Hi bug
I wouldn't worry too much about it, if the journals are all affiliated with the same association then I;m sure they all carry the same weight. It could be that the article you sent just didn't fit exactly what they are looking for now, very often the editor will read an abstract and decide from there. If she has suggested it for another paper then go for it, if its published in a slightly different journal it's not the end of the world. It will still be picked up on lit searches and referenced so you should still hit the right audience.

hello there folks!
I'm doing a science phd and so it's not as qualitative and introspective as everyone elses here but, i do feel like ive done a lot of thinking about myself and my principles. I think it's spending a lot more time in academic circles partly, as being an undergrad student my time was more evenly divided between uni, my part time job and the pub! :p since starting the phd ive spent loads more time speaking to academics and fellow students, and at conferences etc and I've found a bit that sometime, conversations with other non-phd friends tend to get a bit tedious at times! I'm not sure how good a thing that is! And as I've got a lot less time for the kind of inane gossip that happens in non-academic work places!
I do feel very different to how I was when I started which I definately think is a good thing, I've had to re think a lot of my beliefs and ideas about things and had to accept change for some, but been more sure about those that I have decided to keep! And I've spent an inordinate amount of time picking at my belly button... :-)

thanks sneaks! I got my counts done, after finding the missing supervisor he's happy with me doing a less intensive way of counting so it's going to be a bit quicker now, yay! as for twilight, I've been there! the first book I didn't think was v good but for some insane reason I persevered and ended up getting sucked into the whole lot of them! a good idea would be to get hubby to take the books to work so you literally can't read them during the day and he only gives them back to you if you've done enough work that day...that's what I had to do in the end! A word of warning...if you've never read the His Dark Materials Trilogy, don't start until you have a good few weeks holidays! Those books are amazing, as soon as I finished the last one I was actually gutted that there was no more left to read. I mean actual real sadness, like you get when you find someones eaten the last bit of chocolate you had saved for a special treat.... :-)

hi there! Somebody once told me that when your writing a paper or doing a talk there are 3 main thing to do: first, tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them what you're telling them and, remind them of what you told them!
I know it sounds a bit mad but it makes sense, and for your discussion, you're basically describing how your results are applicable to the wider scale of things. I'm not sure what field you're in but in science, for the results section it's literally saying just what the results are, and the discussion section is for putting the results in context and bringing the whole thing together, explaining why the results do/do not make sense, why they are important etc. hope that helps!

good morning folks! well, after having 2 nice things happen in the past few weeks, it seems thats all the good stuff used up for January cos now I'm totally losing motivation :( I'm doing my phytoplankton cell counts and the more I do the more confused I get when identifying species, which is really starting to p**s me off and it's taking AGES! booo!
So today's plan: track down awol supervisor and finalise methodology with him & secondly, to finish todays sample and set up one for tomorrow....
joy! good luck everyone :) (up)

so how'd it go?! I hope you kept ur curls!!

Hi Su
Being a biologist and unbelieveably slow to pick up stats I found there to be one book that has quite literally saved my sanity and stopped me pulling out both my eyebrows and the hair from my head (I tend to pull at them when I'm stressed, bad I know :-) ). The Andy Field book is good but I found it a bit psychology heavy and I'm much more reliant on applicable examples to help me understand things so the book I use is called Choosing and Using Statistics: A guide for Biologists. It's about a fifth of the size of most stats books and is a brilliant introduction to what tests you will need for most biology experiments.

Hi Sneaks, I don't know loads about stats but I think it's very difficult to do any tests on proportional data. the Mann whitney is a rank test so it might work best on the raw data...is there any way you could do a PCA? it's a really basic way of looking at how your data groups together based on several factors at once and can show you immediatly if there are any relationships. I haven't got my trusty stats book here though so I'll have a look tomorrow and get back to you if that's ok, I know it's annoying having to wait and see!

Congratulations Wally!! that's really brilliant news, especially after the hard time you've been having!! Don't worry about all the people who will be there (although I know that you will anyway :-) ) just remember that you know more about your project than anyone else and if they come up with some suggestions or things that you've not thought of it's a good thing, and better at a conference than your viva! ;-)
I'm just back from my first conference presentation myself, and after spending weeks freaking out about it, and a very tense 2 days stalking my supervisor getting him to check my talk, I had quite a lot of rescue remedy before my talk and it went went really well! There were lots of expert people in the audience, including the 'Yoda' of my field who was sitting in the front row assessing the talk (bloody scary), and I ended up winning a prize for best student talk! So just stay calm and you've got lots of time to prepare for it and you'll be great! Congrats again!(up)

hi all - it's a question on nitrogen if anyone knows about that stuff!
I'm just going through some old data that I have, trying to work out how to calculate the Total Nitrogen, when all I have is the Total Oxidised Nitrogen (NO3 and NO2) and ammonia (NH4). I think I'm still missing the Total Organic Nitrogen numbers to make it all work, but on the old spread sheet I was given that's all the data that's on there, so it looks like that's all that was used to work out the TN...I'm totally confused, I've no idea how to work it out and I need the data to do stats this evening...:-(

I did it! paper reformatted and re-submitted...DONE!! ooh that feels sooo good!

Good on ya with the move sneaks, can't believe u did all that this morning and are now back at work! No more secret stash of chocolate snacks, you can eat whenever you like! :p

and good luck with the chapters guys, I'm going to 'attempt' my lit review over christmas...god even as i type it I know it will never happen... :$

hi jimkim, really sorry to hear about everything, i really hope you're feeling better soon. I agree with the others, it's definitely time to take a break from your work, there's no point beating your head off that chapter when it's not going anywhere. I think it's best to take a proper break, for a whole day at least, go get a massage, a haircut something to let you relax and honestly try not to think about owrk.
Or if you really can't face the idea of losing a days work, then you should move onto doing something else as sneaks has already said. I've found the best way to deal with the totally un-moticated times is to do something silly everyday, just so when you're really fed up you can think about it and laugh. Personally, I prefer sticking on some super cheesy music first thing in the morning when i wake up and lepping around like a looney dancing to it, its a good way to get the blood flowing and it's fun! and when i say cheesy I mean it!
and lastly, stay away from the bad walkers, if you're after the cheese and onion, Tayto are the only way to go! (snowman)

hi there

I've been in a similar position myself, although while everyone cles in the lab was civil enough to the bullying idiot everyone knew what he was like. Except unfortunately for my 2nd supervisor who also happened to be his boss and loved him... Eventually after he had left me crying for about the millionth time i went to my primary sup who was really quite mad about it and sorted it out, in a very diplomatic way of course! I too would be quite sensitive if someone is being mean for no reason, I can take criticism from sups etc no problem, but this guy just really threw me, so i can totally empathise with your current situation. The most importnat thing is to never let him know he's getting to you. Be civil to him and professional, that way nothing negative can be said about how you've acted. As for the others in the lab even though they are his friends too, unless they are acting the same way as him act like there is nothing going on and chat to them as you don't want to be made out as being the problem.
If nothing changes and he is interfering with your work then I would go to a supervisor or someone in a position of power whom you can trust. But personally I would only do this if he is affecting my work directly, which is what my idiot did. In the workplace, whether academia or otherwise you will always meet people like this and it's best to grow a thick skin and just let their insults and snide comments roll off you. Just remember you're better than sinking to his level and keep as professional as possible, All the very best of luck (up)

allll right!!

mission for today...change paper to new format of new journal and submit... continue reading for the PCR lit review that will never end... and start the christmas break tidy up of loose ends so i have even a little clue of what im doing when i come back...

bring it on!!

ahhh but sneaks, if u have a published paper then it's so much easier for viva, cos ur work is obviously of a novel, publishable standard! see!! and lots of chuff writing is better than none! However veruccasalt, I do know of plenty of science people who have finished in 3 years, both in my department and related departments. although it helps ALOT when what ur working on works from the start and u dont have to spend months improving and refining experimetns so they work...booo! (turkey)