I think you're fine, it's one word. They probably won't even notice. It's not like it's a complete change of topic!

Take a deep breath and relax. Good luck!

I agree with TOL. Social media is terrible because it allows people to only show the good side of themselves, having an amazing time. It doesn't show the blood, sweat and tears. I know people for whom this has triggered their depression, because "everyone is doing better than them".

If it's true and that they celebrate every little thing, it's probably nothing to do with the supervisors, rather the team as a whole - Some teams are a lot closer than others, they do more stuff together. That's life and it happens in every organisation.

If you want to do more and celebrate the achievements of people in your team, why don't you take the initiative? Next time someone achieves something, suggest going for a drink, or bring in a cake. Make them feel special. Then they might do it for you. Don't leave it up to your supervisor who probably doesn't even know your team might need a morale boost.

Thanks everyone for your replies. They have been really helpful and made me feel better. I even found some motivation to get some stuff done over the weekend... I think to be honest this winter hasn't been great for my depression either, but at least the weather feels like it's turning a bit (she says as it's raining outside her window...).

I'm a scientist, so definitely over analytical, I've also discovered among all the background reading and learning new methods that I'm definitely an output orientated person. Switching from a quantitative background to a mostly qualitative PhD is a mental challenge - I should keep reminding myself that's what I wanted!

No one can say that a PhD isn't a journey in personal development!

I've never been the most confident person, but I don't remember ever being this bad.

Thanks for the encouragement Bong, it's really helpful to know I'm not alone. I know everyone says that it's difficult in the beginning, but everyone round here seems to be more clued up or have a lot more extra stuff going on - Which probably is't the case. I think perhaps I need to be a bit less hard on myself as long as I'm getting the work done. This week has been a good week and I've got nearly everything ticked off my list, so I should feel pleased going into the weekend.

Hi everyone,

I'm feeling really down today.

As a bit of background, prior to starting my PhD I was in a job that wasn't a good fit for me. Likewise I had a boss who made me feel stupid, like I couldn't do anything right.

Fast forward to now, I started my PhD in October, I have absolutely no confidence in my abilities. I've actually had a pretty success week, but I can't shake days like today where I feel sick and lost, like I'm not doing enough or I don't know enough. I also feel like I have to get my supervisor to agree everything, like I need her to hold my hand.

Is this normal? Does it get better? Will I be able to go a whole week being pleased with my progress?

I tend to look at it in the way of, if someone's contribution has been necessary to the project, e.g helping put together protocols, data collection tools, doing data collection etc then I would be looking to include them as authors on the paper.

I have in the past got advice from people about using particular methods, but this was general discussion and they didn't work directly on my project, therefore despite them going over my head and telling my boss they should be rewarded for this, I didn't include them as an author, but did acknowledge them. (Wow, hadn't realised I was so bitter!)

You absolutely should be the first author.

Tudor_Queen - if I had been collecting and analyzing data for a project and it was a vital part of the research, I'd expect to be more than an acknowledgment - Although at that stage of my career I'd probably be happy enough too

I agree with what is being said, and I'm in a similar situation in that I don't have a good grasp of the methods I need for my PhD - But I chose those PhD because they were methods that I wanted to learn. I could have chosen a PhD which just used methods I've been using in my work since I did my undergrad in 2006 but ultimately, what would I get out of that? Isn't that a waste of a PhD.

Why are you angry at yourself for having to refer and look up things you did over 10 years ago? Everyone forgets things they haven't done recently and needs reminders.

There is nothing wrong with being pushed out of your comfort zone, I completely get that it is daunting and I too worry that I'm not doing enough or I don't understand things I should, or the worst, I'm not explaining myself well enough. I've been having ups and downs since I started... This week is a down for me too.

Keep your head down, don't punish yourself if you don't understand things straight away, set small goals. Reward yourself.

You'll get there. I'll get there. I'm sure of it.

Sounds like a good plan to me

Sorry, I'm not sure there's an easy answer... Depends on what they're going to do with them.

If I was preparing them for someone in my epidemiology department, I'd probably send them the excel workbook with text boxes describing the key messages of the graphs, as I'd expect them to tweak the graphs as they like.

If sending to someone with less analysis skills, I'd send it in a word document as a report if I needed to describe assumptions or limitations with the data.

If they wanted graphs for a presentation, I'd probably put them in PowerPoint with a key message or two for each graph.

I don't even know what mine is....

Surely how you go about finding people very much depends on who you want to interview and about what?

For example, I'm interested in talking to horse owners - I'm actually doing a mixed methods study and will be recruiting from my questionnaire, but assuming I wasn't and I just wanted to do interviews, I would probably put adverts on social media and in equine magazines.

If I wanted something specific, say for example I was interested in talking to breeders, I'd research breed registers and see if I could get the advert sent either directly to their mailing lists, or again up on their websites, or sharing to specialists facebook pages etc.

Perhaps if you give us a bit more detail about the problems you're having?

Just wanted to say that I hope it goes well. You seem to be getting positive feedback that everything is looking better so it sounds like you're doing everything you ccan.

Ooh think I like the track changes idea. :-)

I had the stupid idea that I'd start writing up early, first lit review and then methods... Have those done by the end of year one.

I have procrastinated so much and failed to write anything decent, that this week I had "Write 200 words on questionnaire methods" on my todo list! Pleased to say I ticked it off :-)

I agree with Treeoflife, it'll look odd if you leave it off. However don't undervalue your professional experience in these things. I've seen many jobs advertised asking for a particular degree "or equivalent experience"

As someone who came into her PhD with 12 years work experience, I'd suggest that it set me up a lot better than sitting in lectures and being able to regurgitate facts in exams.

I looked into this route too. Warwick Uni as suggested by TreeofLife above, used to only accept ex-students. But maybe this has changed?

It's been quite a few years since I looked into it, but i's worth looking around at the the different requirements, there's often differences in the number of papers, when they needed to be published and the time scale. I remember some requiring all first author papers and all papers had to be new, whereas others would accept papers up to 5 years old and you didn't need to be first author.

Contact your previous universities to see if this is something they do, as I said, in the past some have only done it for staff and previous students. And perhaps re-speak to your colleagues to find out where they did theirs.

A quick note about authorship on papers. I spoke to someone who wasn't the first author on one of his papers and he said it was really difficult for the viva because they wanted to go into great detail that as a co-author he didn't necessarily know. He recommended being first author on as many as possible

Good luck :-)