Well I'm 3 months into my PhD (still the honeymoon phase, lol) and Im spending all available time I can in Uni. I have found it excellent for interacting with other academics and already after just a few months some great opportunities have come up such as working with uni owned subsidiary companies. I suppose I am lucky because my department has given me dedicated workspace, although a lot other PhD students at our campus use other facilities and seem to be milling around and getting involved in Uni life. I took the stance of treating this like a job but still get involved with Uni life and being a student, which is officially what we are :)

Good luck!

Hi Hazyjane

My field is Educational Technology through the Department of Computer Science.

Thanks

Adam

Hi

Im looking for some tips and advice on the best places to start learning research methods and stats. I went straight from BSc to PhD and sort of wish I had taken the research methods masters (no regrets though).

If anyone has any tips on where to start, recommended reading or anything else, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

Adam

I second BilboBaggins choices. I use them myself and find them very useful, especially Goodreader!!

Hope you enjoy the iPad!

Hmmm, so this LateX is seeming quite popular on here and with the guys at Uni. Ill have to take a closer look at this.

Thanks for everyones replies.

Much Love!!

Adamsky :)

Hi

Even though I'm in the Computer Science Department, my area of research is not technical. I am researching the barriers that face students, educators and policymakers in Technology Enhanced Learning.

I have had a look at papers but saw that people had issues directly citing into word. People were saying they were just getting a loading symbol and nothing else?

Thanks

Adam

Great thanks for the quick reply!

I know what you mean about the style issues in EndNote. I am leaning more towards using what I already have (Word and EndNote), but just wanted to see if there were any other recommended apps out there. I have always had this stereotypical view that Pages was for doing my funky documents like flyers or quirky letters and the such, maybe I need to have a good look at it again (With more of an academic hat on!!!)

Thanks again! :)

Hi,

Im starting my PhD next month and I am looking into the best writing and referencing software to use. I am a Mac user and currently have Word and EndNote installed.

I would love to hear actual PhD students recommendations rather than the software "armchair" experts that confuse me on various forums.

From what I have found, I have made a shortlist of the software I think could be useful,

Writing -
Word for Mac (I have seen some horror stories for creating very large documents, the largest I have created is 15K)
Scrivener
Open Office
LaTex (Although I have heard this is complicated)

Referencing -
EndNote
Zotero
Papers
Mendeley
Bookends

If there are any other software applications that you think are worthwhile, please mention.

Thanks in advance.

Adam