January is hell - conferences, chapter, marking exam scripts, submitting two articles and writing introduction to collection of essays! On Monday I am going to sit down with my 2009 diary and get my head round where I'm supposed to be when. I am taking time off until 28th December and then it's going to be manic again. :-(

Well, the consensus for our department seems to be that it wasn't terrible, but not as good as thought or expected... 20% 4*, very big redbrick humanities department.

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Interloper here - but have survived three AHRC applications and have known both the joy of the fat envelope, for my MA, and the pain of the thin one for the PhD (can't believe they made them all thin - how evil?!)

Just wanted to say to Stressed: couldn't you apply to the ESRC? It sounds more like their bag?

I do think you have a lot more freedom when unfunded (and even more so when part-time like me) - I started with an ambitious project that could never have been done in three years (probably why they didn't fund it!), and even though it is a lot more focused now, I definitely was given a lot more room to experiment and see what worked in the early days than my funded counterparts. And my supervisor recently said that out of all of his students, mine was the most self-defined.

So just wanted to say well done to those who got it, but to remind others that didn't that you can go on and succeed. I am aiming to finish next September, after 5 years part-time study. It has been hard but it has been worth it.

Well done, Frankie! I love the feeling of meeting a target like that. Have a good relaxing holiday now!

Hi - no real advice for you, I'm afraid, but just wanted to chime in to say that I think this is something that a lot of historians deal with in one way or another. In fact, last chapter I got told off for going too far the other way and it being too much of a straight historical narrative. At the moment I am turning it into an article and structuring it so it works both thematically and chronologically is a complete nightmare that is making me lose sleep! I think it is something that only comes with practice and something even my supervisor has confided that he has real trouble with - and he's a professor!

So, I know the feeling. And probably so does every historian out there! I know that doesn't make it any easier, but...

I also love the people at Uni now. The PhD students who started last year are a really great bunch and we have done lots socially this year. As well as the pub (obviously), we have been to the cinema, theatre and even day trips together!

My supervisors are great as well. When I consider that I very nearly gave up this time last year, they have worked as hard as I have to get me back on track and I respect them for that.

I think the PhD is a rollercoaster, even those of us who love it much of the time have very bad times, and vice versa. I am a part-time student so this is played out over a longer period of time. Last year, I didn't have a good year: I was depressed and hardly produced anything. My supervisors were worried, and although I passed my panel meeting it wasn't with flying colours. This year has been a totally different story: I have produced two chapters that were well received, was praised in the panel meeting and look set to have a full draft by Easter! It is amazing how different I feel.

Hi Lara and all - am having the weekend off as have my panel meeting to discuss my chapter on Monday. Am at a conference for the rest of next week, so I hope everyone has a productive work week! I will check back in on my return.

Go go go!

Hey just to thank you guys for your support this week. It has really helped knowing other people are working and to write down my goals. I tend to work in binges on the last minute, so it's good to have an incentive to work more consistently in smaller chunks. And much less stressful in the long-run!

Anyway, I handed in a draft of chapter 3 (10,153 words) this morning. It will face a barrage of criticism, I think, and is dodgy in places. It will also probably finally end up about 15,000 words. But at least I have a basis to work on now. This accountability thread has really helped!

I'm taking the rest of this evening off. But I'll be back tomorrow. Well done everyone, and keep on going!

I am not quite finished my respectable draft - there are a few more holes to plug yet. However, I've never been one for all-nighters, so I will be back at work early in the morning, with the aim of getting it printed and to the supervisors by the end of the day.

I have updated my thesis plan as well though - and realised that I'm actually sticking to it!

Go go Lara and everyone else who is working so hard. I'll report back when I've got the thing in for them to start ripping apart! But at least I'll have a draft and red-pen filled manuscripts to work through!

Thanks Lara - there are lots of gaps though, and notes to myself to add things, etc!

On second thoughts, my aims for tonight were a little bit on the optimistic side (I always overestimate what I can do in a short time!). I'm on on around 8,000 words now.

I won't have time to post here in the morning, as I have an early meeting, so I will put my aims for tomorrow here now.

500 words ish to fill in the gaps in section one.
500 words ish to fill in the gaps in section two.
Read through Chapter 2 again and mark up what I think is missing/needs more background etc to make it fit with Chapter 3.

Aim: to have a respectable first draft to print out and give to supervisors by Wednesday morning.

Good going everyone, let's do well tomorrow too!

Can I join in?

My targets for today are to get to 8,000 of the first draft of this chapter by 6pm today (I'm currently on 6,797) and finish the particular section I'm working on with that.

This evening, after my tea, I will come back and revisit a section I've already written and add what needs to be added to it and fill in all the gaps. I'm aiming to have a very rough draft of around 9000 words by 11pm.

Good luck everyone with your goals!

Hi. I'm a PhD student in the humanities and I and some of my fellow students are in 'discussion' with our Head of School over plans to make access to our shared office - which is currently used only by students in History - open to the whole School. At the moment, the room has 10 computers and a few more desks for a department which has around 55 research students.

The new plan is to 'refurbish' this room, to add a few more computers, and open it up to the whole School. We don't even know how many people that will add to potential users, but we do know that at least two of the other departments have research student numbers comparable to our own. At the same time, a postgraduate common room that was meant for the use of the whole School is being turned into an undergraduate room, and the graduate centre in the library, where we used to be able to book desks has been totally phased out.

I was wondering how common these lack of facilities are, especially for arts and humanities students, for comparison and to put our situation into perspective?

I'm in the humanities - history - and I have have been told, by a particularly pernickety supervisor, to not only avoid I, but not to refer to 'this thesis' or 'this chapter' or 'this section', to refer only to content. It takes some grammatical gymnastics to avoid both, I can tell you! I once took his book and circled all the times he'd used the first person and referred to chapters of the book in the introduction, just to makes me feel better. I recommend it.

I would avoid 'I' unless it sounds really silly without it. It should be used sparingly, anyway. The not referring to 'your thesis' etc seems less common - just a cross I have to bear, obviously!

I just did 4000 words in about three days. I think any more than that would have been really at the expense of quality.

One of my supervisors tells me that 1000 words is the optimum and that trying to do any more than that is usually counterproductive. While as an undergraduate, I would have written twice as fast, I find that PhD writing seems to be a much slower affair. Having said that, if you know your sources inside out and have a VERY clear plan, I'm sure it can be done.