In response to idawo's/Doc Insanity post (Part I):

It is, really, about who you know and I am (unfortunately) probably that similar Mphil candidate you spoke of.

In December I was offered a one-year contract for a level A academic position at the university where I completed my PhD. I had only just received my PhD examination reports less than a week prior to being offered the role, and was away doing some pro-bono research consulting to help boost my CV/experience in making a transition to industry.

I didn't plan on staying in Academia and had not been actively searching for academic jobs. Rather, I had made a tentative decision to move into industry, and was beginning the long process regarding this. At the end of November, I received my examination reports, 2 months earlier than I had expected that were passed with no changes/passed very minor changes. I had been lecturing/unit coordinating as a sessional, and I was asked to submit a CV to be considered for a teaching contract. So I did, not expecting much, my head was elsewhere, getting ready to conduct interviews for the consultancy gig. Three days later, I got a phone call asking me if I wanted the job.

I never interviewed, nor were my references checked. Mostly, because I was already working in the department as a sessional, it was I suppose, a promotion. It was not an advertised position either.

I didn't have my PhD yet, but I had passed. I only had two publications under my belt (only one of which would be considered as the other was in an undergraduate journal), and a couple of conferences, but nothing major. The only thing I had that would perhaps be different, is the high level of research projects I had completed for not-for-profits as pro-bono consultancies, and engagement with the community in being a member or board member of some organisations. While not academic regarding the level of theorisation, they did count as practical experience.

Old threads get bumped up quite often actually! Sometimes it's nice to see old threads and continue the conversations, such as the Dr vs Mrs.

I refuse to use Mrs even though I'm married. I did not take my partner's last name and don't see the issue of Dr and Mr, and neither does he. But I also don't see any issue with women who might choose to use Dr in a professional setting and Mrs an in a non-professional one.

As women we work hard for our PhDs and shouldn't feel like we have to follow old conventions, or that we cannot follow old conventions if we prefer them.

I have had people ask why I don't use the married name in a non-professional context, and my response is that if men don't have to be Mr in a non-professional context (i.e. if they still can retain their same title) why should I have to?

I'm really attached to my last name and couldn't bear the thought of changing it. It of course, will probably cause issues later down the track if we have kids...Though my partner's friend at work is from India, and his children don't take his last name but rather, the convention is to take his first name as a last name (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this).

Hello everyone!

I was wondering if anyone had any advice in doing book reviews, or more specifically, how to approach editors of journals that might have a stack of books that need reviewing? I took a publications workshop once and was told that often editors have a heap of books that might need reviewing for upcoming journals.

Academia, in any form of teaching, is best described as being thrown into the deep end without anything to help you float, and learning how to tread water.

I've found on numerous occasions that I've just had to figure it out as I go along, there are no prep materials etc. You have to at some point, take initiative to figure it out and do the best you can.

Most tutorials that I have run I was never given preparatory materials. I had to develop these myself based on the topic.

The beauty of academia, and the curse, is the incredibly high level of autonomy that you might run into, and this can be rather confronting when you're looking for guidance and structure.

Just do the best you can, fake it till you make it, and so on. Not the best advice by any means, but hopefully it'll help you get by!

Heron,

It is commendable that you are highlighting the issue first and foremost, but it sounds as though you are consistently putting your family first and not doing as much for yourself.

If I were you, I would take the PhD, and see what happens in two years. Your husband says that it's a 'maybe' that you'll relocate to another country, but nothing is set in stone. I don't see why you have to forfeit a PhD, something you've stated you really want to do (and with full funding!) on a maybe. You never know what can happen in two years.

It sounds that you really care about your family and this is fantastic, but sometimes you also need to do things for yourself. Your husband should support your decision to do a PhD and perhaps take a 'we'll cross that bridge when we get to it' stance. If and when relocation becomes an actuality is when you figure out what you can do in relation to your PhD.

Things to think about (when moving to another country) are support systems, and what systems you have in place now. I think people highly underestimate a good support network, and sometimes relocating is just not the best option for a family if there are no support networks to help you out.

I would sit down with your husband and explain that this is something you really want and need to do for yourself, and you would appreciate his support.

Sometimes, YOU have to come first.

Hi Chococake,

I agree with Pjlu. You might be doing yourself a major disfavour if you try to generalise qualitative results from such a small population, even if it is relatively homogenous. It will definitely open you up for a much harsher critique in your examination, it's very easy to critique generalisability.

I had a journal article published from my thesis prior to submission that I reincorporated into that chapter. What I did was in the acknowledgements I wrote:

Parts of Chapter Three were previously published as: (insert citation here).

I didn't include a separate copy of my paper with submission.

I would check with your thesis supervisors whether they should be included or not.

Alto Edge has some good transcription software packages you can use. http://www.altoedge.com/

When I was transcribing I found them helpful. Get the bundle if you can, it includes a headset and a foot pedal, foot pedals leave your hands free for stopping/starting.

How much you transcribe is up to you. If you reach data saturation, you don't necessarily have to transcribe word for word at that point.

If you have the funding and ethics clearance, you could get them transcribed professionally.

It is of course, better to do your own transcription, you'll get more from your data that way. However, professional transcription is an option, and one I would recommend if you are really struggling. Then you can just load your documents into a software program like Atlas Ti or Nivo and code to your hearts content.

I went with professional transcription, and it was probably the best decision I made. Granted, it was made in part due to painful hand swelling and nerve injury and in part due to taking on too much teaching. I know many students of course do their own transcription and all the power to them! Personally? I'd rather spend that time coding my data or writing articles, working through theory etc. I think a number of professional academics probably don't do their own transcription, they'll send it out to be done professionally, or use the slave labour of RAs/Grad Students.

Professional transcribers are good in that they are trained in transcribing, they can do it at a very fast pace and good transcribers will highlight certain areas in the recording (in the transcript) as to what they didn't understand, allowing you to go back to that exact point and listen to fill in the gap.

Ah that makes sense. Australia there are no vivas so external examiners (to my knowledge) aren't paid.

(PHD)

The reality is that when you teach and do a PhD at the same time, you'll be putting in more than the standard 8 hours. It might be worth seeing if at some point you'll be able to take a semester off from teaching/ra work to focus on your PhD. I didn't teach the first semester 2011, or the first semester 2012 which was ideal as it allowed for me to get writing done, and data collection.

4 months in is very early and throughout your PhD you'll feel like you've got absolutely no idea what you should be doing. Try not to compare yourself to others (though it is difficult); to be honest I found that not working around others/talking to others about their PhD lessened the stress and feeling of not getting work done. This meant that my PhD experience was rather isolating as I often worked from home, but I did get a lot of work done and this minimised the feeling of not 'getting enough done' in contrast to others. Just something to think about.

As Caro has said, one thing at a time. Other than your teaching expectations, maybe focus on either your literature review or your programming, but not both at the same time.

(MARKING)

Marking is absolutely horrific. It takes up all of your time. However, your supervisor is correct in saying that you should try and bring it down to only 15-20 mins per paper. This means you might need to cut back on all the in-text comments you might be making and perhaps utilise a detailed qualitative rubric with just some additional comments on the bottom. It's so tempting to correct everything in a paper but the reality is you just don't have the time to help the students with their writing/language expressions. I was the same with marking, and after a few years of teaching I can get about 3-4 papers done an hour (depending on the word count) but I don't provide in-text comments. A massive (we're talking A3 size haha) landscape rubric and some comments are my methods.

One thing that helps with marking (I found) is keeping a list of common issues that you find where you can just copy and paste the feedback in. You don't need to reinvent the wheel with feedback, there will be common issues that students do. I always have a word document with common phrases I can use/can be adjusted.

The other thing that helps with marking is dividing your papers by the number of days you have to mark, and setting a minimum limit per day. So, if you have 100 papers to mark, and 10 days to get them marked (with 2-3 extra days for error/etc) then that's 10 papers a day. If you can get yourself down to 3-4 an hour, then that's only a couple of hours. I might do 5 first thing in the morning, and then 5 in the evening.

I don't know if examiners are specifically 'paid' to examine a thesis. They don't necessarily have to examine a thesis and it's not actually in their job description. Rather, I think examiners are approached and decide for themselves whether or not they have the capacity at that time to examine a thesis, but unlike publication and research funding requirements, to my knowledge there is no expectation regarding the number of theses someone in academia has to examine. This is why it can sometimes be difficult to line up examiners that have the capacity and are knowledgeable in your subject area. I think my supervisors went through five or six individuals before they were able to secure two examiners, because the others did not have the capacity at the time or had left academia. It's the same for reviewing publications. It's not actually in their immediate job description to review articles, or to edit journals. These are often jobs performed as voluntary to boost the CV/demonstrate expertise, but it's not an essential component of their role.

Wait it out or correspond via your supervisor as Ian has suggested. I know here in Australia you cannot have any contact with your examiners, though I'm not sure if that rule applies to corrections with examiners approval. Your thesis, while high on your list of priorities, will unfortunately not be as high on your examiners. They'll have publications, funding applications etc that will take precedence over examining your thesis. Which really sucks, but tends to be the unfortunate reality.

I can't get over how rude that second guy was, or the Spanish inquisition on your impact factor/university ranking. I don't have any experience with Industrial PhDs but I would think that potential candidates going in would be even less likely to have publications than a purely academic PhD? Many candidates go into PhD programs having no publications, let alone a few in some B or C ranked journals (I'll be honest, I think those journal rankings a little bit bullsh*t but understand the premise).

I wouldn't get too upset about university rankings, they can be rather arbitrary in the grand scheme of things and some are based on exclusion rates.

That second guy sounds like he just wanted someone who already had a PhD/level C academic as opposed to an actual PhD student and is too preoccupied with status. A good supervisor understands that the PhD is a learning process, and you'll undoubtedly come in with little knowledge, and come out with some good experience (hopefully!).

It's a horrible experience, but the fact that you have publications already is really good! I hope you have better luck with future applications!

Maximo, I'm so sorry to hear of the issues you are having with your supervisors. It's good to hear that you've already got publications!

The issue is that as a PhD student, the work you do is under the mentorship and guidance of your supervisors, so I think unless they say otherwise, you are suppose to put their names as co-authors, but you list your name first.

As you are so close to finishing, and already have publications under your belt, it might be wise to just compromise and keep your head above water until you finish. As Marasp has suggested, take a neutral position and just keep trudging forward! Part of the issue could be ego, after all, you sound very independent which is great, and some supervisors would love to have you as a student, but others, might be resentful that you are not regarding them as 'higher beings' which is no fault of your own, but a tricky situation none-the-less.