''t have any papers or research to do!

But you can add another person to the list of cheerleaders!

I''m actually thinking about grad school, though, so I''m very interested to read about what kind of work you have to do!

 

[bee*]

Go Delster and Gwen!! You can both do it! I''m just working away while on my summer holidays so no more college for me until September so I''ll be your cheerleader for the summer!

 

[Delster]

Thank you everyone for all the support and cheerleading!

canuk-gal care to share with us how it felt defending and then being conferred? I love to visualise those moments as ''fuel'' to keep me going when I''m hating the drudgery!

mercoledi I know the feeling! I have wonderful willpower usually but it all falls apart when confronted with PS

What area are you working in? You are right on the brink of writing up, that must be so exciting!

stephanie thank you for the cheers! you''re fantastic

anchor thank you! i think i remember you''re doing a degree at the moment too? are you finished up with classes for the Summer or do you have Summer school?

thing2 if you wanna know all about grad school, check out PhD Comics. Alas, it''s all frighteningly true to life!

bee you''re a supah-star, thanks for the support!

gwen sounds like you are really well organised, you go girl! You lost me though at the bit about data codes

I don''t know if it''s good or bad that I don''t have the clear "methodology - literature review - empirical research - results" structure that other disciplines have. On the one hand it must be very comforting to have a clear roadmap of what needs to be done, and in what order. On the other hand, all that statistical analysis would do my head in!

For me, it''s just "read - think - write" and repeat as often as necessary. There isn''t even a standard footnoting system or thesis structure! Waaah!

So I found myself flagging big time around noon and I just *did*not*want*to*work*. I went off and had some nibbles and then did a bit of exercise to up the energy levels. Worked well and I was super motivated all afternoon. Sadly the productivity didn''t match the enthusiasm, as a friend got in touch rather urgently needing some legal advice, so I had to spend some time on that. These things always take longer than expected.

I''m going to see if I can persuade BF to cook dinner so I can do another couple of hours. Two more days to get ''the tome'' dissected! On the plus side I''m realising I need to analyse less of it than I initially thought so yippee for that

 

[Independent Gal]

As someone whose been through it, maybe I can cheer and offer advice?

Segmentation is EVERYTHING! Divide and conquer! Within the big segments, I separated things into smaller and smaller segments until they were ''bite sized'' 1 day tasks. That way, each day I could see I was getting closer to the goal and it never felt intimidating.

 

[bem3231]

Remembering back to my thesis writing and defence experience, I certainly would not hold myself up as a responsible writing posterchild. I had my proposal approved, passed by the ethics committee, did all of my research and interviews, and then just *stopped*. I was just literally so sick of school. I moved, started a career, and ever had the completion of my thesis in the back of my mind.

Fast forward five years, when I''d literally wrung out as many extensions as humanly possible from my university - it was do or die. Being a pressure worker, I locked myself in my house and wrote the whole damned thing in three days (and nights). It was hell, but I just had to get it out of the way. I went through two revisions over about three months, defended, and passed with only minor revisions, and no review necessary. What I''d built up to be a huge, overwhelming thing actually turned out just fine. I certainly should have just bit the bullet and finished right away, but alas, that''s how my story turned out...

I''m hoping that no one out there follows in my wayward footsteps! I''ll send good thoughts and support to all of you!

 

[gwendolyn]

Date: 5/26/2008 12:42:16 PM
Author: Delster
gwen sounds like you are really well organised, you go girl! You lost me though at the bit about data codes

Hahah, I'm not totally sure I understand it myself.

Basically, I conducted interviews, and from the interview data certain themes emerged. When I grouped the themes into categories, I coded my data. I think.

bem, holy cow, three days and nights?! You are amazing!!! I don't think I could do that!

So I'm not going to try.

In other news, reached my writing goal for the day! So now I can change into my pjs and talk to J on the phone! Yay!

 

[kcoursolle]

oooh, I''m in!!! I have to start dissertation proposal writing this summer and finish a chapter this fall! Good luck gals!!!

 

[AmberGretchen]

Ooh - me too! I''m trying to wrap up most of my major experiments by the Fall, have a thesis committee meeting in September/October, and then tie up all my loose ends and be writing by early 2009

Way to go Gwen, Delster, and everyone else. What a great idea for a thread to keep us accountable!

 

[mimzy]

add me to the list of those who need cheerleaders!

I have the majority of my lit review and methodology done, but i am waiting for the consent forms to go through and i need to start conducting my actual research with my volunteers next month. My advisor wants me to have it completed in time to submit it for the ASHA convention which is in NOVEMBER, but i''m not sure i''ll be able to do it. we still have a full load of classes and practicum in the summer so it''s not like there is any time off to work on it! If i can''t meet the ASHA deadline my hope is to have it completed by October so that it isn''t hanging over my head the last two months before the wedding!

 

[Delster]

Morning all!

Indy good to hear that my segmentation tactic is on the right track! Like I said to canuk-gal, I'd love to hear your story about how it felt to do your viva and at your actual conferring. I love to hear women particularly talk about their pride in themselves and their achievement and I store the feeling up as 'fuel'!

bem I'm a pressure worker too but I know I couldn't get this done in three days! That must have been torture! But you got there in the end

gwen gotcha now on the data codes. Wow that's a lot of work! How's it going today?

I'm so happy more people have picked up this thread, yay!

kcoursolle what area are you in? Tell us some more about you! What are your goals this week?

AmberGretchen I think you mentioned before you're in biomedical research? Or am I confused? Tell us what you're up to this week, you'll motivate the rest of us too!

mimzy we're cheering! Can't you hear it?

So your advisor is hoping you can get interviews and all the statistical analysis done within four months? Or do you have to write up within that time too? I have no personal experience with that kind of work but from watching others the interviews and analysis always seemed to take about six months or so and then the write-up took another six months. You're in for a busy Summer! I'm sure some of the other ladies will chime in and share some advice.



So I am still working on 'the tome' today, ha ha! The portions of the tome that I need to work on can kind of be divided up into three parts - historical, 'definitional', and 'application'. Got through a fair bit of the historical part yesterday so today I'm muddling through the definitional. That part isn't exactly vital for my thesis so hopefully I can move on to the gritty application stuff today.

BF is claiming I told him I'd give him 10,000 words tonight to peruse. I remember telling him I *might* give him 3,000. He swears it was 10. I must have been drunk or talking in my sleep or something

Anyway. I'm really tired today for some reason! Will hit the books now for a few hours and check in later.

Happy studying all

 

[gwendolyn]

Delster, haha, I love how your FF says 10 and you said 3. Sliiiight difference there.

How''s it going for you today so far?

I wanted to get an early start but the rude people in my flat were up slamming doors at 2:30am again last night. (Ok, they weren''t purposefully slamming them--the doors slam shut if you don''t bother to close them yourself, which is something I think everyone should be doing at 2:30am!) I am a light sleeper and woke up from the slamming and it takes me at least an hour to fall back to sleep (which sucks!), so I ended up sleeping in a bit this morning. Blarg. I did a little work this morning but not much.

Anyway, I am going to make a quick run to the post office to mail a card to J''s mom and then get back to work! Hope all is going well for everyone else (although I think most everyone else is probably still sleeping at the moment.

 

[Delster]

Oh no gwen! I''m a light sleeper too so anything like that puts me in foul form. I was a prolific campus-security-caller when I lived on campus!

Plodding along here, getting hungry so will grab some lunch now. Wrote another page this morning, gotta keep the momentum going

 

[Dreamer_D]

Just wanted to pop in to say good luck to all of you! I defended my PhD a year ago after 6 years in graduate school (it is a combined master's PhD program), so I recall the academic slog well. My doctorate is in Social Psychology, so I know all about the running participants, analyzing data, framing a paper stuff, but it is interesting to hear about how different it is in history/arts etc etc.

I think my dissertation experience was different from what you all are describing, because my dissertation was accepted for publication about eight months before I defended. So my PITA process was in the 2 years prior to the defense when I rewrote and rewrote and collected more data through four rounds of the peer review process.

How long do your dissertations need to be? Just curious... in my programme we try to keep them journal length, so mine was 8 experiments but it was only about 80 pages long including figures, tables, references, et al...

Keep up the hard work everyone!!

 

[mimzy]

thanks delster!

my study is qualitative, so not much to do in terms of statistical analysis! makes it a touch faster to get through

 

[Mannequin]

I''m going to be starting my thesis this summer, in about three weeks actually. I need to write the first three chapters during this class, so I''ll need the inspiration here.

Good luck to all you PSers who are already in progress!

 

[gwendolyn]

Not really related news, but if I had done my studying today at the University Library, I (like about 6 of my friends) would''ve gotten to meet and talk to Prince Charles. But I didn''t! Drat, that would''ve been awesome!

 

[Delster]

Welcome aboard dreamer_dachsie and equestrienne!!!

Yay, more recruits!

dreamer_dachsie my thesis has to be approximately 100,000 words excluding bibliography and tables of cases/statutes etc. 90,000 words will be fine but that's kind of the lower limit. There are no graphs, charts, diagrams etc, it's all text. It's *about* 200 pages I think? No, that's wrong. 200 pages single spaced, 500 pages double-spaced. I did that quick check on a page without many footnotes so that's a conservative estimate. Honestly I don't even think in pages! BF and I talk past one another when it comes to targets like that - he's all about the pages, I'm all about the wordcounts!

Congratulations on the publication, doesn't it just feel the best to see your name in print?

mimzy I'm sorry, you've lost me. Does qualitiative mean you're looking at experience rather than incidences of something? I'm hopeless! We literally never have to do anything like that. We don't even do case studies (unless you count reading cases as being case studies

)

equestrienne what are you studying?

gwen it would have been so exciting to meet Prince Charles! Maybe you'll get another chance?


I'm having a slow day ladies. Need to wake myself up a bit here!!! C'mon delster, WORK!!!

 

[gwendolyn]

I dunno, that's what one of my friends said, that he's here often so I'll have another chance, but I'll only be here another month and a half, so it seems kind of unlikely that I will get to meet him. Oh well. Would've been pretty sweet bragging rights! But I guess it's neat that (now) 10 of my friends have met him and talked to him? I can live vicariously through them.

Del, I'm having a slow day too! I don't know what it is, but I just can't concentrate. It's pretty frustrating, considering I have so much left to do before Thursday. I keep typing and un-typing things. Not much progress.

 

[AmberGretchen]

Delster - I am in biomedical research (good memory!), I''m doing a doctoral degree (PhD) in Immunology, and my research project is looking at a particular cell type and how it functions in HIV infection. My research is pretty clinical compared to many of my classmates (who are more basic science-oriented). I''ve got some important experiments coming up this week that will (hopefully, fingers crossed) round out a particular data set I''ve been working on since January. I''m also analyzing data from an ongoing patient-based study I''ve been working on so I can show those numbers to my advisor and then he and I will decide whether its best to bring in more patient samples or to do additional analysis on the samples we do have.

The results from that patient-based study will constitute a huge chunk of my thesis work when it is done, so I''m eager to see how the numbers look when I crunch them - I''m hoping I''ll have enough time to finish that analysis this morning before I have to process my samples for today.

Your thesis sounds insanely long - I have trouble imagining writing 500 pages, although I know that its not that uncommon for PhD theses in the liberal arts. I think ours are probably more like 100-200 pages, and even then that includes a lot of figures and diagrams, etc...

I''m just curious here - how many people on this thread are working on Master''s dissertations vs. PhD, and in what fields? It seems to be a mix is why I''m curious. I think it must be really different between different subjects, because in biology, almost no one gets a masters degree (although if you drop out after passing your qualifying exam you are usually awarded one), but I don''t think that''s for any good reason other than that its the norm/standard. Anyway, just curious, and obviously no one has to share if you''re uncomfortable doing so.

 

[Haven]

I''m not writing anything at the moment, but I wanted to add myself to the cheerleading squad!

 

[gwendolyn]

I am writing my master's dissertation on teacher's perceptions of inclusive education, based off a research project I did in April. It will be around 20,000 words, excluding charts, footnotes, tables, bilio, etc. And, I guess this is odd, but I don't have to defend it unless I'm in danger of failing, apparently. So, I submit it on July 14th, and then, if all's well, I get confirmation of my degree in September.

PS: Haven, you are so cute!

 

[Delster]

Quick fly-by (I should be working, not Psing!)...

AmberGretchen your PhD sounds amazing. When I think of a 'contribution to your field' that's the kind of research I always think of first!

Haven thank you for the support

I'm doing a PhD in law. It straddles a lot of areas but the main themes are health and human rights.

I have an undergrad (in law), a taught masters (in law), and a professional law degree. Over here there's a very strong demarcation between taught programmes and research programmes. My taught masters required about ten hours per week of classes, which made up 50% of the grade, and a 30,000 word dissertation, which made up the other 50%. PhDs here are entirely research based, as are some masters programmes - I only know of one university here that asks research postgrads to take classes. I haven't taken a single class for my PhD in the three years I've been on the register. Research masters students wouldn't take classes either.

OK back to the tome. It's getting me down. This part I'm looking at is boring

(but necessary

)