Hold on a minute... "forced to" seems a bit of a stretch, especially in the light of the next sentence:

“I did have another job at one point, as a computer programmer, but I kept up with my other work because it was so much more enjoyable.”

Depends on the topic you're researching though, surely? Some ideas are just very, very hard to get your head around. 'Plugging away' might get the donkey work done, but it's not going to enable you to critically engage with complex theories and arguments - either you're capable of thinking on that level or you're not.

(NB I'm not trying to make a hard subject/soft subject distinction here - I'm sure people are wrestling with some brain-achingly difficult ideas right across the board!)

Yeah, obviously PCs are better in some ways, but I just don't think reading on them for several hours a day is the best idea. I've messed around with screen brightness and even tinted glasses, but I still get headaches. (I have an eye condition that's known to make sufferers extra sensitive to light, and I'm due to have a corneal tranplant next year which is likely to make matters worse - especially during the recovery period, which can be a year or more.)

What I'm doing at the minute is reading on paper and typing up notes on my laptop, which is probably the best way to read and the best way to take notes if you look at those activities in isolation... but I like the idea of an 'all-in-one' solution, something lighter than a laptop I can put all my PDFs on and which I can at least use to highlight passages, add 'bookmarks', write little notes to myself etc. - which in some ways might be better, and less time-consuming, than writing notes separate from the articles. (I could just write on the articles on paper, of course, but the thought of mountains of printouts held together with paperclips and covered in my indecipherable scrawl fills me with dread!)

As I understand it, they use a completely different technology from computer screens - "e ink" - which is far easier on the eyes. (By all accounts they really do look like ink on paper!)

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone uses an ebook reader in the course of their studies - specifically to read and annotate PDFs of journal articles? I love the idea in theory, obviously reading on a computer screen strains your eyes after a while, and printing out stacks of paper to read and then file is a pain (and environmentally unsound!) Plus I like the idea of being able to take notes on articles neatly and in an organised way without having to work on a computer screen. But I don't know how practical it is, in reality, to read (typically A4) PDFs on a 6" screen. Anyone have any first-hand experience? Is it easy enough to read PDFs by 'zooming in' and/or using a landscape screen orientation?

Maybe I should just wait and see what the Que proReader costs when it comes out next year - that actually has an A4 screen and looks generally nifty! But I thought I'd see if anyone has any thoughts on the readers that are currently available - e.g. the Sony Touch model.

Thanks!

There, directly outside the house, its engine chugging patiently, was a yellow school bus. The sort of bus you see every day in American films, picking up American kids from American suburbs, bathed in the American light of American mornings; but not the sort of bus John or Jemima would ever have expected to see in their street in Swindon, pelted by English rain on a grey English Saturday. And there was something else strange about this bus...

Might be worth taking a look at Nvu - I had a quick go at using it a while back and it seemed pretty straightforward. (And it's free, so at least you're not forking out just to give it a try.)

(I'm assuming an off-the-peg blog format wouldn't do the job?)

This sort of goes against what other people have been saying, but I started getting over my nerves when I *stopped* picturing myself actually doing the thing I was worried about. I just got into the habit of doing whatever preparation I needed to do, then pushing the whole thing to the back of my mind pretty much until I was getting to my feet to speak. (I'm talking here about giving presentations at work rather than teaching, but I guess the principle's the same.) Rather than over-thinking everything (what if such-and-such happens? how would I respond to so-and-so? etc), I decided to just get on with it, and I'm sure that helped me relax and feel sufficiently at ease to be comfortable with a certain amount of unpredictability and improvisation.

That may be of no help to you at all, because it doesn't really sound like you're overthinking things to begin with, but it might just be another way of looking at things.

Might be worth looking here to get an idea of the sort of research the AHRC have been funding lately. I can't see any specific funding that would be available to you as an individual PhD student, but it looks to me as if the sort of area you're interested in (religion/social cohesion/changing communities) is attracting a lot of money at the minute, which can only be good news for you:

http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/FundingInitiatives.aspx

Thanks!

From my point of view, the tutoring work is about filling in gaps in background knowledge and getting some teaching experience on my CV. From the department's point of view, I think it's just about having a lot of first years to teach and hence a lot of tutoring work available.

Just thought I'd share some of my first impressions of PhD life, one month in...

Basically things are going fine - first supervision went well on Wednesday (supervisor liked the essay I'd submitted and seemed impressed/relieved that my writing skills are up to scratch, which she says can be half the battle).

Two things that have surprised me:

1 - I've been given some tutoring work straight away, which I wasn't really expecting till my 2nd year, a bit daunting, but going OK so far.

2 - I've felt a bit swamped by on-campus commitments at times - mostly to do with that tutoring work (e.g. attending course lectures) - and been left wondering when I'm supposed to get any actual research done! But various introductory things are out of the way now and I think I'll soon get into a workable routine.

So, off to a good start and feeling positive... but very aware that I've got a lot of work ahead of me!

:-)

Don't be too hard on yourself - it's a big jump from an undergraduate degree straight to a PhD, after all. If doing a master's isn't an option, or not an option you favour, I suppose you're bound to feel a bit like you've been thrown in at the deep end. But that's no reflection on your ability; it's just going to take a bit of time to adjust. You'll get there!

I'm trying to catch the gist of the sentence - not this particular sentence I mean, but assuming the sentence you're working on has the same structure!

Are you saying (the equivalent of):

It's not just that, trivially, it relates to some penguins - importantly, it relates to some emperor penguins

It's not just that it relates to some penguins - it relates to all emperor penguins

It's not just that it relates to some penguins - it relates to all and only emperor penguins

... or what?

Sorry if I'm overcomplicating this, but the sentence seems a bit weird as it stands because obviously something that relates to all penguins is going to relate to emperor penguins (cf. "It became evident that it not only related to fruit but to apples")... so I figure you must be trying to say something about "it's not penguins in general, it's emperor penguins in particular", but I'm not sure what? In any case, I wonder if tweaking the wording might remove the need for emphasis.

Ah, my area of expertise - stuffing my face while trying not to expand to the size of a house.

I've lost three and a half stone over the past couple of years following my patented Magictime diet plan, which basically involves eating lower-calorie versions of the same rubbish I always eat (and cutting out mid-morning sausage butties). Top tips include:

Curly Wurlys - the diet food of a genius at 115 calories! Mmm...

Snack size bags of Cadbury's buttons - just enough for a chocolate fix at 75 calories a bag

Snack size bags of Maltesers - OK, a poor substitute for your favoured cinema-style pouches, but OK for 99 calories

On the non-chocolate side, Skips, Quavers and French Fries at around 80 calories a bag

Small bags of popcorn at around 100 calories

Muller Light yogurts at around 100 calories

Various mini ice creams - Magnums etc. (Mini Twisters are 40 calories apiece!)

I know all this calorie-counting seems terribly sad, but I've come to the conclusion there's just no point trying to completely cut out junk and replace it with rabbit food - it's just too miserable to stick with. Hence the selection of junk is crucial!

I'm stocking up on audiobooks at the minute because I'm on the waiting list for a corneal transplant and expect the affected eye to be sore and very light-sensitive afterwards. I figure a big pile of audiobooks will make ideal company while I sit in a darkened room feeling sorry for myself! Trouble is, I keep wanting to listen to them NOW.

World War Z is a top tip - might just have to spend that £15!