I've got my fingers crossed for you!
It's possible that they are taking time to write a letter, hopefully you will find out soon. I know how horrible the waiting part is.
Best of luck :-)

Hi, I initially received an acceptance email for my studentship which was followed a few weeks later by a further email with a formal letter attached and the same letter was also sent by post.

So depending on what you've been told by the admin people you will probably get a formal letter at some point. It does seem to take a while for paperwork to get sent out sometimes.

Hi, I think you've covered the main sources of masters funding. I did mine part time and self funded by working in paid employment full time in the first year, part time in the second year and took out a CDL to cover the fees in the 2nd year.
Is there a possibility of a scholarship at the unis you're applying to for masters study? My uni offered a limited number of scholarships for selected courses. Perhaps you might be able to find something similar? Otherwise try the relevant research councils/funding bodies for your discipline. Obviously if you choose the 1+3 PhD then the funding issue would be sorted.

Good luck :-)

It sounds like you have identified your broad topic area so why not discuss your initial thoughts with a relevant member of academic staff in your department so they can guide you and help you shape your research topic.

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Hi I've just copied this from my departments referencing guide, hope it helps. I don't use endnote so can't help there I'm afraid.

If you access and refer to a newspaper article online, your reference would appear as follows:
Author (Year) ‘Article title’, Newspaper Title, Day Month, page number (if given), viewed Day Month Year, URL.
For example:
Syal, R. (2009) ‘Body Shop ethics under fire after Colombian peasant evictions’, The Guardian, 13th September, viewed 13th September 2009, (type the URL here)

Hey, I'm in a similar situation to you and glad to know I'm not the only one.
I've been asked to complete a literature review which is due in a few days but ideally I should have started on the research by now. However I had to have foot surgery (elective but bad timing) at the end of October and because my recovery has been very slow I've had to work from home. My PhD involves computer modelling and my sup needs to teach me how to use the software etc before I can get started. But because I've been stuck at home this hasn't happened yet and I do feel like I'm behind. I'm enjoying all the reading because I find my subject really interesting but I'm getting a bit frustrated because it feels like I'm not making any progress yet!

Not sure what advice I can give but keep up with the reading and writing because it will be worth it, at least I hope so for both of us! :-)

I saw that yesterday. Hopefully some of those kids will be inspired to carry on and become PhDers one day

got it! pm me your address

Hi Keenbean thanks for your reply. I guess you're right, if I managed to write well at MSc then I should be able to do this. Incidentally I got a distinction for my dissertation and I do enjoy writing so maybe I am winding myself up over nothing. It's probably because I've been told that my sup wants me to do the PhD by publication and aiming to get the first paper submitted towards the end of my first year. Which sounds a bit scary because I haven't actually done any 'work' yet, all I've been doing is the lit review. Mainly because I've been stuck at home for the last 6 weeks recovering from foot surgery and as I am in physical geography there's not a lot else that can be done from home! Luckily I'm allowed to go back to uni tomorrow and have a meeting with my sup so hopefully I can find out where I'm going next after the lit review is done.

But for now I will focus on getting and done and I will make sure I ask him for plenty of feedback.

Hope is all going well with your PhD :-)

Hi, I'm not sure if this has been covered already (I know there's been some lit review threads recently) but I'm currently writing a lit review that's due before xmas. I'm in my 1st year (started oct) and my sup wants me to write at least 7000 words, which is not too bad as I've already got 5,500 and currently editing those before adding the rest of it. My question is how much did you have to change your writing style to make it 'PhD level'? I've been told by my sup that my writing style is good, but this was at MSc level (he was my MSc tutor). So far I think what I've written is reasonably good but I'm not sure if it's at the right level yet. My sup wants to me to write the review to check I understand my topic as it's in a different field to my MSc dissertation, and to assess my writing style. I think I understand the basic concepts and am hoping that I can demonstrate some understanding of the more complicated things. I'm just wondering how much of a step up is there from good writing at MSc level to good writing at PhD level?

It probably sounds like a silly question but it's been bugging me a bit.

hey I have it and have PM'd you

The equations part of word 2007 isn't great if you have complicated equations because it seems to take forever to get it into the right format because word likes to helpful and automatically change things sometimes (I speak from past experience). However it does have all of the symbols and mathematical operators you need. Good luck!

I am in geography but can't get it, maybe because it's quite old. Sorry.

Hi Mazz21, I think it depends on the uni you apply to. When I applied for my MSc 2 years ago I sent the application in November and had an acceptance letter in February so as a rough guess I'd suppose you should hear something by then, but I suppose it depends on whether there are application deadlines or not and obviously how quick the admin department in each uni does things!

The process for my PhD was a bit quicker, I applied in May (this year) had an interview in June and got the acceptance letter sometime in July/August (I had an email day after interview).

Rose, it sounds like you are very organised and I hope the MSc goes well. I started an MSc (part time) straight after completing my BSc and then I applied for my PhD towards the end of my MSc. I did my BSc at a different uni to the MSc. Prior to applying for the PhD my MSc supervisor told me about the project and asked if I would be interested (I had previously expressed a desire to do a PhD and had already had one failed application to a different uni) I said yes and then just had to wait for the project to be formally advertised because it came with a full studentship before I could apply. Then I started my PhD in October this year.

Hope some of this is helpful.

Good luck to you both :-)

Thanks woof, will PM you now