This is a question out of curiosity, but I've noticed that many students only have X amount of time to complete their write-up before submission.

Is it common for many PhDs to not write during the PhD but rather, just near the end? I ask because I was writing up as I was going along. By the end of my third year I had pretty much written everything up and revised a few times, and was in final revision mode, in which I had an additional 6 months to do so.

I'm just curious as to the system or circumstances that have left you in this unfortunate position. Is it the nature of the PhD that you're doing (such as experiments?) or the structure of the program, or lack of adequate supervision? This is by no means a form of judgement! I'm genuinely interested in the difference and wondering whether tailoring such programs need to be made for specific areas to allow more time for writing up for those in perhaps hard sciences or similar disciplines.

Thank you everyone for your kind words :) I'm meeting with a trusted colleague next week to go over the results, who also said to ignore the harsh comments as they are common, and the contradictory statements are common as well.

And yes, I am a young female teaching in a discipline that while is usually female dominated, my specific subject-area is male-dominated. While I now have my PhD, I can't use the title until graduation which is frustrating so I'm sure the title of Ms doesn't help either.

What is your subject?

I've found that generally, publishing in quality journals is perhaps preferable over books, unless books are produced through quality academic publishers, in which case they are the preferred form.

You cannot publish things from your book into journal articles as it's considered material already published and therefore considered self-plagiarism.

I think you should get in touch, it's been enough time. That way you can work on drafting chapters into journal articles.

Where are you in your candidature? At the beginning or nearing the end? If the former, you'll be reworking/writing that literature review after you do data analysis (if this is an interview/content analysis/study type PhD).

You should try and reduce the words. The mark of a strong academic, and writer, is the ability to say something in one sentence that others say in 5. This will be good practice when you begin to write journal articles where editors are strict with word counts. Quantity does not equate to quality. Getting your point across in as few sentences/words as possible is ideal

Part II

Last year at the end of the unit I had students coming up after thanking me, finding the material really interesting, and was sent emails/had little notes thanking me on their final written exams.

But many of these are not recorded in the evaluations and now I feel demoralised, disheartened and frustrated. I don’t know where to begin to try and address the comments to improve when they are so contradictory, and am feeling absolutely worthless.

Combining this with a school meeting I had attended a day before receiving these results, where the head of school publicly declared that they hate giving teaching to contracts because they feel it spells a recipe for disaster, and another member (fulltime continuing) stating that the school should only hire the best (levels D and E) and not do internal hires to help new graduates (like myself, level A) get their foot in the door.

I knew coming into this job that it wasn’t going to be easy, academia is rife with politics and trying to meet student expectations all the while trying to get yourself out there with your research. It is shark infested waters and I know you need an incredibly thick-skin just to make it.

But I didn’t expect these feelings, which are really starting to frighten me as they're bordering on suicidal to take such a hold and reduce me to feeling like a complete piece of shit.

For those of you teaching and have received qualitative comments, how do you cope? How do you handle them and not let them affect you personally?

Part 1)

I’ve just started a new contract (1 year) full-time role as an assistant lecturer in Australia (in the US this would be an Associate Professor). I have about 4 years’ experience prior to this in both TAing and coordinating units at this same university. When I was a sessional, I only ever had access to the quantitative evaluations on my teaching.

Now that I’m full-time, I’ve just been sent my first batch of qualitative comments from a unit I coordinated last semester.

My god.

The report was really mixed, with both really positive comments from students and really horrible ones. I’m trying to see the best in the horrible ones regarding what I can do to improve my lecturing and my unit as that’s the purpose, but they are really contradictory to the positive ones. Some students love the media incorporated in the lecture, others absolute hate it. Some called me an excellent lecturer, friendly and highly knowledgeable, others called me incompetent, hard to approach and question my expertise. Some were really thankful for the extra resources I provided, such as guides to writing essays, while others were angry that I didn't spell everything out and felt that their inability to do well was my fault.

I know why the unit didn’t do as well (receiving a 3.75/5 when the school aims for 4 and above) as it did the previous year when I taught it. When I was teaching I was quite stressed, having just submitted my thesis for examination, desperately looking for work because I knew by December I would be unemployed, and had issues with a student that I had to get faculty and other departments involved because of the high level of harassment and threats I was receiving. I hated teaching this class, because I was terrified each week that this student would show up. Combining this with being treated for a binge-eating/anxiety disorder and getting quite ill, it just was not my semester.

When you undertake revisions, you'll need to prepare a second document that provides an outline of what revisions you've included, and what revisions you've decided not to include, or have included as a secondary footnote/endnote.

Respond positively to the comments and try to incorporate around 80% of the reviewers' feedback. You might feel that a statistical analysis is not relevant, but it might actually strengthen your argument. The point of reviewers are to help you see areas that can be strengthened for a solid piece of work.

There is never a guarantee that your paper will be published after a revise and resubmit. Even papers that might be accepted pending revision can later be rejected should those revision not provide an adequate piece of work.

The reality is that your situation is common for many potential graduates, and you will find a program that will suit you. Broaden your search, look at universities that don’t have the highest prestige.

Maybe have a small piece of humble pie. You should, of course, be proud of your accomplishments and I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't. But is there a chance that you might be coming off as a 'smug undergraduate' and rubbing potential supervisors the wrong way? Perhaps. The academic world, like the business world, is not just about experience, but also about how you present yourself, and whether you are willing to play the game effectively. Many Profs have been in the game a long time, and are easily annoyed by fresh blood that might come in with the pre-tense of knowing everything. Academia is just as much a people/politics game as it is research and higher learning.

Don't give up, keep pushing forward with your PhD search.

Welcome to the political world of Academia! You're not going to like what I say, but it might help bring some perspective.

1. Is it because you're from an ex-poly university that you're being denied a position? There is always this possibility, especially with highly competitive schools that are focused on name/branding/status. You should think about why you are applying to schools like Oxford and Cambridge if they are known for choosing candidates based on name/status. There are many, many great universities with PhD programs that may not have the prestige like an Ivy League school, but you could do very well there!

2. An invitation to an interview is never a guarantee that you'll receive a PhD offer. They are not necessarily wasting your time and effort if they feel that after interviewing you, you are not the right candidate for their program/research project (and are interviewing other candidates). If you are only going with the assumption you'll get a position without considering the possibility that you won't, then you might want to rethink why you're going for a PhD. You mentioned you had all the right answers with the interviews, right isn't always what they're looking for. Sometimes, over-preparing/having memorised responses for a PhD interview can make you come across as being unable to think critically/creatively on your feet. You may have come across as a bit robotic, and that might have steered them away.

3. Be careful in making assumptions about the candidates who were offered the jobs. You don't know how they did in the interviews or their experience/background. Are they undergraduate students like yourself? Do they have masters qualifications or other relevant experience that you lack? While it's great that you have academic awards and experience, sometimes this is just not enough, as many post-grads on this forum will tell you. Sometimes, it's about who you know, not what you know. It's not fair by any means.

Here's the thing.

You mentioned that you want stable, secure employment. Academia is one of the least stable and secure employment options until you get tenure, which is increasingly becoming rarer and rarer. You will also need to think about your geographic mobility. You've mentioned a partner and a mortgage, both of these can be hindrances to an academic career. What happens if you land a professorship/lectureship position in a different country? How will you negotiate this with your partner?

A PhD, whether you go the academic route or not, is not a guarantee of stable employment. Stable employment can really only be found in a hard skill that is still required and cannot be done solely through the use of machines, or outsourced. I.E. Some trades or Medicine (Doctor). They are probably the most stable you'll get because they are in high demand and are quite specialised.

Do not do a PhD because you want security and stability in the future. The PhD is more than a title, it is a process. Do a PhD if you love research, and view it less as a step to employment, and more as a process of research and enlightenment.

The other thing is that you've mentioned being a professor as a dream job, with a focus in lecturing. This environment is also changing, your research outputs will be significantly more important than your teaching experience. I don't have much experience with psychology, but many of the psychology lecturers I know are also at least part-time psychologists in practices, or do a lot of hands-on clinical trial research.


Do not do a PhD for the sole purpose of becoming a lecturer, especially in a discipline like psychology. If you are doing a psychology PhD, it should be because you love psychology,you love the research associated with psychology, and that you can see a future in continuing research with psychology. Teaching/lecturing is an afterthought at many universities.

I think that should be fine. Submitting to a conference is not the same as submitting to a journal, so I don't think there should be any conflict or academic ethic issues. Many papers that are submitted to conferences are later revised based on feedback and submitted to journals, especially if there are no conference proceedings, or if conference proceedings are no longer being considered proper publications.

Submitting the paper to a journal is better for your prospects anyways, and you can pull out of the conference if you are not planning on attending.

Your results and discussion chapters should be divided by perhaps themes, as opposed to all in one chapter?

The general word count for a chapter is around 7-15k as others have suggested. I had 4 data chapters, three of which were based on qualitative interviews and one based on a qualitative content analysis.

You'll also have to be selective of the quotes you use in your chapter, as DocInsanity has stated, you can't use everything.

For those of you who are publishing or have published, can I ask how you managed to build confidence in submitting potential articles, especially if you don't have trusted friend or workmate who can review your piece before submission?

I'm in the social sciences, and have found that generally, it's been a bit isolating regarding collaborating with other authors.

I need to publish and have one article published, but this was reviewed multiple times before it was submitted for consideration. Now that I've finished the PhD, I don't really have someone I can trust to review my articles that I have been drafting/revising from my thesis chapters, (and I don't want to hassle former thesis supervisors). I've just started a new academic role, so I haven't met anyone either that I could send my stuff to.

I know they say that you should get someone to look at your drafts before submission, but what do people do if they don't have anyone they can send it to? I'd even be happy with an R&R at this stage, so if I think it's good enough to send off, should I do it? How do you know when it's ready?

Part II

The reality is I got the job because my thesis supervisor put in a good word for me. It’s mostly teaching based, and I would be teaching units that I had already taught/taught in as a sessional. A couple of academics in my department were leaving, and so a space opened up.

But I have this nagging sensation of guilt, like I haven’t put in my dues for PhD unemployment while so many others are struggling to scrape by. My heart breaks when I read these unemployment posts, because I can’t imagine the frustration and the sense of worthlessness you are feeling. I feel guilty because I don’t have much of a publication record or ‘presence’ in Academia. I’m quite introverted and struggle with putting myself out there.

I feel guilty because at the end of the day, while I know I have worked hard with what I have achieved so far, I feel as though things have been handed to me while others struggle to even get a look for an opportunity.

This doesn’t make me feel good in the slightest. It makes me doubt myself even more.

I’m scared sh*tless, because while I know what I’m doing teaching wise, everything else I haven’t got a clue. I don’t know the first thing about attracting grant/funding. I know I need to publish, so I’m working on journal articles from my thesis and will be co-authoring a piece based on the most recent collaboration I did, but I still feel lost.

I’ll be honest and say I don’t feel as though I deserve this job, but I’m going to try my hardest to make something out of the year I’ve been given. I’m keeping a foot in the not-for-profit/industry sector because Academia is fickle and definitely not a chosen career path.

I can 100% support the statement that it is, all about who you know and not what you can do.