As someone who has worked with groups of people who are socially excluded for reasons including mental health issues and learning disabilities, I believe it's very important to challenge incidences like the inappropriate use of 'retarded'. The language we use about vulnerable groups does affect their perception and treatment in society, and I am glad Jane92 reflected on this after posting.

Unfortunately, the most horrendous bullying experiences I've had were at the hands of female managers.

Interestingly, gender stereotypes (as well as other stereotypes) are so insidious that bias can also be internalised. For example, there's been research showing that if you ask students to write their gender at the top of an exam paper, their answers conform more to stereotype, eg female students doing well at language and male students doing well at maths. Google 'stereotype threat' if you're interested!

I haven't ever thought about that, because usually the 'hellos' would just be spontaneous when the person was invited in, I think. However, if I was in the room and my partner brought a visitor in, I would certainly offer a 'hello' if the other person hadn't. I think it would be pretty odd for either party not to say hello.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask someone to find out what's happening at this stage, especially with your supervisor being off, as they would normally be the go-to person for you to ask.

I would chase it up at this stage. I thought most universities had an agreement (3 months or so?) about the period between submission and viva.

Metalizing? Is this an example of a word these professional writers would use?

I did most of my PhD work from home too, and definitely didn't put in full days in the early stages. Maybe you could say to your supervisor you are going to do some reading from home a couple of days a week, as you find that a better environment for concentrating? Or if there is a pressure to be seen to be in, you could go in, leave some stuff on your desk and disappear to the library or wherever for a while! Other than that, it might be worth looking for interesting workshops and events you can go to, either at your own uni or other ones - you have the time in the early stages to do this kind of thing.

Congratulations Jambo!

I can relate to some of the things you've described. The reality is that some people do get handed a 'golden ticket' by their supervisors - I've seen people scrape through the PhD by the skin of their teeth and get handed a nice job right away - working alongside their supervisors. Academia's not any kind of straightforward meritocracy and the issues with it are well-documented. There are some things you can do to improve your chances - getting published and so on - and some things that are out of your control. With that in mind, I think you need to weigh up the different options and decide what to go for and how long to keep going for it. At the moment, I've not stopped applying for academic posts - but I only go for them if I genuinely think my skills and interests are a good fit for the post - and I'm looking at other avenues too.

What I will say is I don't think you have any reason to see your current position as a personal failure. You've achieved a PhD, with all the useful skills and expertise that go along with that. Don't let the problems of academia make you feel like you're on any kind of scrap heap - there are plenty of excellent people with the same struggles.

I think it is fine to discuss what seems to be the emerging pattern from your data, and to propose a hypothesis on the basis of your findings - that would seem to me to be an important aspect of making a contribution to knowledge. I think too often people get hung up on wanting to 'prove' something and to get the expected results, rather than see what actually comes out of a study. I think, like you said, the problems arise when people try to retrofit a hypothesis as if the results were expected all along.

Congratulations Pjlu! I hope you are able to enjoy a well-earned break before starting on your corrections. It can be very daunting to get the feedback and to start work yet again on something you've been honing for years, but you are so nearly there with the final version and have already passed :-)

I had a lot of say in mine, and used contacts I had to get recommendations. We started by drawing up a plan of the important bases to be covered, so that we had an examiner who knew the topic well and between the external and internal, there was expertise in each of the different methods I'd used.

Yes, it's normal. When I started my PhD, I felt as if I'd been handed a megaphone, because my thoughts and ideas were suddenly heard, valued and engaged with by academics, and I was still the same person with the same ideas that I'd been for all the years beforehand. It felt odd then and it still does now. I think, like pm133 said, most people don't know what they don't know, and when you suddenly do a lot of learning, you become acutely aware of all the things you don't know.

I would use the presentation to put across a summary of whatever you want to say about your research. Bear in mind that the examiners will have their own questions about your thesis and you may not feel that any of their questions get to the heart of your work (eg they may fixate on a certain aspect that interests them), so what would you like them to know about your research?

I'd probably make the changes if I thought they made sense, and wouldn't if it was something I felt strongly about and felt the writing was best left as it was. But I think that when you publish and other people are involved, there always has to be an element of 'letting go' and accepting that while most of it is still your original work, there will be tweaks suggested by someone else - I'm thinking this happens even to the finest authors when an editor gets hold of their work. It sounds like it may be more difficult to do the letting go in this case because of the difficult relationships.