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Hypothesis and Objectives- where to mention again?
C

I think this is something that may vary accross theses.

I mentioned my main objectives and hypotheses in the introduction, and then linked back to each of these in the general discussion saying how each of these was addressed and whether the hypothesis was supported.

My PhD consisted of one large overall project that could be broken down into three areas and these could be correlated with each other. I therefore had four experiemntal chapters, each of which had an introduction, methods, results, discussion format. I therefore had objectives and hypotheses that fitted with each of these and so included these in the chapter introduction and related back to them in the chapter discussion.

Hope that makes sense.

SOS Conclusions??? PhD....Help Please
C

Mine was less than 10%. Thesis about 74000 (76882 with appendices, contents etc). Conclusion 5332.

Good luck getting finished.

How much celebration for submitting?
C

======= Date Modified 10 Jun 2012 22:08:05 =======
The day I submitted I met me friend, who also submitted that day, in the pub. Had a few drinks at the Uni bar, then went to twon for a few more drinks with friends. At my Uni it's quite normal to have a few drinks on submission day, but to have the champagne on viva day.

Congratulations on the submission too :-)

empty spaces on thesis?
C

I went with the option of having all of a graph on one page (which we were told to do in university regulations) and haivng empty spaces if needed to push a table or graph onto the next page. I did this as we were told to only have one table or graph on any one page and if I had filled all the space with text this wouldnot have been possible. Neither my examiners nor my supervisors commented on the empty space and I think it looks ok on the print out.

how to answer - why haven't you finished yet?
C

======= Date Modified 10 May 2012 21:20:46 =======
I took four years to complete, and submitted on the absolute last day that I could have! I found people did ask how my course was going, and when I would be finished, but they didn't really know what exactly a PhD meant or that it should be finished in 3 years.

When people asked when it would be finished I just said I was aiming for September. don't think anyone asked why I hadn't finished yet, and if they had I'd have gone with an answer like the last person (sorry forgot to check name before posting!) and say there turned out to be more to do on the project than originally planned. Or that most people take more than three years in reality (certainly true in the people I know).

Hope the family thing goes well, and try not to worry too much about it (easier said than done I know)

I need grammar help (again)
C

I ignore most of word's grammer corrections. I often get "fragment consider revising" and generally don't revise it. To me that sentence sounds fine.

format errors in thesis- what will happen?
C

======= Date Modified 27 Mar 2012 00:07:50 =======
Well done on your submission! :-)

I wouldn't worry too much about it. I passed with typo corrections I had:
Numerous typos. One which changed the meaning of the sentence to the opposite!
One table where the formatting had gone very wrong and half the data was missing
Half the tables in one chapter were numbered wrong
a couple of references where end note had gone a bit funny
An entry in my contents page that said ###UNDIFINED LINK (or something like that) instead of the page number
Graphs where because I'd photocopied my thesis the two columns were coloured black and black instead of black and grey

They hardly noticed some of these, and things that were picked up were dismissed as unimportant and things that could be changed for the final submission.

SPSS Query: combining variables
C

There is also a concatenate function in SPSS (now what I know what it's called I could google it!) I just tried to make it work and it came up with errors that I don't understand. But if you look it up it may work for you.

SPSS Query: combining variables
C

I can't think of a way in SPSS but if you copy and paste into Excel it can be done there and then copied back. This link shows how it works, but basically if you have "name" in cell A1 "day" in cell A2 and "digit" in cell A3 to combine them you'd type =A1&A2&A3 into cell A4.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6NDbViRQW4

Making new friends
C

Gumtree and community and miscellaneous sections which sometimes have local groups on there. There is one in my area who meet monthly and go to a local pub. I've not been so can't say anything about the sort of people who you'd meet.

Survey on homophobia in STEM subjects
C

A friend of mine has created a survey and I said I would post it here as she would like to get responses from a wide range of people in academia. This is not an academic study, but she is collecting data for the following purpose:

At NUS LGBT conference last year a motion about homophobia in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects was passed (more detail can be found on the link). This survey aims to determine whether the statements behind the motion are true, and as a consequence, what needs to be done about it.

If you are a student or staff member at a (UK) University the questionnaire can be found below. She is interested in responses whether you are in a STEM subject or identify as LGBT+ or not.

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/v1/rendersurvey.asp?sid=jhh038ambo1f7j51033318#.T2cZUernxck.facebook

language help
C

I'd read it a little differently.

n'er do well = never do well. My understanding of this is it means a person is not going to amount to anything because they don't try. A couple of online dictionaries have it to mean "lazy". So "eduactional n'er do wells" would be people who don't try/work hard in school/educational setting.

feckless - no sense of responsibility

I also googled the whole sentece and found what might be the paper you're talking about. I'd say it means the person is constructing himself against a the described large group of people who are educationally lazy with no sense of their own responsibilty.

Depositing your thesis to EThOS & Access restriction
C

i never even thought about these things until this thread! Not I'm not sure what to do. I have two concerns (1) a lot of unpublished data. Now my thesis wasn't totally ground breaking and as I studied a patient population there isn't much that could be stolen, but I do wonder if I should be concerned. Also when you submit for publication they ask if data is published elsewhere. Will this count? (2) I have cpyrighted material as I included copies of questionnaires and tasks as appendices. these are all things that are amostly available elsewhere online, but I am concerned about copyright issues with some of them. I don't know if I could have the thesis available but restict access to the appendices.

Word for Mac driving me potty, advice?
C

I worked in separate dovuments and put them all together at the end of my writing. Worked out fine.
I hated having a mac. The only thing I liked was the speed it got online! Could never get the hang of the office programmes in them. I think they work completely differently, certainly at my uni they ran working with long documents (for office 2007) and completely different working with long documents (for mac) courses

Including contributions in 'Abstract'
C

I'm Psychology and I didn't list my contributions to knowledge in my abstract. At my uni you had to keep the abstract to a page and I could only just do that anyway. I had three paragraphs, first introducing topic and methods, second main findings, third relationships between findings and main conclusions.

I had no idea what to put in the abstract and was in such a rush by then to just get it done. I don't think I ever showed it to my supervisors even! I do think spelling out how your thesis contributes to knowledge could be a good thing in an abstract if you can see a good way to do it, but I don't think it's a necessary thing IYSWIM.