Onwards: Data collection!

Well, my prospectus defense was done. As awful as it was (at least I think so), it could have been worse. There are a lot of changes, but no change to the theory. I just have to streamline parts of the hypotheses and research questions, add to the literature and change my methodology a bit. It's been made a bit more challenging but I anticipated that there would be changes. I also learned a whole lot about my writing. I am glad that they gave me pointers on what to change. My supervisor has been fantastic, but I think I needed to hear from one of my committee member, who is an expert in my area (well at least parts of it). I badly needed his input and I am glad I got it.

Now, moving on to the data collection. I think it's going to be hard and challenging. It's not easy to ask for data. But I am optimistic that I would get some help from my colleagues. For the American data, I am not so sure, but after the IRB is approved, I will try to sort it out. It's also good that my supervisor is so detailed, sometimes I feel a bit embarrassed about how careless I get when I'm writing. I am learning to be more careful, and to learn to write more like a doctoral candidate, instead of just a lay person. Hopefully, I will get good data and write a good thesis!