Sorry to hear about your fish - when my kids had fish they lost interest, and when the fish died they didn't notice for a week!:$. On a slightly different note, a couple of weeks ago I came downstairs in the morning to find a fish on the carpet - we have cats and they do tend to bring such things in. I left it there whilst I took the dog out for his walk, fed the cats - not on fish (!) to shut them up, and then went to retrieve the fish ...when I went to pick it up on the spade (plastic toy type, kept for removing offerings from said cats) it flapped its tail. I found a container to put it in and within about a minute it was swimming about again. That fish was out of water for at least an hour or two, and could have been there a lot longer, having been deposited anytime during the night. We have no pond and one pet shop suggested euthanasia, as they said it would die anyway, even though luckily enough we had a full container of rainwater for it to swim in, but we couldn't do that, in the end someone in another pet shop said they would take it home to their mum' s pond. I never thought fish- especially goldfish could live that long out of water. The fish didn't come from any ponds in gardens around here that I know of, theory from on of the pond owners was that a Heron may have caught it and then dropped it. do you think fish have nine lives like cats then?

I've been told that you should keep with the spelling in the orginal! :-) Oh what a complicated life we lead! :-)

Sounds like stress to me too, but I suppose in a way it is a different kind of stress, partly because it is self inflicted- it is a choice to do or not to do a PhD :-) but at the same time stress is delivered in bucket loads from others right from day one - which is where it meets extreme  'normal' stress, if there is such a thing of course. Plus it is stress over quite a long time, with masses of highs and lows that are directly related to it, some of which again is self inflicted, but some, like deadlines etc. is partly controlled by those outside, sometimes those who are supposed to be helping, but are, in fact just adding to the stress because of the way they behave (making demands about changes, then changing their mind for example). there are fewer touchstones along the way that mark real milestones, it isn't like a masters, where once you have finished a module it can be ticked off, as even when you think you have finished a chapter you know that you will have to go back and redo it endlessly right up until it is finally handed in, and maybe then some too. The outcome is also rather less certain because it relies on someone's reading of the whole thing, you are putting yourself and your ideas up for someone else to knock down and that is scary for everyone. So a trip to the docs may be of use- as long as they really understand and don't just do the 'pat on the head' thing. I have found exercise helps, as does watching, or going to see some comedy, laughter is a good thing for getting rid of stress. I find Eddie Izzard very useful, but that depends on your taste of course!

Ii work full time, but as this is  in a school even though I don't get teachers' holidays I do get some extra weeks off (unpaid), I'm doing my PhD part time, and at times it is still difficult, for example I've had a few weeks off over the summer, but in that time I also wanted to do some decorating, and get the garden sorted, and neither of those things have really happened, but they are still there in the background doing the 'look at me!' bit when I'm trying to get on, which doesn't help. doing both elements full time I would say is nigh on impossible if you have anything else at all to do - like sleeping and eating for example (especially if you have to do the cooking too). I wouldn't even go there, and I doubt if your uni would let you do it anyway.

go for it! :-). There is absolutely no reason why you should not apply, and you never know they might be expecting it, given that you will be the expert in the area. Make sure you get the paper work (C.V.) etc. as good as you can get it, and follow the rules about additional information if you are going to add any - some positions just want a cv to start with and then they send you the forms etc. . Talk yourself up and accentuate the positives, and I bet there are loads of those. You have to apply, otherwise you will always regret that you didn't do so, dream jobs don't come often.

Goodness! I hope you have everything backed up a trilion times (I thimk that's the norm isn't it?:-). My laptop died not so long ago, but luckily it gave me enough warning to get all the info off...even though I have it elsewhere of course, it ism't quite the same is it???:$. I've bought my laptop one of those little stands so it has more air underneath it - it also gives the keyboard a slope which i like too!

Every so often, in any established area there comes a time when it is necessary to grab it by its tail and give it a good shake to see what drops out :$. This has happened loads of times in the past in all subjects, and is necessary for the development of any area. what you need to do is not give up on the research you are doing at the moment, but to keep hold of the thought that you might want to head off in a slightly different direction, think laterally whilst you read note down any bits that you feel are either interesting for what they contain, but maybe more importantly what they do not contain. (a bit of discourse analysis might be useful here) For example, a school handed out a 'questionnaire' to parents asking about homework and other things, one question they asked was about the place where students studied, they were pleased to report that a high percentage of parents had said that their child had a designated quiet place to work, which they thought was good and the end of the story. They completely failed to realise that this meant that the rest did not, and some answers suggested that the pupil never had a quiet place to work. As far as they were concerned they had the answer, but of course there was actually a far more important issue that needed to be addressed which was where the other students worked, and how this might affect them. This is just a random example but the same thing may be true for your area, you may be working towards something that others have missed. As long as you can locate it broadly within the area, and logically defend your ideas, there should always be room for an alternative position and is something that should be welcomed. It may take a while for the idea to come though, you just have to be patient! :-)

I have gone out on a bit of a limb with my methodology chapter - or so my supervisor tells me -, and have covered the methods I am using for each chapter and justified their use etc. on a chapter by chapter basis there, so no need for this in the chapters themselves. I am not in the sciences, and I know that they are a bit different, but it might be a way round the cross ref bit. Or could you explain what you are doing in both surveys in one chapter, and then put all the rest, results, tables etc. in another one? I think you should try to get the chapters as even as possible, I think that is the norm, and it might look a bit odd to have one that is so obviously different from the rest, they might even ask why you haven't split it, especially if it is hard going. You need to think about their ability to concentrate for long periods - I would go for two shorter rather than one long :-)

Not passed yet, but I have also produced my refs using the 'old', that is manual method, because endnote doesn't want to play ball and won't produce the right format. I'm also using endnotes as I have been told that that is the way to go and is what is expected nowadays, although I also find them irritating and would prefer to use footnotes. however I have a feeling that the new office word I have would actually convert one to the other if asked - I've not tried it as I don't want it to have a fit and lose the lot, but might have a go with a shorter piece of work.

I know that in theory referencing is a personal choice, but I'm not sure how examiners would warm to that idea, and if they are anything like one examiner who gave us a talk, they are quite picky about refs, this person said they looked at refs first, and made tables and grids so that they could check on how many times the author had been quoted etc. in fact they apper to subject the refs to the third degree as their first step when looking at the thesis. I've had to make up my own refs for old manuscripts that have been reprinted, but havecopied a similar style I've seen elsewhere, so I can defend what I have done.

I suppose it partly depends upon how this work fits in with your overall research. If it is on the periphery, then it might not be as big a problem as it would be if it was a major area. If it is a very important bit, then I would not want to let it out of the bag to a wider audience until I was ready, which may not be until after completion. My research, now I have changed the direction a bit, is something I want to keep to myself and not let others know about yet. The area has always been 'different' but before it did not look particularly earth shattering in the grand scheme of education to those outside the area, now I think it could be pinched by someone who has more time to spend on it. If it is vital stuff and you want to keep it to yourself, tell them so, they will just have to withdraw if they don't know enough about it to do something on their own. Don't be bullied into joining in if you don't want to. On the other hand, if you so want to go ahead, tell them you want at least equal recognition

Ref 'find and replace'
make sure you save before each time you use it to make replacements - I have known occasions where it has 'found and replaced' stuff you didn't want it to, and somehow doing 'undo' has resulted in a complete collapse as language as we know it.

no, endnotes are OK here- thank goodness. If necessary though I guess I could gather them all together and make them yet another appendix. The post grad secretary here, when asked about going over the limit just smiled and said 'they don't count the words' - I guess when you get to 80000, plus the 10% another couple of thousand are going to go unnoticed! I'm thinking about putting all the extra bits onto a DVD and sticking it in as well, a video of an experiment or two might go down well...:-)

I have the same problem, I'm nowhere near writing up yet, but what I have done is I've taken the total number of chapters and the word count and divided the count up, which is giving me a rough idea of how many words I have for each chapter. Even so, I have moved lots of content to endnotes, which my supervisor likes, plus I have moved other material to the appendix section. My big problem is that now I've altered the focus of the research a bit, I have more thingsto put in - but I don't want to take anything out and so far chapters are running at about 3000 words over what they should be. Mind you, unless they have an electronic version are they going to count the words anyway??? :-)

Capitalism is a complicated thing. I've started with a look at the historical angle from the craftsmen to the beginnings of capitalism via medieval merchants, not forgetting the feudal society, and how the society differed in England from the society of the continent (Marc Blotch is good on this area). For classes I've used the place of the merchant and the needs of the Victorian factory owner as starting points and considered why classes are still so important for capitalism. It is only the scene setting chapter but is very important for the understanding of the rest of the thesis.

Actually Eska what they thought it was was a book about London, a sort of travel guide thing. :$ :-).