I print out paper copies of things I want to read, and save PDFs in Mendeley with bibliographic info. In theory when I finish reading a paper I tag the Mendeley record with key words and then write a summary of the paper. The summaries I initially put in Mendeley, but for various reasons I switched to OneNote for that. It doesn't always happen though, so a lot of the time my notes are the handwritten scrawl on the papers or in my notebook.

As for the paper copies, I tried various thematic filing systems but couldn't get them to work due to the nature of my topic. In the end I've just gone for alphabetical, and use Mendeley to search by theme.

I'm not sure my system has much to recommend it - will let you know when it comes to writing up!

Work experience and connections can make up for any shortcomings in qualifications. I really would urge you to get some practical experience first and see if you can develop working relationships which might enable you to get funding in the future.

Alas, £30,000 might not see you through the living costs and fees for 3 years, let alone any further costs. It would also be difficult for you to undertake further work once the PhD begins.

Do get some advice on interview technique, because clearly your CV/applications are strong enough to get interviews. But think carefully about whether it might be wise to hold off until you have some more experience under your belt.

Just to add that I suspect when there are advertised lab projects for 'self funding' students, the assumption is that the student is bringing funding from their government or some kind of scholarship/fellowship. I've never come across a biomedical science student who funded a PhD from their own pocket.

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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but unless you are ridiculously wealthy then there is no way you could self fund a biomedical lab based PhD. Aside from tuition fees and living costs, if a lab doesn't have the funds for a student then there is the issue of bench/reagent costs. Cell culture is expensive and an intensive project could well cost £10-30,000 a year in lab costs.

I suggest as a first step, you get good honest advice from a careers service as to why your applications to date have been unsuccessful. It could be something about your approach to the application form, interviews or how you present your CV. It could be due to lack of experience - how much lab work have you done outside of your courses?

It is highly unusual for lab science PhD students to be taken on for a project that isn't already advertised. Certainly if you contact a supervisor with no firm idea of a project proposal, it's unlikely to be successful. It would be better to develop a relationship with a potential supervisor by working for them as a research assistant/technician, and developing a project proposal over time that can then be written into a grant etc. It'll also give you a better idea of whether or not this is something you really want to pursue, before making such a big commitment.

Finally, think hard about why you want to do a PhD. If it's because you want a career in academia, be aware that a lack of funding at PhD stage might hinder you in the future. It may be better to focus right now on addressing whatever is holding you back from being successful in your applications.

Good luck.

It's common to present work in progress. If I were you I would go ahead and present whatever you've got. Don't pull out if you can help it because presenting your work is a useful experience, and it's hassle for the organisers to find new speakers. You may, however, wish to amend your abstract if the original sounded like it would be final results being presented.

Is it an open access journal? If not, then I'm not sure why you're being charged at all.

You might get more responses if you post a quick description of the study in this thread. Some people don't like clicking links if they don't know what's at the other end.

Hmm. I know very little about Pharma, but the industry does seem to struggle more than it used to, and not just because of the economy. It's hard to come up with new 'best seller' drugs that recoup the costs ploughed into R&D. There seems to be an awful lot of trying to license existing drugs for new indications, or making small molecular tweaks to enable new patents to come out, rather than brand new drug development. But that is my partially-informed, outsider's perspective, so I could be wrong!

If you're interested in Pharmacovigilance, you might be better off pursuing an epidemiology/medical stats route. Essentially that kind of research requires working with large data sets and hunting for patterns. I have colleagues who do that kind of thing, and confidence with stats/data handling seems more important than pharmacology knowledge. Might be worth checking out the MHRA website to see whether you can get a feel for the skills and qualifications they deem important in regulatory/'post marketing surveillance' roles.

This sounds like something you might be able to do with Google Scholar. I think it's also possible with Google search to see how common key words have been in different years. Not sure how though!

The extent to which it matters probably varies by field. Are you arts/humanities or science/engineering or...?

Online or in person? What country?

There are quite a lot out there, though I can't recommend a specific one. I'd suggest finding one taught by people in the same field as you, as the examples are more likely to be helpful.

Might be worth also having a look at the All Stat mailing list as short courses are often advertised there: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=ALLSTAT