(up) Good job with this post Eskimo_sue! Just the thing we needed!

What makes me happy? Having a slice of chocolate cake at night ... yum yum

Hi Matt,

In my undergrad third year I was recommended by my sup to use Web of Science and I have been using it ever since. What I like about it is that I can list my searches based on relevance, number of times cited or by date. I'm not sure whether Ovid Medline is the same as Medline (Pubmed) but I've found that only to list my searches based on date. I find Web of Science easier to extract references to Endnote or other citation managers.

I can't really say much about Ovid as I haven't really used it, but Web of Science is my preference.

CB

======= Date Modified 17 May 2010 21:24:47 =======
Hi Mike,

From my personal experience, academic interviews are more flexible than job interviews and I wouldn't worry too much. They're looking to see if you are competent and keen to study.
I'm with Laurenjs, you should check whether they'd take you in June but you have 2-3 days to prepare, and I think you could do it.

A good website to help you prepare is:
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/About_postgrad_study/interviews/p!empgbee

Best of luck
CB

Hey Twiglet210,

You're right, similar topics have appeared before, which just goes to show you that you're not alone in feeling this way :-). PhD can be more difficult to build friends compared to other courses. I left my friends and family and moved so far away to do my PhD but I admit I'm on a 1+3 year program so I made friends in my first year. You do not need to lay all your problems to your friends but you could mention that you're still trying to get used to the change and ask them how they coped when they first came to this uni, or where are good places to eat, things to do in town etc.

Maybe you could suggest a meal out with a few of the people you've met. You could perhaps make it a departmental thing, i.e. all the first year PhDs and it'll feel less personal and you can meet more people.

Also look for societies at your university that you could join, you'll be taking up an activity outside your PhD and meeting new people also.

CB x

Goal for today - go home and eat! Have to kill another 15 minutes in lab before I can do that, arghh!

'joy of LaTeX' ! - Haha, thanks Dan. I will if I'm stuck :-)

Hey Gilani, congrats on your position! Sounds awesome to be doing a PhD somewhere sunny 8-)

I'm not sure about Spain, but PhD students don't usually get taxed....I don't want to get your hopes high and then realise I'm wrong, but did it specify that you'll be paying tax?

CB

...however, one experiment went badly wrong that the students neglected to mention...

I'm using Vista. I'm not too concerned with track changes, so I guess that's ok. Someone recommended TeXnicCenter I heard it was easier to use than others.

Cheers guys! I guess I'll give it a shot. Now, just need to find time to embark on this mission....

======= Date Modified 13 May 2010 14:30:13 =======
There are these tiny turtles you could keep in a tank with rocks and little water. Not really sure what they're called but I reckon you could get them from an aquarium. :-)

Hey, thanks for the helpful replies. I'm in engineering so essentially, I would have graphs and equations.

Hey, sorry if this has been asked before, but could anyone tell me whether they would recommend using LaTeX rather than Microsoft Word to write up their thesis? I heard LaTeX is brilliant to use once you get the hang of it but seeing as I have no programming skills whatsoever, I wonder whether trying to learn LaTeX would be worthwhile or would it just waste my time?

Cheers,
CB

======= Date Modified 12 May 2010 16:37:34 =======
Hi Yellowtreble,

In Endnote go to 'Edit', then 'Output Styles' then 'New Styles'. It should allow you to manually edit the style and then you could save it as something and use it in word. A bit tedious, but it does work. Let me know if that helped. :-)

Actually it might be easier, to go to Edit, Output styles and then select the already existing style to edit (i.e. 'Edit Annotated') it should be in the list just below 'New Styles'. As then the forms would already have been filled in and you could just change it to suit you and save it as another style.

CB x

Hi Zipidee,

  Welcome to the forum! I come into uni each day, but I don't have a desk either, I just grab whatever computer I can find that day! I'm wondering though, when you said you don't use any of the uni's resources, does that mean you don't even access journals through your institutional account?

CB