Can I join?

I am always more of a lurker but I'm exactly halfway through my PhD now and really need to start making myself accountable and actually producing stuff.

My goal for the rest of the day is to get another 650 words written of the bare bones of a chapter I am working on.

Good luck everyone!

Come on now Lostinoz.... Surely it can't be all that bad?

I'm doing mine because:

I love studying.
The most effective way to develop and progress as a person is to challenge yourself, and this is how I wanted to do it.
I love my topic.
I'm enjoying the freedom to manage my own work and develop it how I want.
When I started I was sure that I wanted to get an academic job, so the PhD was necessary. I'm less and less sure if this is the route I want to take as time goes on though!
I get to be a 'Dr' which is pretty cool.

Not too sure what it'd be like post PhD, I think it depends on your area and what 'unique skill set' you have to offer.

My boyfriend's brother tried to move over because their Mum lives over there. It took almost 2 years for him to find out that they wouldn't let him in (his lawyer messed up apparently, and it shouldn't have taken quite that long to get the decision, but it can be a very long process) and in the meantime he had sold his flat, bought a car over in America which he ended up selling for a loss, and been made redundant by work because he'd told them he'd be going and they didn't have a short term project for him to work on in the meantime. It was all a complete nightmare really.

I also know another guy who recently just finished his PhD and had been planning to go over, but he didn't end up doing, although I'm not sure whether it's because he couldn't, or because he decided to stay in England in the end.

But anyway, I have seen firsthand that it isn't a simple process!

Well since posting this I had to take some unplanned time off due to a family emergency and didn't have time to think about it, although I had decided not to go ahead. I think this is even more important after having to take unplanned time out from work, as I really need to get back into things.

I have emailed my supervisor and explained and he says that he wants to go ahead and submit anyway. Argh. He couldn't go ahead and leave my name off, could he? I'm now considering offering to address the reviewer comments when we get them a few months down the line, although I really just wanted to forget about the whole thing.

Hi there,

I am at the end of my first year of my PhD (social psychology) and over the last few months have been doing quite a bit of work off the back of my masters dissertation, which is unrelated to my PhD.

I presented my masters stuff at one conference yesterday which went really well, and I have another next weekend. I found putting together the paper quite stressful and I guess it did take up quite a bit of time over the last few weeks. I have also had one publication out of it. I know that the peer review process isn't supposed to be easy but I found it a complete nightmare and had to re-do the whole analysis. Basically, for my masters dissertation I was supposedly using the qualitative methods I am now specialising in for my PhD, but my masters supervisor doesn't really have much of a grasp of the methods, so although I got an excellent grade for my dissertation, from the perspective of anyone in my field, the analysis was very, very poor. So to address the reviewer comments I had to start from scratch and conjure up an analysis out of nowhere, which I just about managed to do.

My supervisor decided earlier on in the year that we would try and get two papers out of my dissertation, and now he has sent me a second paper for me to redo the analysis. I think he has spent a little time working on it, but nothing major because he says he still has changes to make, literature to add, etc before we submit it.

Anyway, I think that during the course of this I have kind of made my decision- I'm sick to death of working on my masters stuff, I have little confidence in the analysis I DID manage to redo and I don't think I can do it again. I really want to get on with my PhD work now and disseminating my masters work is starting to interfere.

Do you think it would be reasonable for me to back out of the second paper? What would you do? When my supervisor first suggested we do two papers I ws delighted and wanted to publish as much as possible, but now I'm starting to think that I will have plenty of opportunity to publish my PhD stuff and I should concentrate on that now, so I'm not crazy for backing out of the opportunity to publish again? I think that maybe the sensible thing to do would be to back out but I just hate feeling like I'm letting people down (although, incidentally, I submitted my dissertation a year ago and my supervisor only just recently bothered to find the time to put together the paper which he was saying he would do for months).

Thanks if you manage to get through all of this!

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I emailed him in the end and he said I can focus on whatever I want. Phew! It would have been awful otherwise!

Hi,

OK, so here is the situation. I did a masters degree at another university, supposedly using the qualitative approach which I am now specialising in for my PhD. However my masters supervisor at the time doesn't really know much about the approach, so although I got an excellent mark, from the perspective of anyone in my field I now realise that the analysis was terrible. He insisted that I focus on a specific thing, and I understand now that doing that really didn't make much sense. I submitted a paper for publication based on my dissertation and the revieiwer within my field absolutely ripped it apart, and quite rightly too. I managed to salvage it though by redoing the entire analysis, and I actually managed to find something novel and interesting to say, although it was far removed from anything my supervisor had suggested.

I have a conference presentation coming up. It is part of a symposium and my supervisor submitted the papers. I'm not sure if he submitted abstracts- I certainly didn't write one specifically but he could have submitted the abstract from the original (terrible) paper I wrote. The title of the presentation is the same title as the paper, which relates to the original analysis.

I hope this all makes sense. Anyway, unless I present findings from my new analysis, I am going to feel really uncomfortable doing the presentation. And I'm nervous enough anyway so I really don't need that. But the new analysis doesn't really relate to the title of the presentation, and possibly the abstract. Most of the introduction and some of the discussion will be pretty much the same though, so it's not like it'll be a new, completely unrelated presentation altogether. Should I just go ahead and write the presentation how I want? I haven't asked my supervisor because he has been unco-operative in the past, doesnt really understand the method used and I'm worried he'll insist I focus on the old main theme anyway.

Hi guys,

I had an email last week and was told that an abstract I submitted for a talk at a conference has been accepted. This is my first time so I'm not sure how everything works. All I was told was that I have been accepted for a talk.
Speaking to a few other PhD students, they were surprised that I haven't been asked to submit a paper beforehand. Is it quite unusual just to turn up on the day without submitting anything first? Maybe I should email the organizer just to check whether I'm expected to submit a paper?

They keep reducing the prices for registration so I am thinking it's not a particularly prestigious conference. Is it more likely that speakers aren't asked to submit papers with less prestigious events?

I have had a couple of unplanned days off recently so I did a half day this morning. Then Monday morning I'm meeting with a family who are partipating in my study.

Saturday and Sunday I'm seeing my friends and family who I haven't seen since christmas so no work then.

I worry about this all the time.

I try and treat it like a full time job, although if I'm honest I usually don't quite make it to 35 hours a week, more like 32-33. I take odd days, but not too many, just like you would with a regular full time job. I keep a vague track of these odd days and was aiming, with my summer holiday and the time I took over christmas, for 6-7 weeks in full. But due to unforseen circumstances (which my supervisor is aware of) it looks like it is going to end up being a little bit more than that.

Sounds like you are on track and you know where you're going with your work so I wouldn't worry about it.

At the moment myupgade review seems like this terifying thing which is claked in mystery.

Supervisor doesn't want me to do much of a literature review, so I am guessing I need to make an attempt at an analytical chapter. I have producedn a couple of informal reports for him throught the year which will go in. The impression that I get from asking my supervisor is that it will be a big folder of crap collected throughout the year.

This isn't very helpful, sorry!

Get out of the houseand away from the laptop!

Go shopping, meet a friend, have a glass of wine or two with lunch which will pretty much guarantee you wont want to bother with work...

I do the major cleaning jobs at the weekend. Laundry does get done during the week when working from home, but it doesn't take long and I save so much time not having to mess about travelling into uni anyway. I coincide my food shopping with the days that I am on campus and walk past the shops on the way home. The dishes get washed in the evening.

It is hard though if I haven't been organised and there are things which need doing...

I have written a paper with my masters supervisor to submit for publication, which he delayed submitting because he had put together a proposal for a special issue of a journal which fits my dissertation topic perfectly.

I finally heard from him today and his proposal has been accepted, so he is going to be editing this special issue and said that my paper will 'definately' be published, but that it still needs to be peer reviewed 'so people can suggest improvements'.

Anyway I kind of ignored the bit about it not actually having been peer reviewed yet and got all excited. But having just spoken to a fellow (science based) student who has recently been through the peer review process and found it a complete nightmare, I feel a bit silly. Of course I am ready for huge rewrites, but when my supervisor said that it will dfinately be published, I totally believed him.

Does anyone know how these things work? Is it possible that as he is editing the issue he has the ultimate say after the rewrites have been done?

Incidentally, I am in the social sciences, and my topic was in an 'unpopular' area, using a relatively unexplored approach, so I hoping that this will play a big factor!

I like being able to take a 2 hour lunch break so I can go for a run. And not having to officially book time off work.

Yup, the freedom to arrange your work time as you want is the best thing but working like this is a skill! I know so many people who just wouldn't bother to put the hours in. But I like that I WANT to put the hours in because I am doing what I really want to do.