congrats and send some waves of positive energy and good luck. please :) We need it. Have fun!

Fail? Of course I do. I only get another chance. If I resubmit my thesis and it is not good enough they will give me the Mphil instead and I will have wasted 6 years of my life. But for me an R&R is not a fail but a second chance to improve my work.

Other people who worked on a similar cross-disciplinary topic to mine for their PhD, have been unemployed since the early 2000s. That is one of the reasons that after I graduate (hopefully) I will make a u-turn and only deal with one of the two fields, as I did with my BA and masters. What annoys me though is when I get ostracised by academic societies and communities because I only cover their field by 50%. Saying that, I participate in conferences in both fields, only in some of them I suspect that they give me a poster presentation instead of an oral presentation, just because my topic is not 100% relevant to the strict discipline of the event.

Yes, that is what I do. I put my interdisciplinary PhD under a generic umbrella. However, I apply for work in both fields as I have nothing to lose. I also think that the studies before our PhDs do help shaping one's academic persona. I suddenly realise how bad labelling someone in academia can be. Some academic societies are still very traditional and academic members in these fields are still very reluctant to welcome PhD graduates whose work is interdisciplinary. As I always say... we cannot please everyone!

Blackbyrd

The same happened to me and I thought I was all alone in this world...

I took about 3 months off (it took ages for the examiners to decide on my exact corrections and I got the report three months after the viva) and then I went back to the document. Initially I struggled to even OPEN the file. I started by writing down what needs doing. I panicked. Then I took it easy. I started with 1-2 hours a day and when I got used to the idea that this is it, it MUST be done, I added more working hours and now I am back to my normal pre-viva routine (8-9 hours a day). 'Simple pomodoro tracking' has really helped me become more productive.

But soon after I had my R&R I discovered that this result is not that unusual. At least a 25 percent of the current PhD students of my department have received an R&R.

And I read some positive experiences here after an r&r. It is possible to succeed. It all takes one thing: perseverance.

With respect to the confidence, I know the feeling... mine cracked like glass, but there are days I feel very confident and full of dreams for the future. Do not worry. Time will help you get your confidence back. One step a day, you will get there in the end.

If your PhD topic is 50-50%, i.e. 50% in one discipline and 50% in another, do you consider yourself an expert in both fields?

For instance, if your topic is 50% biology and 50% genetics, do you feel that you are entitled to call yourself a geneticist AND a biologist? And would you apply for jobs in both fields?

Sorry, my example may not be the best but I am sure you know what I am trying to say here.

======= Date Modified 27 Sep 2012 23:30:56 =======
I am supposed to resubmit my PhD beginning of March next year and although I do work hard I have not been doing great lately.

Three reasons

a) Since my viva result the supervisor has only seen me twice. I did not see her during the Summer because she was abroad for 3 months. But I keep her up-to-date by emailing her my work - even though she has never returned anything to me with comments on.

b) I am deeply concerned about the financial situation of my family, who live in Portugal. The crisis has hit them tremendously.

c) My husband has recently found a full time job (that pays well) south of London and we must relocate. This means that I will be living 4 hours away from my department... I am very stressed with moving city, and very worried about how I can access the library, etc (the PhD is in the humanities, so luckily I do not have labwork and I do not need to be on campus all the time). Moving house and city and doing the very end of the PhD long-distance is scary...

All these issues have made me extremely stressed. In truth I do not know what to do. Of course I do not wish to abandon the PhD at this point as I am nearly there, but I do need some time in order to sort out my life - and I don't have it.

So, I don't know if it is a good idea to talk it through with my supervisor and ask for an extension (an extra 6 months added to my 12 month R&R). This will give me time to manage my stress. Managing my life is difficult at the moment, but at least managing my stress is a good start, as stress has hit my productivity levels.

Has anyone received an extension of their R&R? Are there any other options available that I am not aware off? There is another case in postgraduate research at my department called 'absence', which allows someone to take some time off their studies, but I don't think it applies to my resubmission.

Congratulations... Only 6 months left until I resubmit. Well done!

Thanks. I sent it out in the end, without mentioning the results but giving a very generic view of them in a brief sentence. No, sadly, the limit was 200 words without exceptions. Sorry about the typo in the title.

done, good luck with it!

======= Date Modified 15 Aug 2012 17:26:54 =======
In the humanities, does an abstract have to always include a summary of the results of the research, or I could skip this step and only mention motivation, problem statement, objectives, methodology and implications?

This is for a call for papers, not for a paper publication by the way.

My results are many and conditional, and the abstract should be less that 200 words. Thee is not much space left there. Moreover, I don't really wish to spoil the ... surprise of the results when I read my paper.

Have you experienced it? And how did it happen?

I have experienced it by colleagues but it doesn't affect me, simply because I ignore these people. Also, I wonder if international students happen to receive more academic bulling than native students.

======= Date Modified 10 Aug 2012 11:53:21 =======
It must be pretty hard. At the end of the PhD, I have not managed to publish a single article yet, although I have submitted 3 articles so far. I am also part of a committee publishing conference proceedings and I can tell you from personal experience that we value all contributions with extremely high standards in mind. This means that even if a paper is good but there are other papers that are better in academic quality and require less work, if he have to accept a limited number of papers for publication, sadly some good papers are rejected (instead of revised and resubmitted). Sad but true. It has taken me a whole month writing a single paper - and when it is not published, it can get very frustrating.

I think it is only available via the British Academy Publications website. Ady, I have pmed you. Thank you ever so much.