Overview of Mackem_Beefy
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Waiting for examiners verdict (post viva)
I would like to think that the examiners should realise the immense anxiety you are experiencing. Surely they will not keep you waiting until after Christmas??????? Is there a way you can check the guidelines for the examiners set out by the university? Within my institution is stated a decision must have been reached within 6 weeks of them receiving the thesis (I would give a few weeks over depending on when thesis was submmitted). In your case they have had more than enough time!! This is a disgrace and I really feel for you. I would be beyond anxious now and just getting angry!! In fact as someone who went through the resubmission process I feel really angry on your behalf haha!! :)
I totally agree with this. But rushing them into the wrong decision I'd be wary of.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
New forum design - what do you think? Any problems?
We finally have proper avatars.
But can we have animated emoticons? :-)
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Jobs after the PhD - research assistant?
A lot of ResearchAssistant and especially Research Assistant posts contain the phrase "the successful candidate will hold a PhD (or expect to be awarded a PhD) or equivalent experience."
Translated, many such posts will be awarded to people in their fourth year who've overran during write-up, providing them with a source of income while they finish. The department benefits as they hold onto the PhD candidate with the set of skills that candidate has for another couple of years stretching to beyond the completion of the PhD. They also keep hold of the candidate on the cheap as the candidate's main concern will be maintaining any source of imcome whilst they complete. That candidate will also have to accept a lower wage as they do not yet have a PhD when they start the Research Assistant or Research Associate post.
I fell into this bracket and with the alternative being either unemployment benefot or no income at all, I was willing to take a low income Research Assistant post that eventually developed into my first post-doc.
I'm pretty sure Newcastle Uni. do this, with people coming through still writing up or awaiting viva given preference over external candidate unless there is no such person coming through. Only then does an external candidate normally get a decent chance.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Waiting for examiners verdict (post viva)
A word count can be done in five minutes flat via Microsoft Word and e-mailed straight back. That's nothing!!!
The examiner concerned does seem to me to be going a little overboard. You'd expect a leeway of a couple of thousand words. He / She is obviously wondering if it's stil too big.
Hec, if you check and it's okay then that's one less thing for you to worry about.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
My research proposal is on an essay writing site!!!!!!!!!! Help!
A question for the computer tecchys on here. Is there any way the OP can check what date the page was originally authored. If it's dated after the research proposal, then no problems!!! :-)
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
I still don't understand the difference between a Journal, proceedings, et al. : (
I'm surprised that no-one has explained this for you, though now I think of it I never had it explained to me!
Basically Journals are collections of academic papers published regularly each year (how often depends on the journal). This is the top level with journals such as "Nature" and "Science" topping the list in terms of "quality". "Quality" is assessed by impact factor. In general your supervisor will know the best ones in your field.
Conference papers are the same as proceedings as far as I am aware. After a conference the "Proceedings of the xx Conference 2012" or whatever will be published. The proceedings contain the papers of the work presented at the conference.
You then get into the murky world of reports by companies and whatever and that is a bit more complicated, basically just use conference papers and journal papers. You can look up journals' impact factors online using google or whatever (just search for it). Often the proceedings of a conference are hard to get online and/or a university will host a paper on its site that has been presented at a conference. In general you should be able to find out which conference it was presented at and this is what you should reference.
All the above is just how I think it is. I welcome corrections or whatever from other people.
No-one explained the difference between the various documents to me, though it was one of those things that I thought was easy to figure out.
Then again, it's perhaps another thing that should be made clear say during an induction at the beginning of post-grad and especially PhD that many of us don't seem to have had. A couple of two hour session would make life alot easier to explain a few basics, especially with most PhDs starting in either October or January.
1) What is expected of a PhD? Originality and contribution to knowledge.
2) What structure do I follow? Literature Review (including types of document - papers, jpurnals, conference proceedings, presentations, other), Data Gathering, Interpretation, Write-up, Viva, etc.
3) What goes in the thesis? Structure - Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, Introduction to Current Work, Methodology, Discussion, Conclusions / Summary, Further Work, References, Appendicies.
4) Day-to-day life - working with others, the importance of conciliation and avoiding confrontation, relationships with supervisors, ups and downs, problems that may be faced, general procedures to be followed (specific procedures to your work would obviously be dealt with by your supervisors and departments), complaints and grievance procedures (if it does all go wrong), effect on relationships of work, stress, counselling, etc.
5) Access to facilites not part of studies - life and opportunities away from study, student societies, importance of human contact, etc.
A few words at the beginning could make the learning curve alot simpler for post-grads, especially as the format followed by post-grads is different to that of undergrads (emphasis on importance of human contact) and many post-grads can find themselves ploughing a lonely furrow.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
I still don't understand the difference between a Journal, proceedings, et al. : (
======= Date Modified 29 Nov 2012 15:46:56 =======
What is actually the difference between:
-Journal
-Proceedings
-Conference (something)
-Reviewed Papers
-Papers published in a Uni Journal (are they not good?)
-(anything that I haven't listed down)
: (
I have read some websites and they seem to have different (and complicated) explanations of them.
I'm not sure which one is the "best" to refer or to cite. I tend to say that I got it from online libraries and these libraries are "famous". Famous for what I don't know :$
I also still don't understand what it means to have a "quality" references or papers : /
Anyone? Please : (
1) A journal is a regular periodical publication, printed say monthly or bi-monthly, containing a collection of peer reviewed papers. A high 'impact rating' helps, this being a measure of citations to articles in tha journal.
2) Proceedings are collections of papers presented at a conference and printed later.
3) A conference is where you actually turn up to hear a paper presented as a talk. The paper is later printed in the proceedings.
4) Reviewed papers are those that have been appraised by experts in your field and deemed for printing in a journal or for presentation at conference.
5) Papers published in a University Journal are those that appear (as said) in the University's own publications. These might not have been peer reviewed by experts in your field, therefore there is a risk that mistakes or weaknesses may appear in them.
6) I'll add specialist book chapters to this list, which will also undergo peer review before publication.
--------
The best papers to cite I'd say are those you know have been peer reviewed by experts in your field. The best guarantee of this are papers that appear in a periodical journal or papers that might form a specialist book chapter. The next best guarantee are normally conference proceedings.
However, there are some very good bits of work out there that have not appeared as papers in periodical journal, book chapter or conference proceeding and here you have to make your own judgement as to their correctness, strength and contribution to your chosen field.
A 'famous library' will be a well known institution that has a comprehensive collection of documents in one or more fields. The below link contains examples:
http://www.thegentlemanscholar.com/Famous_Libraries.html#Famous-libraries-of-the-world
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
NASTY PHD SUPERVISOR
Always the supervisor at fault isn't it, never the student at all!
*rolls eyes*
:-)
NASTY PHD SUPERVISOR
YES I HAVE SOLID EVIDENCE THAT WAS ALREADY SEEN BY A LAWYER, THE PROBLEM IS TO PAY FOR THE LEGAL PROCESS.
Can anyone advise as to entitlement to Legal Aid for foreign nationals here?
I gather you're a Bosnian national from your username so with you being outside the EU, I don't know what advice to give.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
NASTY PHD SUPERVISOR
======= Date Modified 27 Nov 2012 09:19:37 =======
What is not clear from your posts is whether you have actually been through the appeals and complaint process of your institution yet. If not, I would do so systematically.
I agree.
Also consider how it would look to a future employer/supervisor if you become known as *that* PhD student who ran to the press rather than following formal procedures.
From the below I think MSarajevo has and got nowhere, which given Universities is feasible.
Msarajevo, I'll spell out the two clear consequences of going to the press.
1) If the press take your story, if there's anything in your story that cannot be proven you can expose yourself to civil action by the University or any individuals named in your story (i.e. liable and defamation of character). For this reason, I don't think the press will take your story.
2) If your story is published, you will be seen by other Universities as a troublemaker and it will be less likely you will be taken on for another PhD at least in the United Kingdom.
As already said, leave it in the hands of a lawyer if you think there's a case to answer. However, be aware if you have nothing more than word of mouth (material evidence, witnesses, etc.), you will have alot of difficulty in pursuing a case. Have you any solid evidence?
Universities are good at this and as well as my own experiences with my 'personality' Professor, I know of other cases where people who were not wanted were quietly moved on without the story reaching the public of press. It happens more because of self preservation in academia rather than outright corruption (though I have seen people sidelined so others can promote themselves up the career ladder too).
That said, in British academia more often than not you shouldn't have the problems you described and I think you've been desparately unlucky to find yourself in the situation you are in.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
NASTY PHD SUPERVISOR
======= Date Modified 26 Nov 2012 15:22:10 =======
Well I had reported my case to my personal tutor immediately. It is a well documented case, however, the University ignores all the evidence. I had asked for a change of supervisor very politely but in the department did all this to make me do the viva to fail me. There is evidence that shows that I had asked for to the viva examination, to change of supervisor.
I decided to publish my story to the newspapers, I do not really care if they see me as international trouble maker, I was very polite and the Univerrsity push me to do this.
Thanks for your responses,
Okay, but I think you need to think of Confucius before you do.
"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."
I don't know if the newspapers will take your story, but if they do be aware of liable laws.
Give yourself a chance to calm down before you do anything hasty.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
NASTY PHD SUPERVISOR
======= Date Modified 26 Nov 2012 11:36:57 =======
It can be luck of the draw whether or not you get a good or poor supervisor for your PhD. I've seen both sides of the coin, getting a very good supervisor for my PhD and first post-doc and a not so great one for my second post doc. Highly regarded, my second-post-doc supervisor (an influential professor) and his (de)mentor sidekick lacked certain managerial and people-handling skills that could have made all the difference to what was a very interesting project to be honest. However, I quickly discovered also I was there only to relieve the workload of my (de)mentor.
My experience is as has been pointed out that trying to take on the system simply results in the University establishment closing ranks. If you try to take action, you may well get your hearing to be told there are insufficient grounds to proceed with any complaint or action. Suddenly, people who had plenty to say about a rotten apple shy away or change their stories when a complaint is made, in part to protect their own positions of jobs. You also have to have some sort of record of events that led to the breakdown of your PhD and relationship with your supervisor.
In my case, I found that a complaint had been made by a former employee against the professor concerned that had gone to industrial tribunal. However, there was insufficient evidence to proceed, a familiar story. My own plans to consider any action were halted as a direct result as this previous action indicated I also would get nowhere and also affect my future employability. It was still difficult finding another job after this and it was almost a full year before I found work again.
My advice to you is to write this off to experience. Go away, find a job for a year or so if you feel you need some time to yourself, then if you want to try again for a PhD, do so (obviously) with a different supervisor and University. However, next time visit the department beforehand and have a good look round. If possible, ask other people working there how a new potential supervisor is to work under. If possible, use some excuse to make a second quick visit to see the supervisor before accepting the PhD as seeing them at a time different to the interview can reveal alot more about them as a person.
If the situation is untenable, I don't see any point on wasting anymore time on it. I note you tried to change supervisor three times (therefore have exhausted all avenues) but with no success. It really is a case of damage limitation and moving on. I know alot of money is involved but spending another £15,000 trying to recover this with little prospect of recovering the original money may not be a wise move. Only pursue if you have irrefutable evidence of your version of events. There is also a University Ombudsman these days, however, how effective this is I don't know as I've no idea how well this avenue has been tested.
You specify the problems you encountered as a problem with British academia, however, I see this as a problem with academia in general (internationally) in that if someone is seen as a troublemaker (even where this is not the case) the University will find ways of eventually moving them on.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Starting Phd
Take a look at my blog, which should hopefully give you some guidance about PhDs in general. Note the blog is written from a Scinece / Engineering perspective, however, even if humanities or arts alot of the information is still relevant.
http://www.wearthesis.talktalk.net
Or for some humour (it's a tough road):
http://www.wearthesis.talktalk.net/phdgame.pdf
All the best,
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Working at home
If not a nosey question, dressed (as in putting clothes on) or dressed up?
Changing out of my sleeping gear did delineate between lounging around and getting moving, but getting dressed up to feel like working to me would have seemed like overkill. However, I'm a bloke so grabbing a top and pair of jeans was probably enough to get out of 'bed' mode on the rare times I did work from home.
99% of the time I chose not to work from home, as I could never get motivated. If there were other people around me working, I felt more motivated and there was always the chance we could help each other out with the odd favour. Basically, I was not on my own with the orge of the thesis my only company during write-up. I understand what other people mean by distractions (i.e. someone working themselves or people asking for things, etc. - or having a pub next door to the building I was working in - a welcome distraction - okay, Internet was a distraction, however, that's true at home too), but I was better off generally in Uni. than out of it.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
PhD needs major revision and I feel I can't face it anymore
I agree ChrisR needs to see the examiner's reports as regards work to be done to make the thesis a viable PhD document and talk to his supervisor. However, I see from his opening post that he's having major problems with depression, is very unhappy and needs some space from the whole situation.
Given what he has said, it might be better for him psychologically if it is possible to take the MPhil, put the whole business behind him and see the new job as a new start if they will take him with the MPhil. I understand the sentiments that he should see it through, but a PhD isn't worth someone's long term health. There may be the opportunity to do a PhD part time in a subject he enjoys alongside the new post.
If he does want to see it through, I'd see if a suspension of studies once the examiner's reports have been seen and he has talked to his supervisor is possible just so he can get himself sorted out first.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
