4Matt I think it depends on whether you see the glass half full or half empty... You keep saying things like 'not much to my name' or 'nothing to my name' and seem to think that the lack of house ownership and other things constitute the gold standard of 'having things to your name' - this a topic on which you've posted before. I'm sure that to get to a phd position you must have notable achievements to your aim otherwise if you really were Average Joe you wouldn't be where you are now. Not owning a house and other things of that ilk is a temporary state of affairs not a lifelong condemnation. You don't have to have everything all at once to be successful. You're in a privileged position being able to study for the highest academic accolade (apart from the Nobel of course) there is. That's something to celebrate right?! So what if you're doing it in your late 20s - there are people on here of all ages which should tell you that doing a phd is not age specific. I know someone who graduated in their 70s!

Try not to let these worries bog you down. Houses, families and other things that you might want will follow - just because you haven't got them right this minute doesn't mean you'll never have them. Personally I think it's better to make a change rather than stay in something not fulfilling. I started in Law and had I stayed in it there's no question that'd I'd be in a very lucrative position right now but being satisfied in my work is really important to me and I've chosen an impossibly long and expensive course of retraining so that financially I'm a lot worse off but I'm happier than I could ever have been in law. Even considering the days when everything goes wrong and I hate my project.

Chin up I say. Take time to go back over your achievements and remind yourself that you do already have lots of things to your name and that you'll have more things to add in times to come.

I hope not seeing as I will be the very grand and very old age of 33 when I submit!

I have no house but I do have a car ;-)

I am making a career change and I don't see how my age affects that - except that maybe now I'm supposed to be wiser than I used to be :$

I know for a fact that I would not have been able to cope with doing a phd or making a career change any earlier than I did but I guess it will be different for everyone. I was 27 when I started my career change and so it's been a lengthy process but I don't regret it.

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Both parts are news and as well as being great for you is also very encouraging and motivating for those of us with the long journey still ahead.

Congratulations!!

Edited to correct typo

No but my friend has that! She calls her allergy to crap weather. She comes up with angry red rashes that seem to get swollen quite quickly. She uses a lot of E45 which, like Eurax just calms but doesn't diffuse the rash. The doctors haven't been able to suggest anything other than aqueous cream. She absolutely hates the winter. It's a horrible thing to have and I'm sorry that you both have to go through it :(

I'm in science too - palliative medicine.

Plagiarising at any time is a sin but it's really foolish to do in the final year when all the gloves are off and the max penalties are a real possibility. I still find it amazing that some students seem not to realise that voice and tone aren't just physical properties but also manifest in written communication and you can clearly tell the different voices in one piece of work - especially if one is significantly weaker than others!!

I've had a look at other theses and I've just started. No-one has said anything about not doing so in fact at the induction day thingy we were told that we should look through other people's work so that we know what we are trying to achieve otherwise we would be working in a vacuum. However I am really aware that this opinion varies hugely among supervisors with some saying that you shouldn't look until the 3rd year and then choose a thesis that is entirely unrelated to your own and some saying look at them if you want/need whenever you want.

Although plagiarism is the biggest fear known to academics because of it's potential to cause academic death, it is very unlikely that you will plagiarise inadvertently or otherwise because you will be very aware of the consequences. This is especially true in light of the fact that you teach and have just found your first case of plagiarism in your student's work! :$

This sort of thing is a grey area because financial directors at unis tend to have a lot of discretionary power. I started my 2nd undergrad with a special fee arrangement at the uni and was also given a letter stating the arrangement. Between the 2nd and Final year that director left and the new one overturned the decision and I ended up having to go a route that left me in financial peril. I had to abide by the new arrangment or else drop out and I wanted to complete.

It's probably a good idea to look closely at the university regulations for fees for phds and see what their financial regs say. Maybe speak to someone senior in finance or ask the student services/student help/stud guidance whatever they call it at your mum's uni and ask them to liaise with finance. There are also law firms that specialise in Higher Ed cases but this is a last resort due to the costs. Have you looked at any government Dept for Education and Skills websites to see what they say about exemptions for people on a pension?

I hope something in here might be of help and that you find a solution that let's your mum get her phd

Hi there,

Thanks for your reply. That is essentially what I do when weaving the existing literature into my review so it's good to know someone else does it in a similar way. However what I'm really stuck with is the quantity of the material and the fluctuating nature of it - what are people doing to keep track of their reading - index cards? Electronic records on Word or Excel? Post-its? Keeping things in envelopes specific to each chapter?

My existing methods were fine for undergrad and Masters but they are not flexible enough to keep up with the amount of reading in a phd...

I doubt that anything I write now will appear in the final thesis too but I need to produce a literature review in order to get the project through various Ethics Committees and the like...
:-(

How do you organise your materials to allow you to write a cohesive literature review without jumping around in your papers and losing the plot? I feel like I'm walking in quick sand territory - one minute a paper seems totally useless and then two days later it's the bible and a paper I thought was priceless a few days before is now not worth 'the paper it's printed on. Argh!!

I did several large literature searches on related themes and now that the final topic has been decided I can select my primary batch of key papers. However the project involves all of these other related themes so I have a LOT of additional material to go through.

I thought about my usual method of writing a short summary for each paper I read listing the key words and themes but this is taking me forever and now the sup wants the literature review in by the end of the week!

I feel as though I've been swallowed by the literature and I can't find the thread that will lead me back out. I used to swear by filing and labels but 'the maleable nature of the project means that one paper can move between methods, lit rev, and ethics all in one week!

What do you guys do to organise yourselves?

How do you organise your materials to allow you to write a cohesive literature review without jumping around in your papers and losing the plot? I feel like I'm walking in quick sand territory - one minute a paper seems totally useless and then two days later it's the bible and a paper I thought was priceless a few days before is now not worth 'the paper it's printed on. Argh!!

I did several large literature searches on related themes and now that the final topic has been decided I can select my primary batch of key papers. However the project involves all of these other related themes so I have a LOT of additional material to go through.

I thought about my usual method of writing a short summary for each paper I read listing the key words and themes but this is taking me forever and now the sup wants the literature review in by the end of the week!

I feel as though I've been swallowed by the literature and I can't find the thread that will lead me back out. I used to swear by filing and labels but 'the maleable nature of the project means that one paper can move between methods, lit rev, and ethics all in one week!

What do you guys do to organise yourselves?

Differentiation is basically an upgrade process - you write a report, give a short presentation and maybe sit a mini viva about your research. In other unis it's just called an upgrade and you submit the written report. It decides whether the research is feasible for continuation to 2nd year and checks progress.

We've not specifically been told about the bibliography but we have been told that we need to know the key people and papers in the field and also know about other important papers that inform our work. The length is variable because it very much depends on what you're field is. There isn't that much out there on what I'm doing and so I've got about 4 key people who have done consistent work on thr topic and a few other papers that touch on what I'm doing. My friend is in a very well established field and has about 150 key papers to choose from.

I don't think length or numbers of papers is particularly relevant - try to go for quality papers by established people and papers which really inform your work then you can check with your sup to make sure you've captured all the ones they would expect to see in a good project and hopefully you'll find a few that they don't know about.

Also ask other studs who have been through the process what to expect. Ours have said that generally they just want to see how much progress you've made and how well you can present your work. Mostly it's to see that you've not spent the first year doing nothing...

Good luck!

Hello

Congrats on getting a place!

Where I am we are expected to do at least 9-5 during the working week and attendance at meetings and research seminars is compulsory as is a bit of teaching but saying that the priority is on phd work. We are not supposed to do so much teaching that it stops us making progress. Also we are advised to get all the training and teaching out of the way in the first two years so that we can concentrate fully on completing in the 3rd year. Some of 'the 2nd and 3rd years have additional research projects that run alongside their phd projects but these are the ones that wanted to increase their research profiles they weren't made to do it.

Prior to being a phd student I used to do postgrad admin for two different unis and I've never really heard of students doing stuff for other people unless it's something that would directly benefit their development - eg sometimes a supervisor would pass on their invitations to talk or to review books to their students to give them experience of doing this.

Every uni is different I guess and it depends on what you'll be doing. If you're working on other projects then that'll be great additional experience and add to your cv. You'll have to make sure you get enough time to do your own work too.

Good luck with your new place and enjoy!

Hi there

Have you tried searching on the findaphd forum or via google? You need to find out which universities have departments that do this kind of work and then contact them to see if they have any phd places. Or even ask your masters supervisor for some advice.

Good luck with your search

Hahahaha Bleebles, that made me chuckle. Good one. (up)