Ok, good to know, thanks for the advice bewildered!

A question for those who have applied to jobs while defending:

So, the upcoming academic year is my 'final' year, and I plan on submitting the 'intent to submit' around Christmas, and will defend in the spring. I noticed that job adverts for the following academic year begin showing up online around November, with closing applications the next month or so. Some say 'close to completing PhD' as the requirement.

Since I will be in this in-between stage of waiting to defend, is there a special term I can use on the CV? I think in America it is ABD (all but dissertation), where it signals to the employer that necessary coursework is completed. However, here the coursework is the thesis itself!

Additionally, I would be open to any advice from those who have sent applications while awaiting the defence. (This also probably applies to similar time frame of submitting thesis in spring, defending the autumn while also waiting to start the job in the autumn.)

Thanks in advance!

He needs to talk to student services at the university or the director of research in his department, because 'who to contact' is not something we can really advise on. I think the Master's downgrade still requires a 'pass' of submitting written work. (around 50-60,000 words for some programs).

In the humanities, some examiners (at least 2 that I know of) do begin by reading abstract, intro, then scanning the bibliography before reading through the entire thesis. They said it gives them an idea of how your orientate your work, and as Tree said, if you've hit all the 'correct' references.

Wow, he really isn't doing his job at all! I think you are definitely entitled to complain to the director of PG studies, as he is taking advantage of the power relations in this situation. It is also unfair for the co-supervisor (secondary?) to be reviewing more than your primary supervisor.

May I ask if you had both agreed to a defined schedule of draft submissions and an anticipated timeline for critique throughout your process? I pushed for that and set it up right away in my first month, which I have found to be helpful, although I know many students prefer not to have hard deadlines for submission and critique. Even if you didn't have a defined schedule, the lack of attention to your needs as a student (server and timely critique) shouldn't go unnoticed by those who do promotions.

Very true, and most people work great with searchable reference managers! I'm the only one that I know of in my humanities/social science department doing this method. I thankfully don't have to work with quantitative literature reviews or data, so I mostly deal with short quotes which work well for index cards. The system I use wouldn't work very well with quantitative papers.

Hey Jane92,

Yes, I think different methods suit different styles of learning/synthesising. I've tried Endnote and other reference managers, but I've only really progressed once I switched to the traditional notecard method. I've also found out that I actually remember the content of each article/chapter better once I've handwritten it twice and thematised it. If you're curious, this is my method:

This works for both physical and electronic sources. For PDFs, and organise them in 'Literature review' folder under the theme/concept I'm exploring. I have a large lined paper notebook in which I list everything I've read by bibliographic information in the back (an un-alphabetical 'works cited' type page), and write down direct quotations of the article that I find useful in the front. I also quickly summarise the article into a short, 5 sentence annotated bibliography. After I have gone through the article and feel like I've sufficiently copied the useful bits, I then put them on notecards. Front top of the index card is author(date), and theme that I'm categorising the index card under later, in a large rolodex type box. I then write the direct quote on the back w/page number and then write a parphrase in my words of the quote on the front of the index card. I file it away, and pull them out when I'm ready to write. That way, I can 'write around' direct quotations if I want, or already plug in my paraphrase of the quote.

This method words the best for me, and my supervisors said they're really pleased by how everything is synthesised, rather than a laundry list of (cf....). It also makes a great stack of physical notes in which I can re-theme and use for an article quickly, or presentation.

To each their own, and I'm curious what methods work for others, besides the electronic reference managers. I found this method online when I was getting frustrated by not remembering when I just copy and paste.

Ah, good, congratulations! If you had minor revisions from peer-review than it's most likely a pass and awaiting decision is a formality that they'll do once the semester is back in session. If the journal does online publishing ahead of print, then you'll get a decision on the date it'll be available online.

Most universities are on holiday break now and begin teaching in a couple of weeks. So, don't expect a reply until then. The journal's webpage usually has an expected time frame, I think it 3-6 weeks is normal for the editor's decision at passing an article onto peer review or desk-rejecting it.

Hey Tudor,

My partner is going through this process now. He discussed it with his professor and they made a list of five people. The hard part was deciding if the contacts should be based more on methods or knowledge of the case study. (This is in a humanities discipline.) In the end, they had a good mix. They personally knew some of them. He prepared a 3-page thesis rationale (outline) and an abstract and the professor sent to the first one. It took about 3 weeks until one was chosen, as the supervisor sometimes had to field some questions about the topic if the potential examiner was unsure if they'd be suitable.

Hey N,

I'm studying Politics at Nottingham. Self-funded, international and classified as a 'mature student'. :) Although, I think most of us first years are 35+ . I've had to make a decision to either work part-time and take all four years, or really push hard to finish in two and live off savings, and I think the latter plan is what I'm going for! Which uni are you attending? (also feel free to PM!)

In my experience, the professors appreciate having a well-written proposal with research questions/hypothesis, timeline, background reading (mini literature review). It gives them an idea of how you envision your research path, how much you know now, and where they can offer suggestions for improvement.

It depends on the requirements during the first year. My university required for autumn: a mandatory class (3 hours/week), plus a 4-hour block once a week for meetings. I can technically only show up for two days during the week, if I wanted to. No classes needed for spring semester, though or going forward. Supervisor meetings are usually only once a month and are an hour or less.
I'm also encouraged to be affiliated with a research centre, and they have meetings/talks every two weeks or so.

The first substantial piece of writing is due on the one-year mark (8,000-10,000 words, usually a literature review chapter. Considering the first six months is usually reading and notes, with some writing building up, I think you would be okay working part-time while being a student full-time. You need some strong self-discipline, but I gather you're good with that if you've been running your own business! I know several students who have to work part time, time is tight but they easily meet all their deadlines. Some students have admitted to only needing to really work on the PhD 3 hours a day. Make sure you have a good reading and note taking method, and you should be fine.

I'm in a humanities/social science discipline. You might need different advice if you're going into the hard sciences.

I found that the PhD books mentioned by newlease are very helpful. They provide a glimpse into the necessary frameworks that are expected in the different parts of the thesis product. It is good that you are preparing this far in advance. I also prepared 9 months before by gathering literature, making notes, learning about different methods. Due to that, I'm almost a year ahead of my colleagues, which helps if you plan on graduating earlier to save money/get into the job market. It is also helpful for you to learn different notetaking techniques and see which one works for you the best.

Discursive constructions in ISIS multilingual materials is my area of expertise, actually. Good to find a fellow nerd on the subject, as not everyone wants to tackle this topic! Regarding which method, it is really up to you as long as you are comfortable with a certain method as well as being able to fend off critiques using it. I use a critical discourse analysis approach, because that is what I'm trained in. I never really explicitly state a framework that I use, I just try to develop the strong themes in the discourse and how they develop, so I also blend in narrative analysis. (I don't do discursive psychology). Critical approaches work for me as I found the discourse in the range of materials is very reflexive, often responding to wider socio-political issues to legitimise their arguments. This ranges from black lives matter (racial integration in the caliphate), from framing legitimate state leaders as hypocritical, being a wage slave (caliphate is socialist), and just the basic message of make your life meaningful. Of course, we all know this is utter rubbish in real life, but the reflexive characteristics of the discourse are very much overlooked in terrorism studies, especially traditional streams like Hoffman, Neumann, etc. Media and terrorism discipline's tenancy to focus on violence (which is not a dominating feature in the materials actually) and Islamic scripture makes it a ripe time for your angle of agency. Very interesting! If you're more clear on FDA, you should go with it.

If you haven't already, take a look through the websites of Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence, and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Critical Studies on Terrorism to see what the trend is in analysing discourse and see where your study fits in. Media and Conflict also has some articles which analyse IS discourse, usually Dabiq.

Hope that's helpful!