I'm a bit concerned by your reference to "an entire spectrum of volatile decisions I have made". Whatever you decide to do next re leaving a PhD or not is a really big step, and you need to think it through extremely carefully before you make the next decision. Is there anyone local that you could talk to for impartial advice, for example at the student union or similar?

PhDs are incredibly hard slogs for everyone, whether they enjoy their subjects or not. It's at least as much about sticking power as any intellectual ability. If you're in an uncomfortable position it will be even harder, which isn't good. But you need to weigh up the alternatives.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. I left a full-time PhD 13 years ago. It would have prevented me getting more funding in the same area. Luckily I switched to a diametrically opposite subject area (science -> humanities!) when I decided to have a second go, part-time, and I got more funding.

Well done! A friend of mine was given a resubmission too, but hers seems to have gone on for very much longer than the original year allowed. I hope for her to have a positive outcome sometime too. I'm so glad you have.

We can't answer this reliably for you then. You really need to take it up with your university authorities.

Can't you just use the obvious "submitted for publication" words?

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I'm watching it. Pretty poor standard this year I think. But entertaining still. And I actually liked Scooch more than this year's UK entry.

Must admit it brought a smile to my face too, and I'm not usually swayed by peerages etc.

I'm in my late 30s and she'll always remind me of Play School.

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I never found any book specifically aimed at the humanities. The best overall book for PhD advice I found was by Phillips and Pugh. Also good is "The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research". Dunleavy's book is probably best for giving you advice on tackling the thesis, and as a humanities student I found it useful. And Tinkler & Jackson's book was the best book I found for the final viva.

Good luck!

The other problem I have with the computer - and I hinted at this in my last post - is I find it very tempting to fiddle with the writing as I write, so make edits on the fly. There are all the whizz-bang effects in Word, and menus and things, and so much on the screen to distract me.

I recently downloaded an application for my Mac called WriteRoom which presents a blank screen and a flashing cursor. Nothing else. And you just write. Now this wouldn't help you Wally - sounds like the sort of thing that would drive you bonkers! - but it helped me just focus on the writing, at least when my memory is a bit better, and my arms are working better than they often are.

I find writing on the computer difficult, but it's for disability reasons due to memory problems and losing control of my limbs. So I use a different method a lot of the time: I record what I want to write, then play it back and type it up afterwards more slowly. That way I get the ideas down before I forget them, and can continue to work even when my limbs are not co-operating. It also discourages me from starting to tweak/edit too early/much.

I have speech recognition sotware, but tend not to use it. I've trained it well, but I'm a history student, using lots of strange words and variant spellings, and I find that I have more work to do correcting the software's errors in understanding what I said than if I just slowly type it up after.

I agree with Teek. Put it all in writing, in the way Teek says, and complain to the head of department, and ideally also your funding council. This isn't right and can't be allowed to go on. Make a formal complaint. Don't worry about what will happen. As Teek says what do you have to lose. And, to be honest, if your supervisors have behaved so shabbily up till now they're not going to suddenly improve without being forced.

Good luck.

Like you Sue I've been a student (just counting the uni years) for most of the last 20 years. First the science degree immediately after school, then starting a PhD, then when I fell ill and started very nasty chemo treatment I started studying history courses part-time with the Open University to take my mind off it. And then that led onto more postgraduate study, but history this time. So it's been a big part of my life for a very long time, and it is quite a shift to move away from it.

But I can also see where Pjlu is coming from. A big thing I've felt since passing my viva, and - particularly - completing the corrections and getting them signed off (oh how good I will feel on graduation day in just under 4 weeks time!) is that I'm a fully validated researcher, or as Pjlu puts it a bona-fide qualified one. That's a huge confidence boost.

On the downside as you know I can't use the PhD for work in any capacity, even part-time tutoring/lecturing which I once hoped I might have been strong enough to do. I can't even work in other forms, even part-time. But I am determined to publish more papers from my thesis, and as much as I can do more research and publish even more. Hey I managed to do the PhD by dragging all the source material to me at home to work on. I'm sure I can carry on doing that 8-)

But I think what I mustn't do is try to define myself too much. I definitely don't just want to be the seriously ill person, but I'm going to try to make the most of all the opportunities I get to do other more fun things, and a lot of those opportunities I'll have to make for myself.

Sue, I'm still struggling a bit to find a new identity. The PhD was quite important to me, because it was one of the few things I could do despite the neurological illness and resulting severe disabilities, and it provided an important focus and a bit of a goal to work towards. Often people define themselves through work, and the PhD was the closest I got to that. Or through family. Well I have a lovely hubby, but can't have children due to all the chemo drugs I have to take.

So it's a tricky one. I'm planning to try to get used to being an independent researcher. I even made a post in the post-doc section of the forum earlier! But it's tricky without institutional affiliation, in particular loss of online journal access, at least until early next year when I've signed up for an OU course, so will at least have online journal access again then. I am a life member of a nearby uni library, but that dosn't get online access, just the paper stuff. I have at least 3 more papers I should be able to churn out quite quickly and then we'll see after that.

Identity is a hard one though, in my unusual position. I suspect Dan might be faring better!

Forgot to address the home address / journals publishing issue. In my field (humanities) I've seen quite a lot of journal articles from independent researchers, so for me it shouldn't be a problem. I'd hope it would work the same in the science field.