I agree with MeaninginLife on this one. Presenting at a conference isn't just about you delivering a talk, but interaction from others is vital, and you're not going to get that if you're not there. Usually after a talk there will be a lively question and answer session, when people will ask you often unexpected questions about your work. These are important, and give you new insights, way more than your supervisor can give you. And then there will be the chance to have further chats over coffee and meals afterwards.

I would never recommend signing up to give a talk at a conference unless you plan to be there. Don't pull out of giving a talk - it looks thoroughly unprofessional - unless you absolutely have to, and don't look at giving a talk remotely via video link.

If costs are an issue there should be various avenues you can try to get sponsorship. Exhaust these. But sometimes you have to pay yourself. I had to pay part of the costs towards attending a conference in North America (I'm in Scotland), but it was worth it, for the contacts I made, and the other stimulating talks I attended. Oh I forgot to mention that last bit: a conference isn't just about your talk, it's about hearing other ones too.

So go!

I'd echo the advice of others to make the changes required, get the submission, pass, and move on.

What has happened has happened. You are not going to graduate in time for this summer. Although to be honest graduation ceremonies are just a formality for a PhD. What really matters is when you get the letter from Senate saying you have passed. And that can happen at any time of year.

Work out with your supervisor how best to tackle the required changes. Do them. And put it down as a lesson for both you and your supervisor to learn.

I'm appalled that your supervisor picked such an unknown examiner. But to be honest you should have had a say in this too, and should have been concerned about it as well. But what has happened has happened. Make the best of a bad situation, move on, and get your PhD.

I would also recommend looking at other ways of producing words. 100 good words a day is a very low amount to produce. You should be looking at a higher number. 500 is more typical. Anything more than that is unlikely to be sustainable long-term, though you may have some days where you produce thousands, and others nothing!

Have you tried mind mapping or brain storming to get your ideas out? What about trying to record your ideas as you speak them, rather than using a word processor?

And above all good luck!

I'd recommend a break too to get some energy back and get you energised for a final push. Also work out a timetable for completion, based on which chapter needs be finished when. That could motivate you more than trying to do so many vague words a day.

Word limits are only approximate ones, and can be bent. My department (history) wanted 80-100,000 words. I knew I was going to come in under that, nearer 70,000, and sought advice from my supervisor and various other academics. All said it was quality not quantity that counted. Though some other staff advised me to add some of my extensive databases as an electronic appendix on CD, to make it look a bit more weighty.

I ended up with about 70,000 words. I passed my viva with just minor (typo) corrections. No-one was worried about the short length.

Are you submitting to conferences? If so get used to the idea of much longer deadlines if you submit to academic journals! It can take them a year or more in some cases to reach a decision. And then several more years for the piece to be published.

The best advice is to get on with other things and forget about something you can't do anything about, and will do no good worrying about.

There's always something else you can be working on :)

I really like iThoughtsHD for mind mapping. It's very useful when planning any kind of writing, or a presentation, or a paper, or even a thesis chapter. I wouldn't be without it now. And I never used mind mapping in the past.

Another very useful app is Goodreader, which is a superb PDF viewer, and lets you annotate PDFs on the iPad - particularly if you have a (can be bought cheaply) squidgy stylus to scribble on the screen. With this app I find it much easier to read PDFs on my iPad than on a desktop or laptop computer.

And my final big tip is WriteRoom, which is a distraction free writing environment. Unlike Word it doesn't have lots of fancy formatting things, and is all about getting the words i.e. content down, not fiddling with the styles. And that is very good for productivity purposes. You can customise the display. I like mine green text on a black background - child of the 80s ha!

I blogged about the iPad as a productivity tool on my academic blog at

https://vivsacademicblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/the-ipad-as-a-productivity-tool-and-some-recommended-apps/

and

https://vivsacademicblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/more-thoughts-on-the-ipad-as-a-productivity-tool/

I would not generally recommend preparing for the viva until a few weeks before it happens. The reason is that the preparation needs to be fresh in your mind on the day. Preparing far ahead of that, and then maybe not having a viva for months, doesn't help.

My viva preparation involved reading a viva preparation book (Tinkler and Jackson) to demystify the process, rereading and summarising my thesis to familiarise myself with it and spot typos (I took a list into the viva and handed it out - all examiners/convenor were very grateful), and thinking about and memorising my answers to 5 key questions: originality of my thesis, contribution to knowledge, methodology, weaknesses/gaps/mistakes, and what would I do differently if starting again. Preparation in this way took a very short amount of time, and could be easily done in the run-up to the day.

UK funded PhD students need to consider new Open Access rules when submitting to any journals after 1st April 2013. These require research that has been funded by research council money to be published in Open Access journals. Check the RCUK website. It's a bit of a nightmare. It also applies to former PhD students whose PhDs were research council funded. This is causing me some issues at the moment, though I've tried to submit as many of my papers as possible before the 1st April deadline.

It's a particular problem in humanities because we have no tradition of Green Open Access publishing, where there is often an embargo before a paper can be freely posted elsewhere. So we have to go for Gold Open Access publishing, where fees (anything up to 2000 pounds per article) have to be paid to the publishers to permit open access. This is very different from science journals, where there is a strong tradition of Green Open Access. And in humanities the cost can often fall onto researchers directly, particularly early career ones, or independent scholars without access to university block grants.

So check the rules. Things are changing.

Generally I would say it is *much* harder to be accepted by a peer-reviewed academic journal than a conference publication. The numbers submitting are much greater, the competition much higher. The rate of acceptance is often miniscule. This is also why getting published in such journals, especially high quality ones, carries more weight.

Each journal has instructions for contributors, normally on any website, and certainly in any printed issues. This tells you how to submit a paper. Sometimes it is submitted by post (yes really - humanities can be that old fashioned!), sometimes by email to the editor, sometimes through an online whizzy form submission thingy (rare in humanities). The guidelines for contributors tell you where to send it to, and how long submissions should be. They also tell you how to format references and footnotes, and pagination. Follow this advice to the letter.

Basically you send your paper to the editor(s), they consider it, send it out for peer review by people who read it and give feedback, and recommend whether to accept it, suggest revisions, or reject. And you cross your fingers.

I was published twice during my part-time PhD, both times single author (I was a history student). One paper (in the more eminent journal) was accepted outright with no changes, the other was accepted subject to small revisions.

To be honest, based on my experiences with journals since completing the PhD, I think I was very lucky to have such an easy time of it. It's extremely common for journals to reject papers outright. It's also very common for the reviewers to have big issues with them (sometimes down to personal politics/biases), and even if you're offered a revision opportunity then for it to be rejected afterwards.

The most important thing is to keep trying. If a paper is rejected, either outright initially, or after a revision attempt, then learn from the reviewers' comments, rework it appropriately, and submit it to another journal. This is a lot easier / less time consuming than abandoning the paper completely and starting work on another one.

You also need to develop a really thick skin with journal submissions. Reviewers' comments can be tough to take. Alcohol might help with the first read through! I find it helpful to turn their requested revisions into a summarised to-do list that I can then work from. This also makes it easier to send in a document detailing the key changes with any revised version: makes things easier for the editor too, and the reviewers rereading it.

But just keep persevering. As I said I had 2 papers accepted and published during my PhD. I've had 3 more accepted since, and have others with editors now. So it can be done.

Good luck!