Social sciences but the subject matter is not of any interest to me but beggars can't be choosers and all that!

Ady, obviously I haven't seen your work but your work ethic is evident and you have seriously put the work in and so I think you have made the right decision. Wish you all the very best for you submission next week!(up)

Don't be sorry and I hope writing your thoughts and experiences down helped. What I can tell you is although you may think you are on your own many on here have felt as you feel now and that's a promise. Make use of all the support networks you can, here and the counselling service at your University, for example. Try not to compare your PhD experiences with others as PhD's differ greatly and you could be doing yourself a great injustice and most likely are. Remember, the odds are stacked in your favour as regards passing your PhD but the journey to it can be testing, to say the least.

Keep taking care of yourself and chin up!

At least it's material for your stand up comedy! Seriously, a lot of people on here work from home and it depends on the nature of your work, you and supervisors but you may find you didn't, or don't, need to move away to do your PhD (depends how far away your University is from home).

Try to put the teething problems behind you and hopefully you'll soon be cutting it!!!

Hi Skig,

No worries, I was being overly sensitive. I'm a belt and braces type person and tend to worry about things that shouldn't be of concern. I worry that I'll fail and have to tell people (it's the telling people that concerns me not failing as such) but my supervisors seem more than happy with my work. I worry that I'll get horrible examiners but I've been told they'll be firm but fair and I worry about plagiarism when I can't see that I've any reason to be...I suppose I'm a worrier!

That's great! The weekend has come early for you. Congratulations and enjoy!(up)

Welcome to the forum. I hope you continue to find it of help and I hope you enjoy your PhD!!!

Good luck(up)

mak_2011, thanks, it does.

It is not black and white but a grey area and others I've asked even agree with me. The fact that I'm asking about this on a forum where no-one knows me should show that I don't want to do this. I very much don't believe I have, as I've never copied and pasted anything and have tried to reference properly. All papers show a level of plagiarism, I've been told, and so I just want to make sure I haven't as far as possible.

I regret asking about this and I'm not the first person to do so on this forum. Quite a few have said they intend to run their work through some kind of check but I've decided I'm not going to.

Writecheck is from the makers of Turnitin but designed for students, as far as I can tell.

There's no-one I can ask except my supervisors and although my work hasn't been put through Turnitin they know I'm paranoid about plargiarism and keep reassuring me that everything's fine. I think I'll just keep check manually, as painful as it is...

Sneaks, I'm probably not going to use such a checker but will double check everything myself.

It's just in the past I've noticed a few on here talk about using a such a checker. I most definitely would not plagiarise deliberately but it does appear to be a grey area and I am paranoid about it. I spent all of today checking a chapter against original papers and don't appear to have plagiarised anything and so i'll probably do the same with the rest.

I'm sending you a PM Ady

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Has anyone used this to check their work for plagiarism? I do want to run my work through something because I'm paranoid about plagiarism and because I do think it's a grey area and it's certainly something I don't want to do or be accused of. This is something like turnitin but for students

I'm delighted you both secured lectureships(up)(up) Sneaks get your thesis submitted and you'll well and truly be sorted!