I'm sure there are lots of them out there!

I''ve just red a paper where they described one of their strenghts the relatively young age of their patient chort (mean age about 37). Fine, except they were comparing themselves to two studies where the mean age was 43 and 46. Hardly a huge difference!

Another "fun" game is mis spelling words in Web of Science and see how many things have been published with the spelling mistake in their title! More than you'd expect! (says the person who had to reprint a poster for conference due to mis spelt word in title!) :p

I've been wondering about this one, but it's all in the future as I', yet to convinve OH that a little Catalinbond is a good idea! He might go for it if I suggest I keep working and he's a stay at home Dad.

Good luck on the job front too.

Congratulations. And good luck! (up)

I use Word for writing, Excel for data handling and graphs, SPSS for analysis, endnote for references, powerpoint for presentations, journals are organised by my own system. Would probably have been better to learn to use a more sophisticated method. To do lists are pen and paper.

I've used matlab a little bit but find the code pretty impenetrable! I ran experiments on eprime and psyscope but under the influence of my supervisor didn't really get into coding. Wish I had now as would be much better for looking for jobs. This is one place I really shouldn't have listened to her!

Last year I marked a near perfect first year undergraduate essay. It stood out a mile in quality from the other assigments. I checked if it was plagiarised, then had to award a high first. I do wonder if the student actually wrote it though!

I had to ask to re shedule a post doc interview earlier this year (I was at a conference in Canada), and they were unable to do so but offered me a telephone interview instead. Could that be an option or would you get distracted by the children. You can but ask and then have a rethink if they are unable to attend. Do your children have any friends you could possibly ask the parents to have them round for the day? I personally wouldn't mention that it's because of child care issues. They shouldn't look badly on it, but you never no if they might.
Life would be so much easier if they told people the likely interview date at the time of application. If I'd had that for mine I could have booked a flight a day later.

Well done on the interview.

I've just found out that a publication I helped with in a previous job has been published! Well actually was published in 2009 it seems and I had no idea. Anyway it's in a completely different field to what I do, so will it look weird to put it on my CV?

I haven't managed to publich during my PhD as the project was one long one, and didn't break down into publications til I was finished. (and then the data is a little bit rubbish too)

Woohoo!
I just looked and am number 32! and in the top 50 for postings (though I did start in Feb 2007, and possibly before as I signed up when this was findaphd.com) 8-)

Some funny tales on here. I hope they've all passed and mmoved on to pastures new.

My supervisors are generally really nice to me and very supportive when I'm the negative one about the project.

My lead supervisor does have a habit of saying he'll do things and then not. I took blood samples from all my participants and they've been stored in the freezer even since. I've been saying to him, "What are we going to do with them?" for over 12 months and he's said he'll talk to person x,y, or z to sort the analysis. 12 months on he has come good on his word and organised to send them to Japan for analysis, but the results won't make it back in time for my thesis deadline at the end of September. Partly my fault I guess for not organising something myself.

If I'm understanding your data, for the first question I'd use a Kruskal Wallis test, your policy scores would be the outcome variable, and the political party (for example) the grouping variable. This would show whether there is a difference between the policy score dependeing on the political party. You could use and ANOVA if the data is continuous AND scale data (i.e. a score of 2 means the double of a score of 1).

For the relationship between the population data and the policy score, I'd use a Spearman's correlation rather than Pearson's correlation (unless the data is scale data).

Hope this helps.

Sorry to hear about it. This job hunting lark is quite frustrating.
I've shied away from applying for things recently, trying to focus on the thesis at the moment. Hopefully we'll all get there soon, but it is quite scary seeing how many poeple are struggling to find jobs.

Not seen the person who got the post we were both interviewed for, but think they're starting soon. Am quite curious to meet the oposition!

I ummed and ahhed about doing clinical psychology or a PhD. I did an MSc (put me off research!) worked as an assistant psychologis (put me off clinical!) worked as a teaching assisstant (made me think being an academic would be yay!) so I applied for a PhD.

Right now I'd like more time. I'm up against a Sept deadline and am slightly panicked about how I'm gonna get it all done.

I'd quite like to go back a few months and give myself what is now written and a big kick up the back side to get on with it!

I've been thinking a bit recently about how tO celebrate submission and viva. I was originally hoping for two weeks in the carribean, but budget is unlikely to stretch to going anywhere now. Other plans are to get really drunk :$ get a tattoo (was planning one for last birthday) and read lots of fiction as I've pretty much been banned for the last year as I can't trust myself not to sit up til 4 am!

Is difficult to plan celebration post viva in case it doesn't go well. Post submission I'm going out all weekend!

I've been thinking a bit recently about how tO celebrate submission and viva. I was originally hoping for two weeks in the carribean, but budget is unlikely to stretch to going anywhere now. Other plans are to get really drunk :$ get a tattoo (was planning one for last birthday) and read lots of fiction as I've pretty much been banned for the last year as I can't trust myself not to sit up til 4 am!

Is difficult to plan celebration post viva in case it doesn't go well. Post submission I'm going out all weekend!