Overview of kelpie

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kelpie
Saturday, 1 March 2014 at 8:09am
Monday, 31 July 2017 at 7:14am
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page 1 of 7 recent posts

Thread: Viva - anyone else with a similar experience?

posted
30-Oct-15, 08:08
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
I had a similar experience and found it very upsetting/confusing. Over a year later I still feel a bit sad that I didn't have that affirmative moment that all my friends had, and am resigned to having permanent imposter syndrome! In time though you'll be able to put your examiner's comments in the context of other, more positive feedback you've had.. And the most important thing is YOU PASSED! Congratulations!

Some positives I've taken away are that I'm now unlikely to become one of those arrogant academics I'm sure we've all met. It's also a first-hand lesson in the subjectivity of academia. And this will sound cheesy but it has made me realise that I need to be confident in my own strengths and weaknesses and not rely on others for validation - so a couple of life lessons in there!

Thread: Can you get a statistician to do the calculations for your study?

posted
20-Oct-15, 07:39
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
I would think this is not acceptable. At PhD level you can't farm bits out to consultants - it's a basis requirement that the thesis should be all your own work, so you need to acquire the necessary skills without cutting corners. By all means seek advice from more experienced colleagues but you personally need to be in a position to defend your calculations and why they were used during the viva.

Thread: Motivation in final weeks

posted
10-Oct-15, 15:14
edited about 8 seconds later
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
Haha, I was the same, total burnout. Knowing you're almost at the finishing line doesn't make the last mile of a marathon any less painful. If you can, finish the "everything else" first, then focus on the conclusion - it might be easier psychologically. Good luck!

Thread: Are women more likely to participate in qualitative interviews

posted
18-Sep-15, 07:56
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
You might find some useful references in the quantitative or general research methods literature. I'm sure I've read that women are more likely to complete surveys and this might well extend to interviews.

Thread: End of the Very Long Road?

posted
06-Sep-15, 13:42
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
Hmm, academics can be egotistical creatures... Had your supervisor previously voiced concerns about your writing style? Could it be that he feels your viva verdict reflects badly on him so he's trying to blame it on this? Or he might be hesitant to give you the go-ahead to resubmit it since he thought it was fine the first time round and has lost confidence in his own judgement. Whatever the case, if your examiners said it was well written then it probably was! This may be a situation where you need to trust your own instinct about whether you've responded to the corrections and, if so, just go for it and resubmit.

Having said that, I work alongside my university's writing support service and would stress that there is absolutely no need to feel humiliated. If they are as professional as our staff, I would prioritise their feedback as they'll be well versed in dealing with PhD students with all sorts of issues. I'm sure most students could benefit from their advice.

Thread: Cost for proofreading

posted
23-Aug-15, 20:00
edited about 4 seconds later
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
Professional proofreaders in the UK follow the SfEP's minimum rate (see link). Average speed is 10 pages per hour. For a fellow student doing a bit of proofreading on the side, you'd probably pay less.
http://www.sfep.org.uk/pub/mship/minimum_rates.asp

Thread: No feedback - only 5 days left to submit

posted
20-Aug-15, 09:41
edited about 24 seconds later
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
I don't think your uni's logic makes sense and it would annoy the hell out of me! There are many more variables affecting graduation date than just submission date. For example, it took my examiners almost two months to send me my list of corrections, which I then did within three months, and they then took 4 months to approve them - not because of any problem but because they were busy doing other things. So for me it was well over a year between submission and graduation. Talk about stressful.

Thread: No feedback - only 5 days left to submit

posted
19-Aug-15, 19:44
edited about 6 seconds later
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
Hi Ellebelle, this must be so frustrating for you. Can I ask why there are these set submission deadlines at your uni? At mine people just submit whenever they're finished. Under the circumstances it might be worth seeing if there is some wiggle room on that front and maybe you can still submit soon. Good luck.

Thread: Corrections worrying

posted
07-Aug-15, 15:45
edited about 3 seconds later
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
I feel for you, Babbage. I was in a similar situation - in fact my supervisor thought I would get no corrections at all. It really messes with your head when your examiners think differently, and makes you question how you know what's good enough. The way I got through corrections was to spend quite a bit of time listing each of the examiners' points and specifying exactly how and where I had responded to them in the thesis. This helped me to feel more confident about submitting the revisions - they can't fail you if you have done what they asked - and was also helpful to refer to while waiting for their response, to calm anxieties about whether I'd done enough. Where the corrections are very general, explain how you interpreted them and provide examples of the changes you made.

Thread: Need British participants for a short survey for my PhD

posted
01-Jul-15, 15:39
edited about 5 minutes later
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
Identifying more with being English/Scottish than British is indeed an interesting concept and again is something I have heard quite often. It's hard to conceptualise every nuance such as that in simple quantitative measures however.


If you are hearing it quite often I think you should listen. It is not so much an interesting concept or a nuance as fundamental to how you define Britishness. IMO the issue needs tackling head-on and shouldn't be dismissed as "too hard", especially at PhD level.

Saying this for your own benefit - presumably you don't want to antagonise your examiners.

Thread: Make peace or war against supervisor?

posted
29-Jun-15, 14:23
edited about 22 seconds later
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
If you're in the UK it might be worth joining and consulting your union (www.ucu.org.uk) before making any decisions or taking further action. They support PhD students and may be able to offer some advice. Best of luck!

Thread: Need British participants for a short survey for my PhD

posted
23-May-15, 11:37
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
Tried to complete it but couldn't see any colours in the second section unfortunately.

Also I wondered about the sampling. By requesting British participants, you might exclude those who identify as Scottish, Welsh or English, whose responses might be of interest to your study.

Thread: Need some advice please

posted
30-Apr-15, 11:12
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
I worked part-time (10 hours a week) all through my PhD, and then full-time after my funding ran out. I found the part-time work fitted in fine for the most part, since it was just one evening and one weekend afternoon each week. Working full-time while finishing writing up and then doing corrections was pretty horrendous, however.

Thread: How to move past getting kicked out

posted
15-Apr-15, 09:51
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
Hi lostandquestioning. What a horrible thing to happen, it must be really tough.

It's the way you talk about your situation - "I messed up", "I screwed up" - and the guilt and shame you express that suggest you feel you did something wrong. I don't believe Mackem_Beefy was judging you.

I'm no psychologist but it's intriguing that you use this language about a situation that's clearly not your fault.

Thread: What is Proofreading actually?

posted
11-Apr-15, 12:53
edited about 20 seconds later
by kelpie
Avatar for kelpie
posted about 5 years ago
He/she is using the forum to associate the name proofreadmyfile with discussions of proofreading to improve the website’s Google rankings, so yes, it can certainly be called an advertising campaign.
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