It’s never a good term is it.  The term ‘restructuring’ implies that the original structure wasn’t good enough, so you have to start again.

I thought my thesis structure was all sorted, set in stone as it were.  I’ve been working on a single ‘thesis’ document from the outset.  The main reason for this for me is that it suits my way of writing.  I like being able to flit between sections, and I think it helps me create a more coherent document.

The structure I was using was taken directly from my thesis supervisor’s book on how to write a thesis… so I thought I was on a sure-fire winner, even if when sharing this with some of my PhD colleagues they went ‘huh’ at some of the chapter titles.  I relentlessly continued though…

Until the feedback received a few weeks back, which has left me walking through a valley of…. well, let’s leave it at that.

I’ve spent the intervening time rewriting, restructuring, deleting chunks of my work (so I’ve now dipped below 25k words, making my celebrations here a little premature to say the least), and most dramatically, merging two chapters together and shifting a huge chunk of ‘contextualisation’ into the introductory chapter.  It feels like I’m performing major surgery, and indeed I’ve had to remove an appendix (badoom – tish!).

The outcome is hopefully a Chapter One and Two that is leaner, fitter and will meet my supervisor’s approval.  I’ve not done this in isolation, I’ve chatted it over with him and he’s aware of the reconstruction taking place.

I’ve not been lazy in other areas… all but one of my final phase of interviews are now complete, currently about 1.4 million characters.  I’ve analysed about two thirds of them, actually a little more than that, so that’s looking good.  I did do one interview in a noisy cafe, which was probably a big mistake, and this coming weekend I’ll be trying to transcribe that which is going to be interesting to say the least.

I’ll time sending the new chapters, and waiting for feedback from my supervisor very carefully.  I’m away on a much-deserved break next week, and I don’t want my time out interrupted by another critical review… my 40th birthday was spent trying to get a wireless connection at a gite in France so I could respond to comments on an early paper in my PhD, and the year after I received some really harsh criticism whist on holiday, that’s not going to happen this time.

Let’s see what the Summer brings… always a time for hope and renewal, maybe this restructuring will help me in the same way.

…and everything in its place.

I have a lot of books in this house (six bookcases at the last count), and the number is growing, despite most of my ‘for pleasure’ reading is now via my Amazon Kindle.  In practically every room of the house there are one or two books relating to my research.

I’ve spent some time this weekend ‘de-cluttering’, mostly moving books and other PhD ephemera from the room where it has settled and gathered dust to the room that it should be in.  I’ve also developed piles….. of journal articles and heck knows how many notebooks where I’ve jotted thoughts and ideas.  At least they’re all now in my study, which makes for a chaotic study but at least all that I need is in one place.

This doesn’t mean that I only work on PhD when in my study.  Far from it, one of the main reasons that I’ve gone for the Dedoose online qualitative software is so that I can work on any machine.  But it’ll be nice not having to search half a dozen rooms to find a book that I just know I have… somewhere.

It’s a strange phenomena, online and in my ‘digital’ life (both personal, work and PhD), I’m really organised, with folders, sub folders and sub sub folders, all backed up religiously and shared across multiple computers for multiple redundancies.  But my ‘meatspace‘ is much less organised and messier.

I have great plans, like many do, for post-PhD life.  I’ll spend more time working in the garden (though I never did before PhD), rejoin a gym, keep my house looking like the show home that I saw when I bought this house (I have a cleaner, but there’s a big difference between ‘clean’ and ‘tidy’, you can live in an untidy but clean house)… how many of them will be come reality I’ll find out in a years time.

Meanwhile, I can rejoice that my tidy up today has revealed the lost tickets for this concert, that I’m looking forward to more than many could imagine.

Well, yeah.  I thought this might happen, but it’s still not great when you have to hit the undo button is it?

I had started the data analysis of my first round of interviews a long while back, shortly after the interviews had been completed.  This was my first ever attempt at ‘coding’, putting meaning to sentences.  Someone might for instance be talking about their job, and I would code this ‘job’, and other deep and meaningful codes such as that.

I’ve dipped in and out, so can’t really say for definite how long I’ve spent on the coding process, but a fair few sessions at the keyboard.

But there’s been a nagging doubt that I wasn’t doing it right, and that the information wasn’t going to be useful when looked at across the participants.  But this is how the books all say that it should be done, so I ploughed on until about a month ago.

At that time, instead of continuing the coding I wrote little stories, or narratives of the participants, incorporating their quotes, and what they had told me about themselves, the organisation and what they do outside work.  Three things happened.

1. These people came to life, in a way that highlighting their words and allocating a near-arbitrary code hadn’t managed to do.
2. My word count in the thesis leapt.  Compared to a dense literature review, writing these narratives was relatively easy.
3. I realised that I would have to start my Data Analysis from scratch.

Well, OK.  That’s a pretty big step, acknowledging that the work that you’ve done has to be restarted.  But I knew, and was supported in conversations as my recent cross-cohort residential, that I had to do this.  I took the chance too to review the software I had been using. Yeah, it was free and also worked in my native Mac environment, but did that mean it was the best for me.

Another member of cohort three had put me onto an online, web based qualitative analysis software, called Dedoose.  It’s SaaS, you pay a subscription for the months that you want to use it, you don’t pay if you don’t need to, and whilst there are more powerful packages available (and for free through my various academic affiliations), this one just works.  And of course it ‘just works’ regardless of the platform I’m running, Mac, PC, Chromebook.

So my coding starts again, and my code set looks a lot different.  Over the last few months my theoretical framework has developed, and I have just five specific things that I’m looking for in the interviews, five connections that I’m looking at within the individual and organisation by the use of e-portfolios (well, at least at the start).  So with new tool, new criteria, and  a big, big pot of coffee I’m off on the (re)coding wagon again.

 

My Google Drive spreadsheet tells me I have written 25,853 words, or I am 51.71% of the way towards my 50,000 word target.

Over half way there.

 

At the early part of this week I packed my bags and headed Northwards again to Lancaster.  This was a cross-cohort conference, open to all of us who are in the middle of, or are about to embark on the thesis part of our PhD.

A dozen of us made it face-to-face, with a few people drifting in and out online via the Adobe Connect software.  It was great to catch up, share success (and horror) stories, and also use some educational technology to talk to those that have been through the journey, and completed the PhD from our programme… something that hadn’t happened when we started on the journey.

My talk was about public blogging and private journals, when to use each.  I was really time-constrained due to some late running sessions earlier in the day, and it was also strangely nerve-wracking presenting to my peers, and the course director who made a welcome, but unexpected appearance for our talks.

I also met my supervisor, and we had a good long chat about how the final year (well, 9 months) should pan out, and where I should focus.  He’s keen to see my literature review, but has given me a few weeks to tidy up and in a fit state for reading.  I think it reads OK, but then again doesn’t every author?

Of course, the social side of things is also important, but it’s probably a sign of our age that I was back at the Travelodge before 11:00 both nights.  I have a love/hate relationship with the budget hotel chain.  Their value for money cannot be equaled, and I quite like their simplistic, back-to-basics, shower gel costs extra approach.  But that is usually after I’ve had a good nights sleep.  I’m not sure what they use for sound insulation between the rooms, but at 4am I am inclined to think that it’s structural strength tissue paper.

All in, a good couple of days, not without the occasional hiccup, but if the opportunity comes up in subsequent years, well worth the effort.