If they've asked you to revise and resubmit then that's a good thing as it means that they think that the subject of your paper is interesting and worth publishing but just needs some polishing. Don't be disheartened, it's rare that anyone gets a paper accepted straight away. If they've provided you with detailed comments do everything they've suggested and submit again.

Just a little update as I didn't get any earlier opinions, I spent some time doing my research on tablets and have ended up buying a fairly cheap android tablet (£90) yesterday and so far I've found it useful for making brainstorms and a few notes plus the obvious web browsing. I'm not fussed about using it for games so haven't even tried yet, I'm quite happy faffing around online when it comes to time wasting!

My laptop is nearly 3 years old and still runs well enough but it is slowing down and getting hot especially when it's online. The idea for me was to shift some of the lighter work, i.e. notes, editing/proof reading documents and a bit of reading to a tablet which is more portable and faster to load for a quick bit of work and so far I think it was a good purchase but of course only time will tell.

When it comes to making notes I much prefer to type so I can read them the following week as my handwriting is atrocious and I have to type anything important up as quick as I can otherwise I'll never decipher it!

Just wondering if any other postgrads are using tablets at all to help with their work? I've specified android in the title so no opinions on ipads please as they are way out of my price range. I'm thinking of spending up to £170.
I'd just like to know whether you think they can be useful for paper reading/annotating and editing written work/making notes when you have a spare half hour on a train etc? Or would it just end up being a toy used for web browsing and time wasting?
My laptop is gradually starting to slow down as I use it for everything so am wondering if by shifting some of the load to another device whether that would be worth the money or not especially as I'm entering my 4th year soon.

Any opinions welcome.

It's only a 3 month position so if I were you I would take it as it's a source of income whilst looking for post docs at other institutes that have longer contracts and to give you time to address any visa issues. I don't think 3 months would make it look as if you're stagnating and from what you've written it sounds as though it's an interesting project to be involved with that may help to give your CV a boost.

If you don't want to faff around learning the code for LaTeX then Lyx is a more user friendly option. It gives you all the functionality of LaTeX but in a GUI environment similar to Word, i.e. point and click instead of typing code. There is also a track changes option in Lyx although I haven't used this yet but apparently it's very similar to Word. The finished document also looks nicer than anything produced in Word though you do have to allow LaTeX to place figures etc where it deems them most appropriate.

I fell out with Word after it nearly ate my MSc dissertation, though I was using it on an old laptop at the time. My sup put me on to LaTeX at the beginning of PhD but I recently switched to Lyx because it has a rather nice built in thesis template which at my stage (entering 4th year soon) makes life a hell of a lot easier.


You can get Lyx from here and it doesn't take too long to install, the documentation is also worth a read through to get started.

http://www.lyx.org/

This book is quite good for beginners as it assumes no prior programming knowledge.

Matlab: A Practical Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving by Stormy Attaway

If you have a look through the help section in matlab and on the website there are also some useful tutorials. I've been using matlab for a few years but am no means an expert, whenever I get stuck on how to do something I usually find that a google search of 'how to do x in matlab' brings up helpful webpages.

Awesome thank you :)

Would be very grateful if anyone can get hold of this for me please.

A. Rodgers, 2013. The use and misuse of V c,max in Earth System Models, Photosynthesis Research, DOI
10.1007/s11120-013-9818-1

Would it be possible to include the data on a CD attached to the thesis? Surely no one would expect you to print hundreds of pages of data.

Not much more to add other than also recommending Mendeley and LaTeX. I heard so many horror stories about Endnote so I avoided it, Mendeley is also free which is always a bonus. LaTeX does take a bit of getting used to especially if you're not a programmer, there is a more 'user friendly' version as well called Lyx. This has a similar interface to Word, i.e. point and click rather than typing code but it has all the nice functionality of LaTeX. It is also free and fairly easy to get the hang of.

Also make sure you take a decent holiday before you get started, it's good to be as refreshed as possible before the hard work begins. I had a month between finishing my MSc and starting PhD and I did nothing, no reading or anything vaguely useful, just lazing around. I needed it as I worked full time whilst writing the MSc dissertation and I was knackered afterwards!

Thanks for your advice, I've been thinking along the same lines.

I've just had a chat about the job with my supervisor, the ad was sent to a group mailing list so he'd already seen it, he thinks that I could do the job which is a nice confidence boost. However he is concerned about me finishing the PhD if I did get the job but he hasn't talked me out of applying for it.

Someone else in my department at the same stage as me recently started a job and she has managed to come to some kind of flexible arrangement which allows her to spend time on the thesis and the job, plus she's gone down to part time registration for her PhD. I've sent an informal enquiry to see if there is any scope for this before I put in all the effort for the application. Part of me still wants to finish the PhD, I don't like the idea of it hanging over me unfinished, but the other part just wants to get out and work.

I'm currently in my 3rd year working as hard as I can on my PhD but I still don't expect to submit until spring next year. There's been some technical issues along the way. My department are applying for an additional 6 months funding as mine runs out in September although I haven't had any of this officially confirmed yet.

My dilemma is that I have just seen an advert for a job that looks perfect for me, it's a 3 year research associate trainee placement in an organisation closely aligned with the topic of my PhD. I've thought for a while that I didn't want to stay in academia so I suppose if I got this job then that's the route I'd end up taking. But as it's a trainee scheme it means I'd be learning extra skills along the way which I guess would make me more employable afterwards. The salary is roughly equivalent to that of a post-doc job which is good.

The challenge of course would be trying to get the PhD finished, it's not a requirement of the job, they will hire with just a masters (which I have) and relevant experience, which I could argue that I have from the PhD so far.

Of course I want to get the PhD over and done with but how many perfect job opportunities are out there? Not sure if I should take my chances and apply for it or just hope something else equally good turns up in 6 months.

What would you do in my situation?

I'd recommend Mendeley. It's free software that lets you highlight and annotate pdf files within the programme and it also works as a reference manager allowing you to insert citations into Word documents or export bibtex files to use with latex. I've been using it since the beginning and I'd be lost without it. You can organise papers into groups depending on category and search within your notes and the pdfs when looking for something.

http://mendeley.com/

I'm a year ahead of you, facing the prospect of 4th year and from your description it sounds like you're on target if you only have approx 6 months of actual research left to do before you start writing the rest of it up.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I looked up the book Ultimax recommended, I can't afford to buy it at the moment but I did find the authors website and there are some useful articles on there which are free to access.

I sat down and made a long detailed to do list and this has actually helped me to focus on what needs to be done in the short term, i.e. different stages of my experiments, and longer term. I also managed to tick one of the smaller tasks off not long after I wrote th list so that helped to give me a boost.

I'm not too worried about the writing side at the moment as my sup has always told me that my writing is good, guess I'm just lucky there. It's the research side that I find harder, especially since I decided a while ago that I know I don't want a career in research. This is also playing on my mind, what do I do next, but I'm trying not to think about it at the moment as it just stresses me out.

@IntoTheSpiral, my funding also runs out at the end of September although I am eligible to apply for an additional 6 months after my next committee meeting ( at my uni we have these every 6 months and the next will be some time in the next few weeks), this would keep me going until the end of March as long as I get it.

I had a meeting with my supervisor yesterday and he still seems to think I'm just about on track, so I suppose I just need to start believing in myself more. I am feeling a bit more positive today so I just need to try and keep hold of this feeling!