There's of course something like Endnote for LaTeX (BibTeX with a reference manager like JabRef), and the good thing is that also all these programmes are for free and work perfectly.
If you look at the Wikipedia entry for LaTeX, I think there's an example how a page edited with LaTeX looks like, so you'll get an idea. It definitely looks a lot more "professional" than Word, in my opinion.

(Sorry to sound like such a missionary)

======= Date Modified 11 Nov 2009 13:53:24 =======
The main difference between LaTeX and Word is perhaps that Word operates on the basis of "what you see is what you get" whereas LaTeX doesn't. Instead, you insert commands into your text, for example \bf for bold, \em for italics etc. After that, the document is compiled, and the output is produced as a pdf-document (or a ps- or dvi-document).

So if your supervisors are used to commenting on your text directly in the electronic document, they probably won't be too thrilled. If they usually comment separately, he won't mind as they shouldn't have any trouble opening the pdf document you send them.

LaTeX is very very common among natural scientists etc. because it's also much easier to handle mathematical formula with it. But even if you don't need much of that (I don't), it's simply looks much much better than Word, is so much easier to handle once you've understood the principle and a few core commands (which doesn't take long, and you can look up everything you need, so no need to learn a lot of stuff by heart), does not cost anything (so that also means you don't need any licence). So I have the feeling it's getting also more common in other fields. I've been using it for all my university life, and I'm in the social sciences / humanities.

If you know any one in the natural sciences, I'm sure they'll be familiar with it and perhaps can show you the core principles "live" in person. But in any case you could just try it out on your home computer and see how you feel about it.

IMO, the best medicine against Word-induced pain is switching to LaTeX (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX). And it's much easier to learn than one might think, it'll probably take you only one afternoon. You can also convert stuff that you have written in Word into LaTeX (the result will need some editing though, but that shouldn't take too much time).

It's free and if you run into specific problems there's loads of documentation on the net, also it's constantly developed further and additional packages for specific issues or styles can be downloaded too.

If you're using Windows, all you have to do is download and install MikTex (the actual LaTeX) and TexnicCenter (the editor, which you will use for writing your text.)

I keep work mainly to the office, and try to be as productive as possible when at work. I usually do around 38-45 hours a week (8-4/5/6pm). If I'm working on an article/conference paper or something else with a looming deadline, I put in more hours of course, but lately I try to concentrate on my main work and don't distract myself too much with side projects. So I'm one of those sticking to office hours and for me the relatively strict separation between work and free time works really well. I sometimes read field-related stuff also in my freetime, but that is rarely directly Phd-related.

======= Date Modified 10 Oct 2009 12:56:18 =======
I also got a revise and resubmit decision on my first paper and was rather surprised/delighted in the beginning about that, since I had somehow assumed they would simply reject it outright. I was also quite flattered that the corrections they wanted were rather minor indeed -- but then this quite pleasant feeling changed into sheer panic, as I realized the reviewers didn't scrutinze the paper very much and that was actually one major reason why I submitted it -- to get some thorough and detailed feedback, as my supervisor is quite disinterested in what I do and I'm pretty much on my own.. so I was rather terrified in the end by the superficial reviewer comments, fearing there'd be major flaws in it that they didn't check which will then be everlastingly connected to my name :-( !

I'm a bit more relaxed about it now, thinking that most people probably won't read it anyway...

I guess my point is that I think I idealized the whole peer-review thing, it probably has a lot less to do with "quality-control" than I naively assumed... I guess for that it's better to have a network of people who you trust academically that are willing to comment on what you do.. and then weigh the reviewers comments against your own network's comments...

======= Date Modified 10 Oct 2009 12:42:07 =======
In my case, it took them about 4-5 more months to get back to me after I had re-submitted the manuscript -- and that was only because by then I had e-mailed them to ask if there's any news about the paper. It seems to vary greatly though depending on field and journal, in the physical/life sciences it seems to be a lot quicker than in social sciences..

But I think it doesn't do any harm to ask politely how long it will take..

Hi!

About question 1 -- I resubmitted a paper once and also made a few more changes than requested (structure of sentences, typos etc.). In the attached letter where I explained how I addressed the reviewers' main points, I added a paragraph stating that I also rephrased some sentences which seemed too convoluted, but that the meaning and content were not altered. (So I did not list all these modifications but just summarized them like this). Anyway, the editors didn't seem to be bothered by these additional changes.

Good luck with the paper!

thanks for your reply, Rick.. I guess you're right, and that data management and acquisition area probably also part of the phd learning process, even if it's learning the hard way! I am just hoping it doesn't mean I have to come up with a completely new research question due to this situation, at least I decided to not lose all hope just yet.

Did you do a secondary analysis of your qualitative data? Did you have the data already before starting the project or did you have to locate it yourself?

Anyway, thanks for your comforting words, it helped already!

After having spent quite some time on refining my research problem and questions, and collecting certain historical material needed for the first part, I have just had to realise that I've been terribly naive about the availability of quantitative micro data for the 2nd and 3rd part of my project.

I guess I just assumed that the major statistical bodies will have the material in question and be able to provide it for research, but it seems that for a rather big and important part of my study, the specific combination of variables needed is not available (microcensus), and the stuff that is available is most of the time horribly expensive.

I have a list of other bodies I'm going to contact, so I haven't lost hope yet to get something that comes close to what I need.. and I'm also thinking of a plan b in terms of modifying my research plan to accommodate this situation somehow, but if all fails it would mean that I would have to start from scratch, basically.

So now I was wondering if others here have experiences with the pitfalls ofsecondary analyses, and how you coped? Were you successful in locatingalternative data sources? Any words of advice?

I feel rather stupid now, that I didn't consider this possibility beforehand, but I was so busy refining what I want to know etc. that I completely neglected these practical aspects. Kicking myself for that now...:$

======= Date Modified 19 Aug 2009 10:57:11 =======
======= Date Modified 19 Aug 2009 10:56:01 =======
I second the opinions expressed.

Hey! The following is a bit off-topic, but sparked off by this comment I thought it might come handy for some:

similar experience here.. i submitted a paper last year in july, they got back to me pretty quickly to say that they will look at it only in October when they have their next board meeting, only then will it be sent out for review.. but once they had sent it out, it also took about 8 weeks until I got the reviewers comments.. the second round took longer though. After I made the corrections in late February, it took until July to hear back from them again. So a year altogether between submission and (luckily) acceptance (with 2 rounds of reviews).

But I'd also think that these things are heavily field- and journal-dependent.

Best of luck to you!

======= Date Modified 14 53 2009 07:53:41 =======
hi there..

how do you deal with blind alleys, or rather, with certain side tracks
which possibly lead you to find something substantial for your main question, but which equally might turn out to be completely irrelevant or not helpful. I would think that a certain amount of blind alleys are necessarily part of research -- but nevertheless I'm a bit worried about the attached risk of losing time and track/focus.

I'm making quite specific plans about the steps to take in my research at the moment, but while completing task A it often seems that I can't continue with task B unless I've thoroughly looked into A.1 which often then leads to other subpaths.. it's making me a bit anxious that I can't know beforehand whether or not it will be relevant in the end, and it's delaying the transition to main tasks often quite a bit. (Making me sound like a control freak, but it's not like that.)

How do you deal with these issues (if you have them in the first place)?

If you say you're a PhD student in this and that department, I don't think this would imply anything about your supervisor having contributed to it. If you're the author of the paper, it's your work. In the Acknowledgements section, you could mention your suprvisor and thank for stimulating discussions or something along these lines, but I don't think this is really necessary.

(at least that's the impression I got from reading published journal articles by PhD students)

Hello again..

so I decided to bump this question again, wondering if anyone would like to share experiences after all..

to summarize my question: how long did the second round of reviews (revised paper submitted to same journal after the first "revise-and-resubmit") take in your experience? In my case, the first round was relatively quick, about 3months, but now it's about 4 months since I sent them the revisions and no replies yet. I would have thought the second round is somewhat quicker?