CannonKing

Realistically speaking, in the humanities, after the PhD you either go for a lectureship or for a postdoc if you want to stay in academia. The entry salary for a junior lecturer here is about £30/35K more or less. A postdoc is pretty much the same money, but instead of working for it, you need to win a fellowship (British Academy or AHRC) and take your money and project somewhere. Basically create your own project, pitch it to a funding body, get the money upfront, and then see it through.

Either way its pretty competitive but, in my opinion, the payout is pretty good. I used to make half of that when I was working as a customer service specialist. And that is the entry salary. Once you become a lecturer or reader, it will be much more.

But the point is, whatever the salary, you get to be paid to do research and teach. How much do you care about doing research? for me, its pretty vital. I feel my everyday life would be empty without it. I need the mental stimulation that comes with research. I feel that teaching doesn't require that much effort after the first 6 months or so, you just slip into a routine. research however is always challenging, and I need that in my life.

To me the perks of the job are: carrying out research that is meaningful to me, going to conferences and speak to like-minded academics, publishing papers and getting feedback, being considered an expert in my field, helping people who ask me, and of course, being paid for what I am good at.

CannonKing, I also have a humanities PhD from a Russel Group University in UK. My personal opinion is that yes, it is absolutely worth it.

What concerns me a little in your OP is that you are badly supervised, seem to think this is normal, you are bleeding money left and right on books, you dont have a grant, you are struggling with mental health issues and caring for others.

To be honest, it seems to me you are trying to do too much. First of all, get a better way to find books. PM me if you want more details. Second, speak to somebody about supervision. Third, find out about counselling.

In my experience, it comes a time during the PhD that you will be struggling. For me this was at the end of year 1. I changed my research topic and was able to carry on. I had my share of issues but not as bad as yours. I think that you need to be careful because you have so much pressure piled on!

Having said all that, I am now realing the fruits of my efforts and it’s pretty awesome. I get to research stuff I am really interested in and there’s nobody really telling me what to do. I get to travel to conferences and live abroad and its all funded and stress free.

Hi, I am not sure what you are asking here! Yes of course the same examiners will look at your thesis again. Have you received a report yet? What was their problem with your work?

It is possible to pass the second viva, if you fix the thesis. They would have failed you outright if they didnt think you could make it. Consider yourself lucky, they gave you another chance.

Hi, nobody seems to have replied so far so I guess I could try,

I guess what you are trying to say is that you are going to do review of the literature in your field. that is a part of a PhD thesis. then, after you have done that, you still have to look for unexplored areas and questions, find a relevant question to ask, find a method to answer that question, and then carry out a study to see if what you think its the answer is good enough. so, basically, your idea is the first part of a much longer process. does it make sense? this is why you need 4 years to do a PhD.

Check pm

Well, in short, you need to find the motivation to start writing!

Let me put it in a way that a finance student would appreciate. My salary as a customer service specialist was £17K. The entry salary for a lecturing position in UK is about £31K. Nearly twice as much. consider also that I hated my previous job, it was boring after 6 months. Now I get to teach and research stuff that I am genuinely interested in.

So, the PhD is essentially a piece of paper that allows you to enter the world of academia. getting it is hard, boring work. But of course if it was easy everybody would have one.

I guess my point is, it's ok if you dont love your PhD. the point is to just get it done, so that you can start doing the stuff you like and get paid a decent salary for it.

however if you have better opportunities elsewhere, maybe you should consider them? can you get a good job in your field without a PhD? but really, you are in your third year, just write the damn thesis and be done with it!

Sorry to hear. But you didnt get a R&R, cause that would entail another viva I think. You got major corrections, and you have up to 9 months to do them (means if you can do them faster, you can hand it in well before the deadline!).

Also, sorry to point this out, but 'worse day of your life'? I guess you never lost anybody and your family has been blessed with perfect health. lucky you.

One of the books that helped me to get out my second year slump was called ‘write your thesis 5 minutes every day’ or something. The idea is to set yourself a target, say, 300 words a day at least. The thing with writing is, its difficult to get started, but once you have something on paper its much easier to revise it and make it better. So the 300 words end up becoming a 1000 once you get throught it.

For me the key to writing is to find out what theoretical points I have to tackle - then the actual writing part is ok once I figure out what needs to be addressed. I like to tackle one point every day, after thinking about it during the day. So its like washing the dishes in a way, The process of methodically tidying up things one by one until theres nothing left.

The problem for me is alway finding out the ‘headings’ for every point. It takes a bit of reading around the topic to finally decide an approach.

I send him/her the paper, no reply so far...

Yes of course, I handed my thesis in days before the deadline, like pretty much everybody I know.

Think about it this way: you still have 3 months after submission before the viva, and then you will likely have 3 more months after the viva for minor revision. So you could still be working on your thesis for a further 6 months before its really done.

Does it have value for other researchers? Like - would it make a contribution to the field knowing that whatever you found out that didn't work did not in fact work? Was your hypothesis really obvious? If not, there may be some merit in writing it down, so others may one day look at whaever your were looking for in a different way?

Hi, I am just curious, what made you think writing would be easy?

As for my opinion, just write something today, set youserself a goal of writing at least 300 words a day, regardless of quality. Take in consideration that you will need to revise it, so it doesent have to be perfect the first time around. As for references, it depends what you are writing about . Your lit review and theoretical chapter will probably have more quotes. Your case study will be explained more in your own words I imagine.

It’s quite hard to give advice on this because it normally takes me age to find out what I want to say, but once I figure it out its not so bad. However there is a certain formula that I follow and that makes it fairly easy.

You have your data - do you have a theoretical framework to make sense of it?

I have some! Dont spend money on drinks, dont eat takeaways, dont buy fancy clothes, dont eat out at all, book trains and planes well in advance, dont shop at fancy supermarkets, visit friends when you travel abroad.

On the plus side: eat healthy food, cook at home from scratch, eat vegetables, drink smoothies instead of coffee, shop at charity shops, go for walks, spend time with the people you love.