I would definately put an abstract in. Your abstract only needs to give people an idea of what you are going to be covering. I know alot of people who submit abstract to present results they think they'll have by the time of the conference

Of all the PhD theses from my department I have seen; they only include a reference section for things that are specifically refered to in the text. When I mentioned this on the course I was told by the guy running it that this was "bad practice". The course was "How to write a PhD Thesis" run by the science and engineering department of the university's tranferable skills dept. On speaking with my supervisor and the department they say that, they require a reference section and if you choose to you can include a bibliography as well but that would be throwing yourself open to questions about any papers in the bibliography section.

But as the course was run by the university for their students I would have thought they should get things right

I've recently been to a thesis writing course run by my university, and have been told that a thesis should include a references section (consisting of papers/sources you refer to directly) AND a bibliography (containing all the papers you have read during your PhD).

At this session there were only ~10 of us all from different departments, and a number of us questioned this, the reply being that sources you read but don't refer to directly may influence your thinking and therefore should be credited.

This is the only time I have ever come across this way of thinking, and I am unaware of a thesis that contains both. I'm just wondering if anyone here has done or heard this before?? As it seems impractical to me

After what Coastman said, has anyone included the Postgrad Forum in their acknowledgements?

The reasons I'm doing research and hope to stay in research, when I finish my PhD is because I'm doing something that I enjoy and something that I want to do. Obviously I would like to be well paid, but I would prefer to do something I enjoyed for the next 30-40 years rather than just doing something that I hated because it was well paid - that would give me more fulfillment and make me happier.

...As a result of there being no representitive body for PhD students the incoming PhD students don't know what to expect and nothing ever changes. I think if the university had a society/ some body that represented PhD students properly I don't think there would be so many problems

I think alot of the problems come from the position postgraduate students are in, they are in the middle of the system, they are neither staff in the university nor part of the undergraduate system.
As a result we are often overlooked, this is also not helped by the fact that much of our work is done in isolation and there isn't really a body that represents us either within the university or beyond

I was told that 1 in 4 people who start a PhD don't finish it.

But most of those are people who drop out or get part way through and decide to take an MPhil.

But very few get failed.

That was what I was told in a seminar

I found mine on jobs.ac.uk too. I know a couple of other people who found their PhDs through there too.

But I guess different Universities or even departments advertise in different places, so I'd check out as many different places as you can find

I haven't been to the writing up stage yet but I would say that you should write up in your own way and your own style. Going into detail is fine for your own work explaining the decisions you made and why you made them, but I would say you shouldn't be going into the same level of detail for other peoples work (unless these are the building blocks your work is built on).

I would speak to your supervisors and see if they can give you some pointers on some areas that you are going into too much detail (if in fact you are)

Sorry duncan, I wasn't meaning to have a go at you or anything just if people were going to answer it would have been a useful point

I guess then that a merit is considered the equivalent of a 2.1 at masters level which is a higher level than BSc 2.1

To be honest I don't think that many places take the grade of a masters too seriously because there are a few different grading systems. I think what matters is that you have a masters in that area and that you had a sufficiently good first degree to do a masters.

I've never heard of anyone asking for a specific grade at masters level

Expect nothing but reading for first few weeks even months, possibly having to write a literature review on what you've read, and depending if you know exactly what you're going to be doing or not you may have to find out

I did an MRes and there were only two grades Pass (50%+) and distinction (70%+), so I'm not sure where a merit grade comes in at.

As for percentage grades I got 69.4% in my MRes (so was totally gutted) and a 2.1 in my undergrad average of ~65%. I did better at MRes because I tend to do better in practical work than in exams and as my MRes was heavily practical based. I'm guessing nowadays it's easy to tell from transcripts how well people do as it's no just a grading system

Do you mean first author publication or just being named on a publication. I know of cases where people just put the names down of everyone in the research group around at the time when work was being published.