Hi Xtiny. No, I didn't get my paper finished - about 3 hours from the deadline I realised I wasn't going to make it (by a long way) so switched to adapting the stuff I'd written for the thesis chapter.

I'm getting a bit stressed about how little progress I'm making at the moment. I'm running out of time and don't feel any further forward than I was a few weeks ago. And now I've developed conjunctivitis and either infected eczema or impetigo (they're not sure which) so am very miserable. The eye drops seem to be working though, and I'm sure the antibiotics they've given me will kick in soon, so hopefully that will improve.

Okay, today I'm going to blitz my data analysis. I want to end the day feeling that I've made some good progress and that it is all manageable after all.

Hope your work goes well! And that the social evening was what you needed - sometimes a chance to get away and just have some fun is essential to maintaining momentum and enthusiasm.

Morning all.

My plan to get on with my data analysis has been scuppered by the need to finish writing my conference paper up - it's taking a long time, but I've realised that I'll be able to use a lot of the text to finish off a chapter in my thesis, so it's not wasted time. I need to get this finished and sent off today. If there's any time left over I'd like to add the text to the thesis chapter.

Good luck with the work everyone!

Good luck with the data and planning. And it's always good to find someone else in the same situation to share motivations with.

I didn't achieve as much as I wanted to yesterday, so I need to really crack on with it today. I still have a lot of work to do on my conference paper, so want to work on that until 12 o'clock today. Then after that I'm going to move on to my data analysis. I absolutely have to work faster, I only have a few weeks left and I have a stupidly huge amount to do.

Hello Xtiny, welcome back and hope you get lots of your organising done today!

The job interview on Wednesday went pretty well, but I didn't get the job. Not at all surprised - they take a qualitative approach to the subject area while most of my experience is in quantitative, so it was always going to be a stretch. The job went to someone who already had their PhD and experience of the methods they're using, which is fair enough. I'm applying for other jobs anyway now.

Today, I have three goals - commenting on a funding proposal sent to me by an academic in my department, finishing off (or nearly finishing) writing up a conference paper for a book of conference proceedings, and getting my head back into my last bit of data analysis to be ready to blitz it tomorrow. I've done the funding proposal comments and am a good way into the conference paper, so it's looking good for achieving the goals today. Relief! I feel like I've achieved nothing for ages.

Thanks shoulder, have PM'd.

Oh, that sounds wonderful! Congratulations, it sounds like you really deserved such a good outcome.

Hello all

Is anyone able to get hold of the following article for me? My university doesn't seem to have a subscription.

Wilson C. and Dowlatabadi, H. (2007). Models of decision making and residential energy use. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 32: 169-203.

Thank you very much in advance!

Hello everyone. Took me a while to find this thread this morning, and no wonder, nobody's been on it for a week! Hope you're all having success at whatever you're doing, anyway!

I've got a job interview on Wednesday, and know that I need to answer some methodological issues in my thesis that are likely to be asked about in the interview, so today I'm going to sort out the arguments in my methodology chapter, and that will also double as preparation for the interview. There's also another job application I need to fill out, as a break from the methodology. So, that's most of my day accounted for I should think.

I recommend you find out some more about basic stats too before you collect your data. My university runs basic stats courses and they're great for giving an overview of what the stats can show you, worth finding out if your uni runs similar. If you've never done any stats before it can be a bit of a steep learning curve, but don't panic, you'll be fine. There's two things to look at - the statistical techniques themselves, and the software you can use to apply those techniques.

In terms of the techniques, and what different kinds of stats tests can show, for a good introduction you could look at something like Frances Clegg's book Simple Statistics: A course book for the social sciences. There are various other titles aimed at people with different levels of confidence/knowledge, with titles like Statistics Without Tears, or Statistics Without Maths. Your university library's probably a good place to go and just have a browse and see which ones seem to be written in a way that makes the most sense to you.

It sounds like your data would be really suitable for something like SPSS software, and there are plenty of sources of advice for that. There are YouTube tutorials for different techniques, just google them. Or a couple of good books I've used - when I was first starting out I used Julie Pallant's SPSS Survival Manual, which was a great step-by-step guide to the kinds of analyses that could be done and how to do them with that software. More detailed is Andy Field's Discovering Statistics Using SPSS - that may be a little intimidating for you to begin with as it's a very large book, but once you have some basic ideas about what you're looking at it gives all the explanations you're ever likely to need plus detailed instructions on how to apply the software.

Good luck!

Congratulations Dr Swetchha!

I agree, you shouldn't tell her. It won't do her any good, all it will do is knock her confidence and nobody needs that.

Actually, I'm really surprised to hear that this was overheard anyway - it just seems like a totally inaccurate assessment of this woman's prospects. I'm finishing my PhD now at (eek) 39, and really don't expect my age to be an issue. Maybe it's different in my field - cross-disciplinary and very applied - but people with life experience before they took their PhD are seen as having some advantages over their younger colleagues, in terms of different viewpoints, ability to mix with lots of people, non-academic skills etc.

As to job applications etc not having ages on them - well, that's true, but all people have to do is look at the dates when you gained your first qualifications (assuming the earliest ones listed on the form were taken when you were about the usual age for that qualification) and some basic maths will tell them roughly how old you are....

Enjoy your birthday (and conference) time off!

I've just realised that there's a deadline coming up in a couple of days for me to submit a written version of a conference paper that I gave last month for publication in the conference outcomes. I completely for4got about it - oops. So my first job today is to decide whether I have time to sort something out by the deadline. If so, I'll do that. If not, it's back to the data analysis.

Hope everyone has a good day!

Good luck with the work, Pjlu, hope you manage to get it done.

Today I'm going to press on with the final bit of data analysis - I've been putting it off because I don't really know what I'm doing, but I can't put it off any longer! I have three (or possibly four) models to test - if I can get one done today I'll be delighted.

Morning Linda!

I'm the same as you - keeping working on yesterday's target of just getting on with my chapter. I've come onto campus in the hopes that a change of location will make me achieve more. Fingers crossed for both of us!

Ooh, that sounds like very positive progress, Linda!

And welcome to the thread, xtiny, hope you find it useful. I definitely find having an external place where I account for my time is helpful for keeping me motivated, so hope it works for you too.

I've been reading journal articles this morning to help write a description of the methodological/theoretical aspects of the method I'm using in my analysis chapter. But I think I may be using this as an excuse not to do the actual writing, so now I'm going to make myself write the next few paragraphs in the chapter - even if they're rubbish, at least I'll have something to work with.