Hi springtime, I read your other post and you seem to be in a very awkward position. I don't know how you can seize the initiative as you are totally dependant on your supervisor for fieldwork. Though, I would assume that you are going to do some labwork in order to anlayse your samples, am I right? As I knew quite a few fieldwork dependant PhD students who practice the labwork before their first field trip. You could collect some random samples from your garden or a park and follow the recommended procedure, or something similar. It not only gives you some practise but also means you are less likely to make mistakes on important samples.

Take a break! Seriously, taking a week or two off will not damage your progress and give you a chance to clear your head. I have been were you have been with both burnout and a seriously flawed project. The trick is to not let the PhD consume you and make sure you have a healthy work life balance. Stress makes everything more difficult and a few weeks off will make you far more productive in the long term than working non-stop.

With a "mess" of a project , take a step back and try to distil the project to what you think your main contribution is. If there are a lot of use parts, do not be afraid t jettison them and focus on what you can do (if your supervisors ask say you will do it later). Most people's PhDs change somewhat during between starting and finishing for a variety of reasons. It is not uncommon for supervisors to write overly ambitious grants/projects to get funding with the expectation of doing less, so don't feel obliged to do every small part of the project. Try to focus on the most important parts of your project that you can reliably accomplish. Then after doing that, you can focus on connecting the loose parts together.

I can understand your frustration because my original PhD project had some serious serious methodological flaws. It took me a year to convince my supervisors that the original plan was not achievable because we simply did not have the right equipment. However, I kept the core concept and built upon that with stuff that I knew I could achievable with the resources I had available. It was tough and I can sympathise with you because of my experience but you need to take the initiative. As, I realised that it was my supervisors who wrote the flawed original project so I would need to reshape it myself. So I would recommend you to stop waiting for your supervisors to give you advice on what you should do, and instead tell them what you plan to do.

I agree with abababa and I don't think there is much I can add. Although, I would make sure in your report clearly state all relevant dates, time periods and how you shared your work. You want to make sure that you can prove that your work was published before they started their publishing process. Also, a sneaky way to alert the journal you published your work in is to email the editors to inquire if any of your reviewers of your papers were the suspects in question. You might be lucky and find that they reviewed work before publishing the same work.

On a side note, have you tried using any of those plagiarism checkers such as turnitin? It probably won't give you anything but it could be a useful point if the plagiarism checker thinks it was copied.

It is totally true.

On topic. You will generally find that the more southernly universities have higher living expenses than northern cities. If moe is an issue I would consider more northern unis such as Leeds and Nottingham. I am also not disrespecting St. Andrews as a university but it is effectively a village in the middle of no-where. If you want a city life avoid St. Andrews but it is very picturesque and relaxing if you like fields.

You can't be certain either way. Every university has their own timeline and it can take several months. It has only been a month which is quite a short time period for the university bureaucratic juggernaut. Though you could politely email the admissions staff for an update. Most admissions teams will give you an update as to what stage it is; still shortlisting, waiting on academic, rejection etc. However, I would wait a month or two before doing that as it is still early.

Massive congratulations! Well done Dr Evelyn!

To be honest, a year a go I would have said that you would have a had a good chance with a 2.1 but things have gotten a lot more competitive with COVID. It is has just made it more difficult to differentiate yourself but you can still do it. The skills required at undergraduate and postgraduate are different and the interviewers understand that, so show them that you have the relevant research skills. I rambled a bit in another thread about interviews and some of that might be relevant to your application.

Also, I would recommend you having an answer just encase you get asked at the interview about why you got a 2.1 or how you could have done better. A lot of lecturers and professors got 2.1 at undergrad but they still expect you to be able to self reflect.

I have just realised there was a spelling mistake in the title ;) LOL!

After all that, take another deep breath. You will have other opportunities even if this seems like the only one. Things will get better. So try your best and take as much from the process as you can. That was a high level guide full of genericizations you don't have to do everything but just my attempt at a detailed guide, as every interview board is different.

Goodluck!

PS: What university is LIDo? I have never heard that abbreviation before.

EDIT: I split over two posts because of character limit

Take a deep breath. It will be okay. Anxiety is a major issue and are you sure you want to start a PhD with crippling anxiety. PhDs can be stressful and you should look to manage it before you start.

For the interview, does the PhD have a set title, have you been asked to present did you submit a research proposal? Generally if you said yes to any of them you will asked be questions on it and that is your best chance to differentiate yourself. The interviewers want to see that you can form logical independent thoughts and not just regurgitate information. The skills required at undergraduate and postgraduate are different and the interviewers understand that with regards to your 2.1, but they might ask why you only got a 2.1 and you should have a decent answer prepared.

So if you have a title/proposal to talk about focus on what you want to do. Look for a few seminal papers on the topic (or what your supervisors have written) and talk about how your PhD fits into greater picture. What is your knowledge gap and how do you seek to fulfil it? Make a few bold predictions of you might find and if possible mention any issues you might expect. Don't be afraid to be wrong, you probably will be wrong, but showing that you can form a logical independent thought will suggest that you have the abilities to do research. Also, they will probably ask you questions about whatever you say, if you don't know the answer say that you don't know but talk about what the answer could be. A little humility can prevent you bullsh***ng too much.

If you don't have any topic/proposal to go off and it is a purely CV interview, the transferrable skills they are looking for are; previous research, analysing literature, any form of hypothesis driven work, planning skills, report writing skills, previous presentations or outreach, technical skills related to your PhD. That list is not exhaustive but you can be creative to find examples of you showing those skills before, you can maybe embellish them a little. When talking about them, explain in detail about; what you did, what were the problems, what did you achieve, what you would differently and how want to carry on building them. If you have answers for some of them of you can use them to answer other generic questions. From what I know, the most generic questions are; why do want to do a PhD (show passion), why should we hire you (tell them what to you want to do and how you will take the initiative further), what can you add to the department (show passion), what do you want gain from this PhD/what are your career prospects (be honest and realistic), what are your weaknesses (again be honest and have a plan to address them).

Don't worry about explaining it to your supervisors. They recommended you to take a leave and will understand that you broke the letter of the rules but not the spirit. They will be more concerned about how you are feeling and trying to help you in anyway they can. Yes the suspension process is now a bit more awkward, but common sense usually prevails in these situations, especially if your supervisors support you in the process. I doubt the university will kick you off the course because of this, you just have 2 months less time to do your PhD.

I understand this is stressful and you are coming back from a serious illness but don't stress about not filling out the correct paperwork. This is a minor issue that can be easily made so don't beat yourself up. Stressing over something minor will you make you fell worse.

I hope you get better soon and wish you all the best!

PS: At my uni we are supposed to fill in a form every time we talk with our supervisors but I didn't fill one out for a year (11 months) despite still having regular meetings (I am lazy). The graduate school flagged it to which my supervisor just replied saying that everything was fine and nothing more was said. What I am trying to say is that the admin department/student handbook can seem scary but a lot of issues just get ignored for better or worse.

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the help. I am probably just overthinking this and shouldn't care about corresponding author. The article does have a contribution section where I have done the vast majority of the work but I had no idea how significant the corresponding author was. I think I was taken a bit by surprise but I really shouldn't be worried.

Hi Everyone,

I have nearly finished writing a paper where I did the vast majority of the lab work and writing. I want to include the paper in my thesis unedited and I have confirmation that it is okay. I am just waiting on final approval from the other authors and the authorship order has been agreed (I am the first name). We want to submit the paper to a special edition open-access journal, where my supervisor knows the guest-editor and they have agreed to waive the open-access fee. However, my supervisor wants to be corresponding author because she has organised the fee waiving and thinks it will be easier if she is directly in contact with them. I will still be first name but I don't know the rules around who should be corresponding author.

I just was curious, do I have to be the corresponding author to include the paper in my thesis? I know I should ask my department but getting a quick answer has been difficult recently and we want to submit very soon. My supervisor thinks it will be okay but I don't think she is really impartial in this case. Does anyone have any advice or am I overthinking this?

Hi Gimmick,

Getting accepted to do a PhD primarily requires funding. If you self fund you can do effectively do any project you want as long as you find a supervisor. For a funded PhD you are best looking at sites like findaphd.com to see what is available. Prefunded PhDs usually have a predefined projects and they can be competitive but are your best chance at getting funded. If you have a research idea (it doesn't need to be that good yet), you can email prospective supervisors, explaining your idea and ask to talk with them about it. At that stage they might have funding available (very rare), suggest a grant you can apply for (very competitive) or work out self funding. An academic in your field would be your best chance finding suitable grants but looking at research council supported networks is also a good call.

Though, if you aren't planning to start for three years anyway you have plenty of time. I would read about different areas you are interested and choose a few fields you are interested in. You might get lucky and find an idea or area you are passionate about with a good research question. You can also attend conferences (post covid) to find out more about cutting edge research in the field. The conference networking could also help you find a potential supervisor. Also, I would say that most academic funding requires a start date of 6-12 months after the funding is granted. So if you can't start for 3 years you will need to time any grant application.

Goodluck!

Have you considered emailing them for clarification? I would bet that several people have the same question as you and they will be more than happy to give some advice (it makes their lives easier). Just politely asked how detailed should the literature review be.