Thesis - discussion dun dun dunnnnn

Getting there

So I have a lot of my thesis written up now and its all finally coming together. But Im left with a huge gaping hole at the end. . . where the discussion should be. I just cant get my head around it, what to say, how to say it? How do I not repeat myself?

My supervisor is useless so I'm really trying to do well despite him, but god almighty Iv been sitting here since 9 and havent typed a word.

(being on boards prop isnt helping though)

How do you get over mindblocks like this? Anybody else just stalled?

djpbarry

Your discussion will generally include, to begin with, a summary of your results, set against the background of the current state of play in your research area. So essentially, you're reminding the reader "this is what I did and this is why I did it". Relate what you say in your discussion to how you 'set up' your thesis in your general introduction. You can then tie together different results/conclusions from different chapters, while again relating to other published results. This also affords you the opportunity to discuss any literature that didn't really 'fit' elsewhere in the thesis. Providing an overview of where you might go next with this work is also a good idea, but be conservative in how you phrase it! You don't want the extern to ask "Well, why didn't you do this?? Finally, you should wrap up with your overall conclusions - how has your work contributed to the 'pool of knowledge' that exists in your subject area?

Hope this helps and best of luck with it.

Getting there

Thanks!

Yeah I have some headings now with some questions I want to answer and have hyperlinks to paper i want to talk about. So I v a good base to start from . got almost 800 words done there so Im pleased. ITs just a first draft so once i have something down on paper, il be able to play around with it and tweak it a bit!

shoeaddict27

anyone else having probs with their supervisor and any advice?

my supervisor wanted to meet me once a week until my thesis is done in sept. that was all well and good at the start. but then he went on a two week hol and i haven't heard from him since. that's been over a month ago. i've tried sending emails, calling by the office and calling on the phone.

its frustrating because i'm at a point in my thesis where i can't go much further without getting some bit of guidance from my supervisor. we had set all this out in our plan too.

anyone have any advice? i'd just like to even know he's back in the country.

Dionysus

shoeaddict27 wrote: »

anyone else having probs with their supervisor and any advice?

my supervisor wanted to meet me once a week until my thesis is done in sept. that was all well and good at the start. but then he went on a two week hol and i haven't heard from him since. that's been over a month ago. i've tried sending emails, calling by the office and calling on the phone.

its frustrating because i'm at a point in my thesis where i can't go much further without getting some bit of guidance from my supervisor. we had set all this out in our plan too.

anyone have any advice? i'd just like to even know he's back in the country.

Oh, this is so, so, so typical. There are so, so, so many things wrong with the supervisor-postgrad student relationship in Irish universities it would make you laugh for fear of crying.

They, universities and their academic employees, are a law unto themselves. It appears to come under "academic freedom", otherwise known as "student, pay your fees and when our lecturers can fit you in for a visit, he/she will tell you". Oh, and in the meantime, a lecturer's priorities are to publish and get the uni rating up; students are a necessary interference on this real job. When I began 1st Year I really believed students - i.e. teaching them - were the centre of lecturers job. How very, very naive I was.

shoeaddict27

Dionysus wrote: »

a lecturer's priorities are to publish and get the uni rating up; students are a necessary interference on this real job. When I began 1st Year I really believed students - i.e. teaching them - were the centre of lecturers job. How very, very naive I was.

its so annoying. i just don't know what lecturers actually do over the summer, most of the ones i know take sabbaticals when they want to write a book which leads me to believe that writing might actually interfere with their main activities during the day i.e. drinking coffee and schmoozing with lecturers from other departments.

sorry just on a bit of a rant at the mo i'll just go it alone for the rest of the thesis

Dionysus

shoeaddict27 wrote: »

its so annoying. i just don't know what lecturers actually do over the summer, most of the ones i know take sabbaticals when they want to write a book which leads me to believe that writing might actually interfere with their main activities during the day i.e. drinking coffee and schmoozing with lecturers from other departments.

sorry just on a bit of a rant at the mo i'll just go it alone for the rest of the thesis

Oh, I can empathise with you 1,000,000th percent (OK, I don't know the mathematical consequences of that but you get the idea!). My supervisor went to a far off distant land across the seas for two of the years of my PhD. Ah yes. So, I had an email relationship with him for all that time. Handy number the universities have going: pay fees, and we decide the conditions and everything else.

My solution? In most humanities/social science/arts disciplines you can talk to an intelligent lay person about your thesis. They will give you amazingly valuable feedback and insight.

shoeaddict27

shoeaddict27 wrote: »

anyone else having probs with their supervisor and any advice?

my supervisor wanted to meet me once a week until my thesis is done in sept. that was all well and good at the start. but then he went on a two week hol and i haven't heard from him since. that's been over a month ago. i've tried sending emails, calling by the office and calling on the phone.

its frustrating because i'm at a point in my thesis where i can't go much further without getting some bit of guidance from my supervisor. we had set all this out in our plan too.

anyone have any advice? i'd just like to even know he's back in the country.

Once a week is a hell of a lot. I've only met my supervisor three times since December, once to ask her to supervise me, the second time to put forward my outline and the third time to show her what I'd done so far. Why did you need to meet so often?

It's unfortunately not uncommon for academics to go missing over the summer. Have you tried tracking down other members of staff/departmental admin staff? They might have a good idea of where he is. Perhaps something happened. Odd that he just disappeared. Do you have a personal tutor or anything like that? They might be able to at least have a read through and offer some advice, even if it isn't their subject.