And you're self-funding aren't you Natassia? In which case it shouldn't really matter when you start. If you were funded it might be a bit different with more hoops to jump through.

Good luck!

That's not how my department works. To be honest we were allowed to drift on without producing words for a bit long. But I think a balance has to be struck.

If you are funded you shouldn't have to pay anything back before the point you quit (I quit a full-time EPSRC-funded PhD in 1996). But I hope you won't quit.

Good luck!

You do need a thick skin in academia, certainly! But I would definitely encourage you to apply.

The only job I've ever applied for - before the neurological disease got too bad - was a half-time Research Assistant post. And given my underlying disease and disability it took a lot of guts to go for it. But I thought what did I have to lose. I carefully crafted the CV to make me look in the strongest possible light. And I was short-listed for interview out of 60+ candidates, and I got it :) Only lasted a year (RA post), but that was enough. Was my sort of dream job. Ah. Memories!

But go for it!

I don't see why you shouldn't apply. You seem to be coming up with an awful lot of reasons against which I wouldn't have thought would occur to the other people concerned at all. For example looking like a laughing stock - sheesh!

Just apply. If you get it, brill. If not, move on and look for something else.

And as for the lack of publications do you know what your next ones will be about? I've applied for an Honorary Research Fellowship at my uni (I'm severely disabled, progressive neurological disease, and working in any form - even part-time - is totally not an option) and I listed the articles I was working on in my CV as well as those already published. I had titles for them and everything. Though it helped they were near to submission :)

Just apply. If all else fails it will be experience you can chalk up for the next job application. What have you got to lose? Nothing I think. Think positive!

Three fellow students in my department were referred for resubmission in the last few years. Two resubmitted successfully within the year allowed and have since completed and graduated. The third has had to have extensions to allow for extra research and writing time, but I am still hopeful they will get the PhD. But the other two are safely through.

Good luck. I echo the advice of the other people to try not to stress too much until you get the examiners' report. Even then try to keep calm. The report is sort of like a contract between you and them. They should set out what you need to do to fix things. You do that. Good result.

My department had its own format, and I couldn't persuade EndNote to produce it. So I did all my referencing manually. It was fine. I've since (since hard bound corrected submitted copies!) found a few tiny typos in the bibliography, like an extra comma or something. But nothing major, and they weren't even picked up by examiners. Actually they found no typos in my references.

IOoh I'm in Scotland too!

I make lists as well, but then pick the easiest / least unappealing thing, and get going that way.

Ooh well done you! Welcome to the post-doc world :)

Yes I think so, except that course fee is both the university course fee + college fee which you have to pay.

So fees + minimum maintenance = minimum annual cost.

Note those are minimums.

Would there be college fees to pay at Cambridge? There were when I looked to transferring to Oxford after my supervisor moved there. If you're self-funding this could make it much more expensive than most other universities in the UK.

See http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/gradstud/funding/costs/

Don't endnotes count towards your overall total Joyce? They do at my uni, whether endnotes or footnotes. Only appendices don't.

I reckon examiners can tell if something is too long based on experience and things like numbers of pages, and just how puggled they are reading it! My supervisor said he hates examining a thesis that's way too long. He much prefers something too short, if it must be one or the other.

And I'd echo the advice that writing the right length is a skill that is needed for journal papers. They are *very* fussy about sticking to length and other rules and regulations.

Lara is probably the best example on the forum of managing to write a thesis at the last minute. She's not on here very much now - she completed her PhD last year - but if you PM her she may be able to offer some tips. She had a firm deadline, and churned out a certain number of words/hours a day. She also used Joan Bolker's book religiously.

I think you have to defend the methodology you chose in your final conclusions chapter. That's what I did very clearly, restating the methodology up front. Then I talked about my big findings, arranged by topic/theme. And, near the end, I talked more about the limitations in the context of future research that could be done. But I was always really clear to justify what I'd done.

I took in a bottle of water, and glugged from it constantly throughout my viva. No-one minded.