if its a poster presentation, and your're that pregnant, then no I wouldn't bother. Is there anyone who can present for you?

If not, then I'd ask the conference if they'd put it up anyway and explain the circumstances.

It just came across like you'd already started and were trying to work out what you were doing, rather than working out what you are doing and then starting.

I'd go back and work out WHY you want to use a certain type of analysis. this is a good place to work out what you are doing and why http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk/methodologies.php

For the sake of your viva, I'd say you need to stop and find a label for what you are doing/how you are doing it and really understand he process. That way you can really justify it in your thesis by saying "I used this technique, and so did all these people (Smith, 2010; Zelda, 2011) therefore it must be amazeballs"

I guess I meant that be sure that it is ready for submission - mine took about a year to get from 1st draft to submission standard.

Once its definitely there, you can go for publications and hold off on actually submitting.

My sup booked my viva before I had a submission date! So you could have it all planned out, just not completely finishing. There is the issue that you might have to update it nearer the time though, I guess it depends on how confident you are that no one else has done similar research.

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Personally, I'd go full on for submitting it ASAP with supervisor's permission of course. I had my draft ready about a year before my viva, but my supervisor continued to rip it apart and change her mind.

So I would do everything you can do to submit. Then I'd focus on publishing what you can around your baby plans.

I submitted a few of my papers to journals before my viva (still haven't been accepted anywhere :-( ) but the feedback I got from journals was very useful and probably saved my thesis in the end as I did some last minute changes. I think that is the main thing that got me no corrections if I'm honest.

I hate presenting at conferences, but the more I do it, the more I'm at ease with it AND the more my name and face are known (I hope!) so for those reasons I'd do it. Chances are you'll feel worse not doing it and getting someone else to than just doing it yourself.

if its over 40 words, I always make it its own little paragraph (i.e. empty line above and below) and italicize it, including quotation marks. Does that make any sense??

Yes, I've made a massive effort to nab good teaching slots - looks like I should have got most of my teaching done before xmas this year, with just 4 lectures after xmas. I've also tried to shift seminars onto PhD students (sorry!) which also entails marking essays, which took up a massive amount of time last year.

I'm told its the same for most 1st year lecturers though - its just a busy year.

Its the support I'm struggling with now though. I have no one to ask for advice about writing etc. But I'm putting my big girl pants on and going to train myself up a bit. Part of the problem is not reading anything much since about a year ago! The last year was spent editing, not reading, and I think i've got a bit rusty with it all.

I think most of the competition is coming from abroad and that finding a Post-doc role/lectureship is easier if you're willing to up sticks and move away. Problem is, language barriers mean that 'they' i.e. non-english people often have an advantage i.e. as if I'm going to be able to learn Spanish/Italian/Greek in time to be able to do a job there!

Also being married is a bit of an issue, I'd never be willing to leave the area I live cos hubbers earns a lot more than me in london, in a 'normal' job, so he is the 'bread winner' - we couldn't move just so I could get a job. Massively restricts the job market for me to about ten universities I could work for.

I got a lectureship straight after my PhD. I was very lucky and it was my (one) publication that got me the job, which was actually a publication from my masters dissertation.

Having done the job for nearly a year I would actually advise doing a postdoc instead! I know the lectureship offers security and progression, which is amazing. BUT I have had 0 time to do any research during term time, its been ALL about the teaching, I'm hoping to sort this out this year, but it has been very stressful - I'm now using the next 4 weeks to desperately try and get *something* submitted into a journal. I kinda wish I'd had a year or two purely focused on research in a post doc to get some more publications under my belt.

I also feel very unsupported. I've gone from having a supervisor to having no one, at all, I have no one to talk to or offer me advice about my writing, its all up to me, and although I do ask my old sup for advice, she's at a different uni and I feel like its my time to move on and not annoy her! So actually developing my publication skills in a post doc would have been really really useful.

Congratulations! Just the viva and you'll be Dr. Pam :-)

I wonder why you want to watch the men's gymnastics :p

Batfink - I'd take it as a positive. If they didn't like you, they'd probably not bother contacting you. It also means you were probably the best of the bunch, but they might be looking for someone with more experience maybe. It also should give you hope that you're not up against too much competition for it AND its not lined up for an internal candidate. (up)

I just got loads of people telling me it was a journey - like contestants on X-Factor, i.e. it will change your life and be a massive struggle. This made me far more apprehensive about the whole thing and made me think it was more difficult than it was. If I'd had people saying "actually its just a big work project" then I'd have got it done sooner IMO and wouldn't have been so diffident about aspects of the work.

Have you been writing? Some people don't even get their hands on data in the first year and just write, so if you're unhappy with your progress, maybe up the writing e.g. lit review, analysis of different methods etc. which might help you feel happier about having produced something. I wrote about 60,000 words in my first year. I only used about 15,000 of them in my actual thesis but it was SO useful to understand the research landscape in my area and for my viva!

Maybe you could talk to your sup about kicking off a second stream of experiments so you're not putting all your eggs in one basket.

I think the secret with having too much is just to plug away. Crossing things off lists is so therapeutic for me :-)

I promised I would get a publication draft written by August. GULP. So its August now and I need to re-work the discussion today so I can get it off to my supervisor - who I really should now call my colleague or co-author, but she still rips my work apart like my supervisor so I guess the name has stuck