You could pose some questions at the start - then halfway through the film have a brief coffee/toilet break and before starting the film ago, repose the questions, and try and get them on track for the rest of the film. Then any brief questions at the end...

I read your post and was completely shocked. My own supervisors would never offer to write sections of the thesis or a paper. I'm not sure if this is because I am in a humanities subject and this blurred authorship is a bit more common in the sciences...

But eitherway, I can see why you felt sad about your recent paper. You certainly don't want to be in that position in your viva. Also it could cause problems later in your career if your thesis is not entirely written I(and thus understood) by you.

Perhaps if you supervisor is insistent on having a lot of imput ask them to provide detailed comments, or break down parts they don't think you do so well. Then leave you to do the idea generation and writing?

======= Date Modified 13 Apr 2009 13:20:15 =======
My bedroom floor is littered with chapter drafts and photocopies of historical material - and papers, all in haphazard piles. The only organisation of material is on my laptop and in the head. Luckily I had the presence of mind to glue many of the sources I needed onto huge A1 sheets and label them by date and theme so I didn't loose them. Sometimes I have found things I have forgotten about!

Filing really isn't my strongpoint - in 'real life'. But my digital libraries of chapter drafts, sources, images, works in progress is in order and regularly backed up. I have seperate folder on my laptop desktop marked things like "early zoological gardens" or "eighteenth-century conchology" with PDF folders and chapter drafts dragged in them. I have a few paper boxes with source sheets (the cut out and pasted A1 sheets) but the rest, I am afraid is in utter disarray!!





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You could pick out key themes of your thesis, or of particular chapters and turn them into a journal article. I have written a 5,000 article on one of my chapter themes, and will later write this month another (6,000 word) on a particular strand of my thesis.

Both are papers which were responses to a call for papers for a specifc edition of a journal related to my field. I sent in a 1,000 word proposal for one and got a positive response saying it had been selected for the final 15 papers to be included (subject to eventual peer review). The other paper, I submitted and assume it is currently in the review process. Look around perhaps for journals that might be putting together special editions on your field - this might help crowbar you in....

Good luck writing.

I had a chapter due in yesterday and it is only half done. So I will aim to get it done by Wednesday - working all weekend and begging sups for forgiveness next week :(

Sympathies for what must be a really difficult situation. Do I remember you saying you were at Manchester? And involved in some way in art history? If so, there is plenty of spare desks in the art history office with net access, a kettle etc and it is quiet. Perhaps the problem is that you live too far away, so apologies if this message is no help at all!!

A covert mission to the British Library sounds like the perfect holiday! :)

Yes, apologies that my earlier post was dismissive...

If you cannot travel and have limited resources then perhaps you could turn a local taxonomical or economic botany study into a virtue. Perhaps you could do detailed work on regional flora in your locality. Perhaps you could do work on nomenclature, or do a botany PhD that also has a local cultural/historical study as a element (medical, practical, and other cultural used for plants and flora etc) I don't know enough about botany to offer much advice - sorry.

I don't wish to be rude but urm, your post doesn't sound like somebody who actually wants to do a PhD. You can't even be bothered to put a proposal together or choose your own topic. Doesn't bode well for a three -four year PhD!!

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You won't be eligible for 'EU Citizenship' after three years. If you mean residency in or citizenship of an EU member state, then this is a process you have to apply for and will vary state to state. If you are in the UK then I think you might be talking about eligibility for funding for a PhD? You normally have to be resident in a country for several years for reasons other than education to be eligible for a studentship - though this may not apply to some posts/projects...



I think you should probably talk to your univeristy international students advisory - since an internet forum might not give you the best advice. But as a point - you could do a MA and PhD in the UK for X years on a student visa - but this would not give you British citizenship (and by extension a passport enabling you to have residency without a visa in other EU states). If residency is a goal then you will need to apply down the appropriate immigration channels...



If a research PhD is your goal keep applying around and stick in there! Good luck.

I am registered in two departments in two different faculties at a single institution. In both departments/faculties the general timeframe is around 2/3 months after submission for the viva. I think this is pretty reasonable. Up to a year is totally unacceptable!

A student funded by the AHRC is ideally supposed to finish within the three year category. But as long as they submit within the 4 year period then the department in which they take their doctorate does not receive any penalty. Beyond this and trouble brews...

I expect to have a complete draft (some chapter will be on their second or third draft by this point) of the thesis by the end of August. I expect to go over the funding period/3 year mark simply because I expect my supervisors to suggest revisions (perhaps structural or to think more about conclusion etc). My supervisors think I am generally on track to hand-in at some point in the autumn/early winter. They have commented on work as I have written it so I trust their asessment (and my own feeling here!). I would like to have it in before Christmas this year. And then face any corrections and the viva in the New Year.

Thanks pamplemousse. It wasn't patronising at all. I did make it sound like I was intending to work too many hours before the end.

Yeah, it kills me that 3 year PhD's are mythological creatures like the Phoenix or Unicorn - with most people taking somewhere between 3 and 4. Yet funding bodies only seem to fund for three years and university instituions expect the fourth year cash to come from somewhere.

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"I am free to pursue as much education as I want"



Really? If so you are one of the few and lucky in our society. Personally I think it is a ridiculous ideology to believe that in our society one is free to pursue as much education as they want.



Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to have taken the CDL, and now have PhD funding - but I don't kid myself that this is proof of some kind of freedom to pursue as much education as I want. If I hadn't recieved the loan or funding then I would not have been free to pursue my education this far.



Think of all those who are trapped in jobs they don't like and can't retrain because they have family, financial and other obligations. Or those that had to leave schoopl early etc etc Or those that got their MA but didn't get funding for their PhD - they aren't free to carry on...



The notion that we are all able to somehow choose to educate ourselves if we want is the logical product of a society which shifts responsibility to individuals for things that should be collective. IMHO.



Surely the sacrifices that you've personally made for your educations (delaying, working, saving etc) are self evident that many people are not free to choose as much education as they want....