oops! that link killed the thread. I wonder why it didn't text-wrap.

PostgradForum Team heeeeelp!

just in case anyone would be interested to read, I've just found this article on Science Direct (I haven't read it yet, as I was just trying the keywords of "personal pronoun writing")

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(99)00009-5

lol juno . I didn't think you did. I couldn't think of any other way to describe what I mean, so I used the "oneself".

I agree juno. Maybe it is ok to read the use of "one" once in the whole text, but I hate it when people overuse it. On the other hand, I was criticised by the research committee for using "it was decided..." etc on my proposal. I'm so confused.

I always thought that the use of "I" was a no no in academic writing, so I avoided using it. But now I started writing the actual thesis, I get so confused with the advice I get from books and journal articles with regards to referring to oneself. For example this one:

"If you do decide to avoid the use of 'I' at all, don't substitute 'we' and don't move into pompous circumlocutions such as 'the author'"

What do you think? How do you handle this problem? If using "the author" is pompous, and if we are not supposed to use "passive voice" then how do we refer to ourselves in the thesis?

lol @ Jewel

it is 100 times better than the "to find a job" thread that was created last week. Shall we start voting threads?

oh no! sorry to hear that rah. You must feel awful. Did you give him the news yet?

why otto?

thanks rah. I know it's going to sound strange or silly. But won't I need to name this supervisor on my acknowledgements page or any other section of my thesis? I'm sure even then I will feel really strange.

I even heard of people hiring editors and spell-checkers for their theses.

thank you rah and juno. My 5th one is external too. Because the other 3 were completely irrelevant to my research, I contacted her and applied to the committee for her to be in the team. Not only she is a lovely person but she does most of the supervisory work and helps me a lot with her constructive criticism and advice. Do you think I would be rude if I emailed the irrelevant supervisor and inform him about my feelings? It is funny that he emailed me first time in 3 years asking how the work is going, after I asked for him to be removed from my list. But he is not removed from the list. I have nothing against him but he is not really necessary on my team therefore I feel awkward about it.

I would be grateful for your opinions:

When I first started my PhD 3 years ago, I ended up with a large list of supervisors attached to my research. They've listed me reasons so I assumed it made sense. I have 5 of them and to be honest I don't even understand why the most of them are there. They do nothing,I never see them etc. I asked to remove 2 of these supervisors. My directory of studies agreed to remove one of them, but I still have one supervisor on my list that is just a name for me. He has nothing to do with my research, I don't even need him for official reasons because I checked the regulations and he is not needed for his research experience or the number of PhDs he supervised in the past etc. So I want to talk to my director of studies and explain again the fact that I do not want more than 3 people on my supervisory list. But I want to go to him with proper reasons, rather than my instincts about it.

What do you think about having this many supervisors on a PhD candidate's supervisory team?

I feel bad now . Congratulations though, in my opinion it is a great achievement (hence thinking in a jealous way that it could be a show-off). To answer your question, no it is not that common to get published this early in your academic career. My bf wrote a chapter of an academic book before even doing his masters. I still haven't properly published anything (just conference presentations), and I am on my 3rd year.

Piglet/Pea, I also checked what chav means. And the bogan... Yay! two new words in the same morning. Check out the caricature of chav on the right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav