I am not sure that I am the right person to reply to your post, as I am not British and I undertand you feel little sympathy for foreigners at the moment. However, I can sympathize with you. I was a teacher before I started my PhD, and I loved teaching. I had a great relationship with the students, I enjoyed myself there and learnt a lot, in spite of the fact that I was underpaid for my qualifications and experience. The problem was outside the classroom, with a collegue in a senior position: of course I was the last one, the youngest, who knows why she works so hard...she may be up to something... perhaps she aims to my job - of course none of the above!. Well, eventually I left the place. I was absolutely devastated. It took over a year to recover, in spite of the fact that my former students gave me a lot of support. I then had the opportunity to do a PhD and now I don't look back. Life is in this way, with good and bad periods.

I am sure that you will enjoy the experience, and I would be happy to hear how you are getting on!

Hi dazednconfused,
I had the same problem. I tended to put Ibid. and op. cit. everywhere and my supervisor didn't like it. The options were either to rewrite the author's name, year and page number every time [e.g. Barth,(1986),18] or write: Barth as in note 46. I tend to use the first option, but it took some time to get used to it!
I hope it is of some help.

Hi Pamw,
I organized seminars for my department some time ago. I can tell you that it takes time, energy and hard work. This said, I think it's a great opportunity and, as far as I am concerned, I had the chance to network with people that I would't have the opportunity to get in touch with otherwise. I am really happy I did it. If I had listened to my supervisor I wouldn't have done anything. I think that you need to think carefully about the time issue, and if you think you want to go for it, do it!

My supervisor usually keeps my stuff for months until someone else in the department show interest in what I am doing and ask to read it. It works magic! The day after chapter/essay or paper is corrected!

Hi PinkNeuron,
I am working! - or at least I am trying to. My husband is out too, so I am trying to catch up with these piles of books and photocopies that need to be read.
Actually, at the moment I am having a break - that is a cup of tea with chocolate biscuits! Wonderful.

Hi 404,
I am not sure that I understood properly your problem and therefore I apologize in advance if my answer is of no use at all.
I usually put all the info in the caption and, as you did, I reference it in the main text as well. Do you have other images? If so, I suppose that you will need to insert a list of illustrations after the list of contents with numbers, title, etc.

Thanks you for your encouragement and suggestions!
You are right jojo, preparation is essential especially for the question session at the end. I feel fairly confident that I can handle that as I have - or at least I think I have! - a good knowledge of my topic and what has been published in that area. My problem is probably more related to the fact that English is not my mother tongue and also as the PhD progresses the environment seems to be more competitive and -I would say often aggressive. I often feel intimidated even if I am sure of my stuff...and I agree with you Pup, a good slide show is useless if you don't have a focussed and coherent paper first.

Hi everyone,

I am going to present a paper at an international conference shortly. It's not the first time that I present, the problem is that I don't like reading and I usually talk over the slide show.
Everyone else, students or high-profile scholars, read their papers and I feel like the odd one out. I attended some workshops on how to present papers and I was told I shouldn't read - so I am a bit confused now. Any suggestion from anyone? I am scared to death about this forthcoming conference...

I supposed it dependes on the area you are in. The majority of theses I read have a selected bibliography. Our Uni issued a guide that recommends to check with our dept.if we are expected to include everythting we have read (bibliography) or only sources we have used in the text (reference list). As far as I know we are expected to use the 'selected bibliography' and make a distinction only between primary (published/ unpublished) and secondary sources.

I've just come back after a morning of wild research at the library and it was nice to find your messages. Thanks to you all! I think you are probably right jojo, it's probably down to different values. My mother probably sees my academic successes and compares them with her failure to build something for herself, which thing of course I take into account. For this very reason I would expect support from her side. My Dad has a more laid back approach, and probably thinks that this is a pastime...Anyway, it's great to be able to share this with other people who can understand. It makes a great difference to my mood!

This is the point. Often things are already difficult on their own and you would expect your family to be understanding if not supportive. If by accident I complain about something even remotely connected to my PhD, my mother's attitude is: 'You are wasting your time there'. Unfortunately her idea of a woman's place doesn't match mine. In spite of the difficulties I cannot see the attraction of washing socks and ironing shirts or why I shouldn't manage both. Maybe it's just a problem of generation. You certainly need to be very motivated to achieve your objectives, but it is also empowering to see that you can manage it in spite of the difficulties.

I hope that this can be of help.
http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/tutorials/citing/harvard.html

Thank you jojo. I did try to tell them - especially my mother, but the effect lasts only for two weeks! However, I agree that I should try to keep these things aside. It's not always easy though. Insomniac, I loved your reply. It sounds very familiar. Perhaps we are relatives?

I am afraid I am going to add another depressing message to the list. I got first class degrees for both my BA and Master and I am now doing a PhD. The problem is: throughout all these years my family never had a word of appreciation or support. Phone calls always end with: '...what's the use of it?' My partner is very supportive, but I just get very depressed and demotivated when I think about it as it is a weekly occurence. None of my parents have a degree and this probably explain their attitude, even though... I need a bit of sympathy.