I quite like the real person approach, not a Gwyneth effort but a sprinkling of in jokes. I always read other people's acknowledgements. I heard a story of one bloke who thanked his friends (and listed about seven names). After publication revealed that they were his pet rats! Whatever works!

I'm curious how people thank the people they have to thank, but don't want to..."thanks for nothing" "thanks for making my life hell for 3 years" etc. I'm sure you all know what I'm getting at! I think I'll have two versions, one that I'll submit in my PhD, appropriate thanks and politeness for staff, with the friends and family mentioned and some real person stuff. And a second version that I'll circulate to some close friends who've travelled this bumpy road and deserve a giggle at the challenges they've helped me through.

Wow, what a contentious issue! I am firmly, whole heartedly and completely in the love marmite camp. Spread quite thick (but not quite as thickly as jam), preferably on toast, often with cheddar cheese slabs on top. Lick the excess off the knife (no wastage please, this stuff is too precious). *drool* None of this thin spreaded marmite for me; I like a proper fix or none at all. This does however mean that a jar doesn’t last so long, and is quite expensive, but it’s gooooooood! (up) (up) (up) (up) (up) (up) (up) (up)

Re vegemite. I would rather eat frogspawn which is less likely to make my skin crawl and my stomach wretch. Feel green just at the thought of it. Sorry Sue2604 – we have so much in common re PhD land and similar experiences, but I have to disagree with you on this subject!

I had a cousin who spread pickle in her sandwich that was as thick as a slice of bread…would you like a bit of sandwich with your pickle?
(Any more condiments?)

I found a Christmas card on my desk this week signed from somebody, let's say "John". It really confused me, I kept staring at it thinking that I don't know anyone called John and who had possibly sent me this card. Then I realised that John was, of course, my supervisor. :$

I think it was just the Christmas card etiquette that surprised me - I never thought sup would send me a card so it took a while for me to connect it with him! Although, maybe it's something else!
(snowman)

No need to apologise!

How about calling them all figures and keeping it simple? Figure x.x shows the study site (author's own). Figure x.x shows the links between different parts of the chocolate factory in case study 1 (from Cadburys, 2005). etc.


I'm not sure what the official rule is, but this would keep it simple.

Good luck!

CG

I like this thread - a good cohort of what used to be 10monthers...now not quite so many months! Lots of familiar feelings in the other posts here. I'm still trying for March but have lots to do. I have a bit of teaching and some non-thesis writing to do which is a bit of distraction but will hopefully still be a useful venture. As for thesis, I have a reasonable amount in draft, but not the whole thesis draft which I was aiming for by january. It's the typical rollercoaster of emotion - I'm sick of it and loving it at the same time - and a little confused! The bad bits are the fear of how it will all get done and the post phd life, money, jobs etc. The good bits are seeing my skills improving as I write and making bits of progress - but this is very variable speed, and at the whim of powers beyond my control or awareness.
I'm totally knackered....not sleeping very well and try very hard not to fall asleep in the office!

Time for bed, sleep, then kick some chapter a$$ tomorrow (snowman)

Night night fellow writer-uppers

Hi KB, I hope your meeting went well. I've sent you a pm
CG
(sprout) - full of vitamins to help your leg heal!

Hi KB, I hope your meeting went well. I've sent you a pm
CG
(sprout) - full of vitamins to help your leg heal!

Have you contacted your university careers office? I discovered mine a while ago and they are the ultimate oracle on such matters. I don't mean to sound sarcastic - the ones as an undergraduate always seemed pretty dire but this time they were more than willing to help. They were also willing to give me a practice interview - great for a bit of confidence building after all these years in PhD land. If not the careers people, could you get a friend or colleague (or stranger off the street who you'll never see again!) to ask you some practice questions?

I've been recommended a book called "great answers to tough interview questions" which I had a look through and seemed like it might be useful to your scenario for the presentation.

Good luck out there in the real world :-)

Hi Sue,

I completely agree - and not only are my human - human social skills going down the pan but I don't even have time/skills to interact with my virtual friends anymore! Argh!

I don't like the anti-social, dysfunctional hermit thing either, but think it is the only way I can finish. I am getting particularly impatient with friends who just don't get it. Totally my fault, not theirs, but still...

My question would be to the post PhDers in this forum as to how long it takes to recover from this state!

Hope all's going well Sue...still rollercoaster-tastic for me, in pursuit of seemingly inachievable hand in targets!

Hi KC,

Hope your meeting went well,

CG

Hi KC,

Well first off you're going to be fine! This is all part of the PhD learning curve and something many of us on here have faced, so you are not alone and you will come through the other side.

My advice would be not to cancel the meeting; you'll only postpone the current feelings. Facing your challenge head on is difficult but the best way to deal with it, and hopefully your supervisor will see that and recognise that you need some direction/support.

You said that you've already written another chapter (sorry, I can't remember how far through your PhD you are), which shows that you are able to complete a chapter and understand the process, which is a positive thing to hold onto. This helps me when I'm faced with enormous tasks. Looking back and seeing the things I've done gives me a bit of confidence to face the next bits.

Admitting to your supervisor that things aren't going well and you haven't managed to do what you had planned won't be easy or particularly pleasant, but could prove to be the solution you need. Perhaps you could email your supervisor and say that the work isn't done to a standard you are happy to submit but you'd like to keep the meeting and talk through the chapter/get his input/discuss the options. Then when you go to the meeting have some comments ready, for example... You said you have three variations of the chapter, and it sounds like you have a good reasoning of why these won't work, tell him what and why. Tell him what's been positive about what you've done so far (not all progress is purely about words on paper). Explain how else you might consider finishing the chapter (you said something about reading other texts) and what alterations this would mean to the original chapter outline. Explain how and why you might remove the chapter and use the information elsewhere - and why it would be better in that format rather than the original, and why that would be better to write.

Someone told me that it is important not to only take problems to supervisors, but also take solutions. This has been good advice! It's not about hiding from the problem, but instead of me going in and saying "I can't analyse my data" which tells my sv I've hit a snag and then stopped, I go in and say that the original stats I planned to use didn't work because of x, y, and z. I've looked at these stats alternatives, I spoken to this person, and I now have 2 options, but I'm not sure which one will work best and whether I've missed something else. What do you think?". It sounds like you already have all this information for your situation at your fingertips, you just need to get it into a bit of order for your meeting so you can explain it to your supervisor.

It may be that you're so far into your chapter that you can't see the big picture of it anymore which is stopping you move forwards. Talking it through might help clarifiy some of this.

You are clearly not useless; you've done 5 months of work on something and got various positive outputs, they just don't look quite how you'd like them to just yet (sounds just like the last 3.5 years of my life - my PhD!). You will get there. Maybe have a night off tonight, try to get some sleep and spend tomorrow making a plan for the meeting.

Good luck, stick in there


(up)

lol Alpaca - glad I'm not the only one!

Sue, hope your meltdown has eased a bit and you feel a bit better. Hope the day just starting for you proves to be a productive one.

I'm off for some trash tv and sleep before getting back to the grindstone tomorrow (when I will write more than today...)

Bon nuit all

Congratulations Lara! That's fantastic news, I hope you're enjoying a well deserved rest and celebration after all your hard work :-) :-) :-) :-) Well done for sticking with it to the end
CG x

Hi Sue,

I agree with the other posters that since you have a good relationship with your sv you could ask her about it. Perhaps in a non-specific way - "what would I need to do to be first author" rather than making it specific to this article. I think it's an important question to ask as it's part of career development to know about the publishing process.

Are you first author on the paper you mention below? It sounds like you've done a lot of work on that one already.

I've been at the overwhelmed stage for a while too...it helped a few weeks ago when you guys posted the lists of work as I knew I wasn't the only one climbing this enormous mountain. I currently alternate between a state where I think about everything I have to do, all at the same time, and how I'll never manage it, but that makes me breathe too fast and is not conducive to work. The alternative state is where I have to assume everything will be ok and just focus on the particular task I have set myself that day. It's the only way I can move forwards. It's a little bit head in the sand, but at least it's warm under there!

I don't have any words of advice for you, but I think we're in very similar boats!

Hi,

I've sent you a PM with some weblinks, not much as like you I'm mostly targetting specific individuals. I'm planning to do an email. I'm not sure about whether to go attachments or email body - I always like to have a good layout of information and you never know how someone's email browser can reinterpret a bullet point list or paragraphs and make it look rubbish. But like you say, it's easier to ignore an attachments... I might try some name dropping "Dr Wonderful has suggested I contact you about ..." obvious, but might help avoid the instant delete.


:-)