Sound really corny but a thoughtful card with a few pis of you and your life at the minute (or you and her if you have any recent ones) and maybe a letter telling her what your up to and asking about her will let her now your thinking of her and is cheap. Plus the promise of a lunch for just the two of you whenever you are home next. I'm lucky that I have the time (and am conveniently geographically located) to bring my mum out this weekend - even though she knows it won't be anywhere flash she seems to be really looking forward to it.

Sneaks your supervisor sounds terrible- poor you having to try to follow ever-changing directions and having to re-do work so many times. You must be one very patient lady!

I'm still not making much progress - I think it feels worse because I'm searching for information that doesn't seem to exist. Instead of reading papers and being able to say x, y and z have already been done, I find myself reading papers that sound like they may have information which may be of use and then discovering that the authors seem to be discussing the topic without having conducted any experiments as such. So it feels like I'm going round in circles - hence the demotivation:-(

Hi Macina

Try not to worry too much it is a competitive world out there but you never know!
In my case, as I was leaving the interview even though I thought it had gone well, the interviewer asked me if I had applied for other psotitions and told me to keep applying!! A couple of days later they e-mailed to offer me a fully funded PhD. So keep your options open definitely but don't give up hope (up)

======= Date Modified 10 34 2010 13:34:21 =======
:-(

I don't know what's wrong with me - I've done hardly any work this week so far or last week either.

For the last few months I've had the problem of not knowing where to draw the line with working hours. i.e. working every weekend and leaving the office at 10 or 11pm weekdays. And I'm only halfway through first year. I think the main reason is that I'm panicking because Im still trying to get a proposal together and it's in an area thst I have no experience in whatsoever. It takes me a really long time to get my head around the concepts discussed in the papers because the subject is very technical and abstract.

It feels like I've given up and admitted defeat. I'm finding it really hard to motivate myself for the last while and spend hours in the office aimlessy trawling the web or worse, watching tv shows online. Neither of my supervisors are experts in my area so cannot really guide me much. These days I spend only 7 or 8 hours per day trying to work and have taken the last 3 weekends off. I feel really guilty about this especially since I don't have a clear idea of the subject fof my PhD yet.

My subject area is one that hasn't been looked at all really and it spans 3 very diverse and enormous subject areas. Everything that we are trying to do is being attempted for the first time. I like a challenge, in fact that was the reason I chose my specific undergrad in the first place but I am feeling very overwhelmed. I'm really starting to doubt that what we are doing is possible.

Sorry, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, it just all feels quite hopeless at the moment.

Hi Sneaks

I find that if I click on track changes before I save the document it automatically opens track changes when it (the document) is next opened, even if it is sent as an attachment. To be sure,you could make a comment yourself using track changes somewhere near the start of the document (something like - follow-up reference X.....)?

The Crystal Maze!!!! I always dreamed of solving the puzzles and the getting to that big dome thing where all the money blows around?!

Oh Wally - ever the creator of entertaining threads!!!

For me the trashier the programme the better - the Hills, Supernanny, Wife Swap, Supersize vs. Superskinny ...... need I go on? :$

Like Eska though, I couldn't really answer the poll - I suppose documentaries is the closest classification but I feel that tarnishes the good name of documentaries just a bit :p

Hi R_U_4_REAL_NICK. Yes I have Browns paper and I have searched online for Black and Whites' papers but I can't get access to them as my uni doesn't have the required subscriptions.

Thanks Sneaks - I just pm'd you!

======= Date Modified 23 22 2010 16:22:32 =======
Hi All,

I've gotten myself into a bit of a muddle. An abstract that I have written has been approved by my supervisor but as I was checking over it I noticed a mistake. I referenced the author whose article I read stating

"It has been found that x, y and z occur due to a,b and c, (Browne, 2007)" not realising that Browne had actually cited Black 2005 & White 2006.

I can't get access to the articles by Black & White on my uni's subscription and I can't find any other articles that contain the information that I need. So what I'm wondering is, is it acceptable to cite them as

Black, 2005 & White, 2006 as cited in Browne, 2007

Does this look really lazy? And do you think it needs to be resubmitted to my supervisors again for approval?

I am panicking quite a bit now so any input would be much appreciated!

(ps. In know it seems odd that there references in an abstract but that's the format set by the conference organisers)

Thanks Rick

but in the sample abstracts available on the conference website there are citations and a list of references too. I think this seems odd to many people but it seems that that's how the organisers want it.

I need to submit an abstract for a conference during the Summer by the end of today. The maximum word count is 500 words but the website doesn't specify whether the list of references are included in the word count or not?? I have a feeling they wouldn't be but I'm really not sure. Does anybody have any ideas? I'm in the sciences if that has any bearing.

Thanks,
Ev
xx

Hi Yellowtreble

I'm not sure what referencing style you use but I use Harvard and Endnote automatically puts it into capital letters (There's a note if you go into the Harvard style that after 2003 (I think) Author names are supposed to be in capitals??????). So i created my own style- basically it's pretty much the Harvard style but without the capitals - it's pretty easy to do.

I don't know the proper solution to your question though, sorry.

======= Date Modified 17 Feb 2010 17:48:37 =======
Thanks for your input Siwee. I'm in the sciences, I'm not sure about you. The sample extracts (showing correct formatting etc.) on the conference website do have citations and list of references so I'm just wonderinf if they would be included in the word count?

Just wondering, are references included within the word count? At the moment, I'm struggling to cut down my word count - it's about 700 right now excluding references - but including references it's up at almost 1000!