Good luck Sneaks!

I'm back from Paris finally. Actually I got back on Monday night but slept most of Tuesday and achieved almost nothing yesterday! But today I need to get back into the routine. (The trip was great - my presentation went really well and I got loads of good feedback on possible future directions for my research, and then I just had the most fun weekend staying in a youth hostel in Montmartre - fantastic!)

So, goals for today:
1.) Write report of Paris presentation for funding people
2.) Start planning seminar presentation to be given on Monday
3.) Look at initial feedback from test version of questionnaire

Well done star-shaped!

All my tasks for Paris are now done, and I'm considering clearing off home early. I don't set off till tomorrow afternoon, so have all morning to rehearse my presentation at home. And I'm really really tired - could fall asleep right here at the desk! In fact - yes, I'm going home. I may not go online tomorrow, so see you all when I get back!

Sorry, I wanted to return the favour as well but I only have access from 1997.

Oh how irritating, Sneaks! The guy who sits next to me sometimes does that, but luckily he's not in today - I could cheerfully murder him sometimes, it's so distracting!

I'm making good progress. Conference abstract finished and submitted. First lot of handouts for Friday's talk written and printed. Now I just need to finalise my powerpoint slides and print those out as a handout. I'm getting excited about Paris now :-)

Morning everyone!

Today is my last day to get things sorted out before I go to Paris (yay!!) so lots of running around to do.

Tasks for today:
1.) Email both organisations I'm studying about next stages in research - DONE
2.) Make final changes to conference abstract as per supervisor's comments
3.) Check submission requirements and submit conference abstract
4.) Finish designing handout for Paris talk and print out
5.) Finish final couple of slides on powerpoint presentation for Paris and print out
6.) Print other details, maps etc

Presenting in English, luckily - I can speak some French, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't explain the subtleties of my theoretical approach in French! Really looking forward to it, anyway (especially as I get a long weekend to myself in Paris afterwards...)

Morning! You've got a good early start there, star-shaped!

Today, I have a list of jobs to do before I leave for Paris on Thursday.
1.) Edit conference abstract according to supervisors' comments
2.) Check submission details etc for conference
3.) Finish Paris presentation
4.) Print lots of documents needed for Paris

That lot should keep me busy for the day! Good luck everyone with today's work.

Questionnaire is now live. And I'm tired. Maybe that's enough work for today!

Good luck Moonblue, hope you're getting back into the work okay (slow but steady seems to be the way...)

I've collected my Euros, talked to the credit card people and done lots of laundry. Hmm, a bit of work avoidance there, I think! But I've also finished the online version of my questionnaire - I just need to read through once more and then put it live to start getting initial feedback from within my department. And after that, I can do some screen shots of the questionnaire to add it to my presentation. Just have to make myself get on with it now!

Morning everyone! Hope you all had a good weekend.

Chococake, I was working on Friday but my intenret connection kept going down so I never made it onto here. Hope you managed to get lots done anyway.

I'm off to Paris on Thursday to do a presentation to some industry people (yay, very excited, it's a great opportunity and then I also get a long weekend in Paris afterwards!) so this week is all about getting stuff done before going and being ready to present. Main tasks for today:

1.) Finish creating online version of survey
2.) Edit survey and then send to people who agreed to be first testers
3.) Finish Powerpoint presentation for Paris
4.) Go to Post Office to collect Euros
5.) Phone credit card company about travelling with credit card

Hiya.

Sorry, I don't know how to do what you're thinking of, but there are some good books out there that might be able to help you. The main one that most people seem to swear by is Andy Field's book, Discovering Statistics Using SPSS. He's got a great writing style, very engaging and easy to follow. But it is an enormous book so can be a little daunting.

I don't know if someone else will come along with better suggestions for your discipline - the other books I've used have been psychology specific and I don't think they'd help with what you trying to do.

Sorry, that's not masses of help. But good luck with it anyway!

Yay, main goal of the day achieved - conference abstract drafted and sent to supervisors for comment. Phew, that's a relief!

Going to do an hour or so of work on the online version of my questionnaire and then go home reasonably early for once! And maybe even allow myself some wine or something as a little treat for finishing my work!

I don't have the same issue with equipment as my PhD is in the social sciences, but I can definitely relate to the fear of starting to do the research activities in case I do it wrong and mess up all my results! I think that's only natural when there's so much riding on it. Sometimes I find that anxiety is almost paralysing and I end up wasting a lot of time instead of getting on with the actual tasks. But I'm starting to learn ways around that. The first thing I've realised is that it's unfamiliarity that makes me nervous (very like the previous poster was saying), so I try to break down every task into its smaller steps, and work out exactly what each step involves. Then I find that they do tend to be quite familiar things, or if they're unfamiliar I can see what it is I actually need to do, and this makes me much more confident about it. I also set goals for myself - I work out a loose timetable for each groups of tasks, and define an end target point when I want to have reached the next stage in the research. Breaking it down really takes away my fears - I don't know if that will help you?

Aw no, that's not what you need, Sneaks! Can you take a different day off instead?

Today, I need to finish drafting my conference abstract and send it to my supervisors for comment. That's probably going to take all day, but if by some miracle I finish it quicker than expected, I'll spend the rest of the day working on the online version of my questionnaire.

Sounds like it's going well, star-shaped!

I've more-or-less finished my questionnaire and been to supervision meeting, where they said get on with piloting the questionnaire as I'm starting to go in circles with it. Cool, I'm glad they think that! So the job for the rest of the day is to carry on developing the web version of the questionnaire (and hope I can somehow cut down a few questions along the way!)