Thank you very much for the advice! I'll give it a go :-)

I've tried to do it this way, I've changed the search options/settings/indexing a lot of times, but it still doesn't work :-(
Thank you for the info though :-)

Hello! I am trying to compile the bibliography for 3 chapters I have already written and I am getting crazyy over here!! I have no idea from bibliography softwares, I used to do it manually so far, but at this stage it's just sooo timeconsuming! Does anyone know if there is any kind of software by which you can enter a word and it can crossreference all your pdf files and find the pdf in which the word is mentioned?

Thanks in advance

(P.S. Such a huge mistake writting 3 chapters and then trying to compile the bibliography!!)

I am hoping for:

introduction: 1.500
introductory chapter 1: 3.000
chapter 2, 3, 4 (general lit. review): 30.000 (10.000 per chapter with variations depending on content)
chapter 5 (focus country lit. review): 15.000
chapter 6 methodology: 5.000
chapter 7 findings: 10.000
chapter 8, 9 discussion + recommendations: 20.000
chapter 10 for something I want to propose: 10.000
conclusion 1.500

approximately 96.000 + some thousands for footnotes + abstract = about 100.000 (highly optimistic scenario though, as I'll probably reach 150.000 and will not know how to cut them down then)

I hope it helps :)

Hello,

I have just started my phd as well in october (newbie in the forum as well ;p). I 'm very glad to hear that your start was very smooth - mine was as well. My relationship with my supervisor is very good so far, I only have one though, the second one has not been appointed yet and I am kinda excited and anxious to see what he/she is gonna be like. So far we contact regularly, we have had about 4 meetings and we are gonna have one tommorrow as well. She answers to my questions, sends and informs me of material that I might find useful, critiques my chapters, etc. When we first met she told me to start working on my conceptual and theoretical frameworks, put me on a small task of finding out about the actions the NGOs and social movements I will be examining are undertaking (I am doing a phd in political ecology), commented on my MSc disso (the phd is supposed to be an extention of it) and told me that I would need to give in 3,4 chapters, some primary data and initial findings for my upgrade (supposedly by the end of this year).

Besides these she hasn't given me any deadlines, tasks or anything, so I am kinda left alone doing what I think is best. At the beginning I felt a bit lost not knowing what to do, but then I decided to make a schedule and set up deadlines for myself and inform her of them. I find that setting up deadlines for myself helps a lot, otherwise I might be doing no work at all, hahahahaha. I made the structure of the thesis (I find it helps me a lot as well), did a general literature review(additional things are always coming up though) and wrote 2 initial chapters, about 25.000 words ~ its a lot of words I know, I have to cut them down. So my supervisor read the chapters and told me what else I could incorporate, gave me advice on my writing skills, told me I have to make them smaller, etc. Thus now I've started the third chapter according to her lines ~ the last one for the general lit review~ and will make the corrections altogether after she critiques this one as well.

So this is my experience so far. It's been quite productive but I think that I might be overworking though at this point, but I couldn't help it, I was really anxious. The only thing I am concerned about is the so-called 'academic standard', cos I haven't been told anything concerning that. I hope I've given another cheerful message here and I would also like to know other people's experiences. Best wishes for everyone new..