Brilliant. Have a fab weekend.

Yay some good Friday news for both Pink Neuron and Chrisrolinski.

0609, I am really sorry to hear that you are having difficulties.

Ann is right (as always! ) about your Uni having a duty to provide you with adequate supervision. I seem to say this a lot but I do think it would be a good idea to make an appointment to discuss this situation with your Department of Studies. I think Ann's suggestion of appointing a second supervisor is a great one and may indeed sort out many of the issues you have mentioned.

Good luck and I hope you manage to sort something out.

By the way, I only had one supervisor also but I was lucky and mine was great. I do think I would opt for a second for the reasons Ann mentioned if I was to do it again.

Hi Eppi

404, you made me laugh Perhaps I should indeed change my surname by deed poll to fluffymonster. I think it would look great.

surname for me also

I would definitely only go for the reference section. I don't think a bibliography is meaningful for a PhD as Chrisr has said. The viva is a good point and you could indeed make things more difficult by including everything you have read. Realistically I never logged everything I read anyway from the start so I could not have done this.

Seems very bizarre to me.

I would check with your department specifically. Mine certainly did not have both. I only had a reference section for things I had consulted personally (and not simply read).

Thanks Sheena. It took 4 years bar 5 days! I was part time though. I was complex as I was an RA for most of that (F/T) with overlapping projects. For the last 9 months I took up a p/t teaching position.

Do you have a departmental handbook for postgrads? Mine has examples of the referencing style required so maybe that would help. The Uni library website also has a guide for Harvard. I woudl try there as I know it differs slightly.

Bit late but it's still elevenish.

I walked straight into that didn't I.

I am not sure if this will make you feel better or not, but I recently passed my viva and I am still not sure if I am good enough either! I have decided it is much more about tenacity though.

Crumpets and butter anyone?

I would be up for this too.

Absolutely, it was so worth it. Ok you haven't published yet, but you have lots of time. Do you have anything that you are preparing for publication or is in press? I would suggest maybe starting work on something if you do not. How about one of your PhD studies?

Publications can take ages (depending on which journal you submit to) and people will understand that. Obviously some research projects take years to complete depending on data collection etc so it is obviously not an overnight process.

Do you have any poster presentations that have published in abstract form in journals? Some I have presented do this and present them in a special edition of the journal. Although this is not the same as a written paper, it still counts as a publication.

Don't lose heart and perhaps take some time to think about what you might be able to write up without too much hassle as a starting point.