I wouldn't keep checking, put it out of your mind. It can take up to 6 months before you hear back about a paper or longer. You should wait at least three months before you email the editor about the status of your paper (I took a publications workshop which was run by an editor of a journal and learned heaps about the process!).

An editor will generally have a quick look at the paper to determine whether it's worth sending out, as Thesisfun has suggested. Then, it'll get sent out to the appropriate reviewers. They may accept it at first and then decide not to review it later, or perhaps can't review it. It can be difficult to find reviewers as they need to be subject experts.

For example, a paper I had submitted was sent to my supervisor for review! He of course had to turn it down and it had to be sent to someone else. He knew it was mine because he had had a look at it before I had submitted. Sometimes this happens, especially if your supervisor is a subject expert in your field. This meant that it took a long time because they had to find someone else to review it who was an expert enough to provide a sound assessment.

I had submitted at the end of July (2013) and didn't hear back until mid-Jan 2014 that it had been accepted. Then it was a crazy 5 months of revisions etc because they wanted to get it into a May issue.

So be prepared (if accepted!) to be expected to complete revisions in a quick and timely fashion!

I am submitting next week (September 5th) as my funding runs out on the 6th. I'm submitting in Australia so there is no viva, we just send our thesis out to two external examiners. The thesis is finished and printed, I'm just sitting on it. I refuse to look through the printed version in case I see a mistake, too late now! (we have to submit professional hard or soft cover bound theses).

I'm a sociology so I didn't have lab/experiments but I did have a content analysis and qualitative interviews. I only have one publication and no conference proceedings, here in Australia (or at least at Monash) conference proceedings are not being considered publications, and most of the conferences here don't offer them. Rather, they might do a special issue in a peer-reviewed journal, but you are not considered automatically even if you presented at the conference, your paper has to be accepted in the same blind review process.

In terms of the write up, I'm always a bit shocked to hear the amount of writing students have left with so little time! I think that just freaks me out a bit, but that might also be because I'm in a social science background where most of what we do is write. By February I had the first full draft of my thesis complete, with 4 full sets of revisions completed by this August.

It hasn't been easy though, there have definitely been ups and downs. I remember when my publication was accepted and I did the revisions, I had to do ANOTHER set of revisions and I just broke in tears, thinking I was a complete and total failure (to be fair I was stressed I was getting married in less than two months and it was an international wedding!)

In terms of success (and might not be what peeps need to hear) Time management and discipline is what kept me going/kept me writing out my chapters, and lots of revisions.

I wish I could offer more help but I have no experience in the UK system so am a bit confused with the applying for PhDs that have been filled (as my experience in Canada/Australia was that I developed my own research topic and had supervisors take me on?)

In the UK, do you need to have a masters to do a PhD? Can you fast track? I'm not sure if it's worth applying for PhD programs if you aren't meeting their qualifications, although getting three interviews is good!

Do you need the masters/PhDto get into the field you want? Have you tried other avenues such as networking, going to conferences in your field? These days its more about experience than qualifications, lots of people are being told they are overqualified and under experienced.

I think you might regret not doing the masters. It will just required some creative thinking to budget for it. Lots of graduate students don't have financial help from parents/scholarships/have to make it on their own, so I'm sure if you and your partner put your heads together, you might be able to figure something out.

It might mean that you take on a job and run on fumes, but sometimes we have to make these sacrifices to get what we need?

I'm a sociology but it's a little similar.

For a research proposal, you want to identify a narrow topic of your research. What in criminology do you want to study at a PhD level? Before you apply, you should know what you want to study, AND determine whether there are academics at your university that can supervise that topic. Criminology (like any discipline) has a range of topics, so just because it's offered, doesn't mean there is someone who can supervise you unless they have similar interests within criminology.

A Good Research Proposal
-Identify your research topic
-Do a mini-literature review, find out what has and hasn't been said
-Develop a research question, what is it you want to know?
-Develop your methods,i.e. will this be case study based, content analysis, survey, interviews, focus groups?
-Write it all out in a neat and formulaic pattern

Keep in mind that your proposal won't be what your final product is, this will change over the course of your study. You said your background is psychology, so you might want to find out what you might need to 'catch up on' if you haven't got much experience around criminology.

I'm not sure how it works at UNSW Australia but at University of Melbourne and Monash University, my scholarship application was not based on how great the research proposal was, I don't think that was even considered. Rather, they were around past research experience, past access to funding, grades, conference experience, teaching experience, field placement/hands on research experience, previous publications etc. I would get in touch with the postgraduate administrator who can give you a better idea of what your application will need to stand out.

I wouldn't worry about not having had any research published yet before going into a PhD program.

One set back is the thought that your research proposal is very different and original, depending on how much research you've done before submitting a proposal, this may or may not be the case (not to bring you down! Just keep that in mind).

The other thing to keep in mind is that some PhD rejections are not because they don't think you'd be a good student, but rather, because the university doesn't have anyone available in your research subject area to supervise.

This is actually one of the main reasons a good student might get rejected. If there is no one available to supervise your thesis topic, they can't really accept you (and if they do, they might lump you with a supervisor that turns out to have no idea about your research interests!)

I did my undergraduate degree in Canada at Carleton but am about to complete my PhD here in Australia. One of the things I had to do before applying was get in touch with and secure two supervisors in my research area. I had to send them my proposal and get their approval/secure their availability before I could even apply. I applied to three schools, and I definitely had to ask two or three potentials at each school before I was able to secure two supervisors for each school I had applied to. This is because some of them were going to go on sabbatical, or maternity leave, etc.

Did you have to do this or will your supervisor(s) be chosen for you? If the latter, they may not have anyone available. You said that this is your dream school, does this include academics that are familiar with your research area and are available to supervise? Did you apply to other schools? I went with my second choice and you know what? It's been amazing. Sometimes a second or third choice turn out to be the best.

There are a number of things you'll need to consider when choosing a program.

1) Geographic Location: Singapore and Australia, you'll need to decide which country you would prefer to live in. You haven't stated where you are located. Will you need to relocate? Fuss about with student visas?

2) Support Networks: In line with the geographic location, where are your support networks? Will either program require you to develop a whole new support system? A phd program, whether full or part time, can be an isolating and difficult experience, you may want to think about the kind of support networks you have in either location.

3) Experience vs Time Completion: Your fully funded would take 3.5 years to complete if you stick with the funding time allowed. A part time will take longer. HOWEVER, your part time is offering what appears to be VERY VALUABLE experience as a research associate that you may or may not get with the full-time program. You may or may not be offered RA work, or teaching work with the full-time.

While you have stated that your primary goal is to complete a PhD, you need to think about what it is you want to achieve beyond that. A PhD is not a guarantee for work experience or a job, and should only be considered a stepping stone to something else. Many students are struggling to find work because they are overqualified and under experienced, a PhD is not often considered work experience unless there was a work component.

What would I choose? As someone who is going to submit next week, has done a few job interviews to be told that I was a very close second because I don't have enough experience, I would actually take the Part-Time with the RA work because I would then have additional experience that would be helpful once I completed the degree.

I'm about to submit my thesis for examination and I'm not sure when I should give my supervisors token gifts of appreciation.

Here in Australia we don't have a viva, we just submit the thesis to two external examiners and make corrections from their reports.

My supervisors have been great and really supportive so I'm happy to get them something (have a few thoughts in mind) but I'm just not sure whether:

I give gifts at submission or after examination?

Hi Mancbella,

I also had tv programs as part of a content analysis but that was only for one chapter as the rest of my data was interview based. One thing I did was create a table with information like what channel the shows aired on, genre, brief description, who it stars etc. I also included links or excerpts of particular episodes via youtube in the footnotes so they could watch particular scenes. I did not include scripts or dialogue. However, I was looking for recurring themes and patterns, and I did do small in depth analysis of the shows I was reviewing and categorised them under larger themes (or narratives).

It depends on what your thesis is about and how it's structured?

Not all universities have academic staff in all fields. The letter means that they do not have an academic staff member available to supervise your research in your chosen field. Your supervisor(s) expertise need to either be directly or indirectly related to your research area.

If you are keen on this particular research topic, you'll need to research the available academic staff interests and ideally get in contact with them before applying for positions. When you contact them you should indicate your proposed start date as that will also determine whether they can supervise (i.e. they might be on study leave, maternity leave etc).

When I was applying in 2010, I had to contact and get approval from two potentials at each university I was applying for. Some of the first ones I contacted were unable to provide supervision but were kind enough to direct me to other staff that could be helpful. In the end, I ended up with two fantastic supervisors who work remarkably well together.

What country are you currently doing your thesis in and did you have the external examiners lined up before submission (not your responsibility but the supervisors depending on the institution)?

In Australia it can take anywhere from 3-9 months to get reports back as they are submitted to external examiners with no viva. A workmate of mine submitted their thesis back in January, and only one of the two reports have been returned as of end of July. They are still waiting for the other report. Part of their delay was that their supervisors did not line up external examiners before submission as this was not the policy of the university they were attending.

Sometimes its also not necessarily the university administration but rather the time it takes to get the external examiner(s) to return their reports, just as it can take ages to get reviews of potential publications if one or both reviewers have delayed their reviews. So it could have been that one report was ready, but the other took ages. Or, as I stated earlier, if external examiners were not lined up before submission, then part of that time could have been searching for examiners to review your work.

In any case, it's a pretty crap situation and can be a common experience for some students.

Hi dutchcedar,

What a horrible situation! I'm actually quite shocked that your supervisors are not providing feedback on your work. As you are in the last stages of your thesis, your supervisors should be taking the time to read through your work and provide suggestions/comments on improvements.

Have you put your thesis together as one coherent piece? My supervisors had me put everything together as it would appear for examination, then read through that draft and provided a bulk of suggestions and improvements. They did this for my second draft of the full thesis as well.

I would agree with chickpea's suggestions and also seek guidance from postgraduate student services regarding your rights and your options.

I'm about to submit my PhD in sociology after three and half years of study. I have some good solid experience in community research through volunteer work and undergraduate student placements at not-for-profit institutions.

I have started the process of applying for jobs outside academia. While I would like to work in academia, here in Australia there seems to be very little in the way of opportunities for PhD students and I'm already searching for work outside the academic realm in areas of interest. I have lecturing and teaching until December, and then after that I'll be unemployed and possibly still in the limbo of waiting to hear back about my thesis (here in Australia we don't do a Viva and just submit the hard copies). Sometimes it can take 6 or more months for the reports to come back, and as December is the start of summer, I may soon be forgotten for additional sessional teaching work.

The thing is, even in my areas of interest like research and evaluation or policy, there isn't much and what's there seems to have an abundance of applicants that I can barely get my foot in the door.

I've been thinking about attempting to move into market analyst research, as there seems to be a plethora of jobs and if I am able to market my skills effectively, could perhaps (wishful thinking?) have a decent chance? I was thinking about trying to set up some informational interviews about the industry and what would be required for entry level positions.

However, I worry about whether I can really commit to switching into producing research for the business profit sector and was wondering if anyone here who did a PhD in social sciences has become a market analyst researcher and what their experiences were like.