Personal opinion, but I'd say no, as with Eska I also had a v dangerous stalker, a long time ago now, so no reason to think he would ever be able to or indeed even interested in watching me give a boring presentation; but that feeling of looking over my shoulder etc has never left me, and I never put my details, photos up anywhere, facebook etc, so would refuse consent to record my presentation, and blow the consequences.  No it is not unreasonable to object, freedom of choice and all that. Also theres enough pressure to perform without having the thought of an embarrassing moment being up there to view over and over again - I have done a few stupid blunders which still make me cringe, and thank goodness they werent filmed!!  :$

Hi Joe

Its a bit of a soul searching process finding the right title/questions etc for a PhD thesis, but hopefully you will find this useful: try www.jobs.ac.uk and have a look at the current PhD studentships being offered, will give you an idea of whats out there; have a look on www.ethos.bl.uk and search through titles of completed PhD's; go to the university websites and look at what research they are doing and whos doing what, you could send one the professors/dr's in similar area to your own an email with your ideas, I sent out emails to various professors at different uni's with a short description of the area I was interested in and had very positive feed back; download the uni's application form for PhD so you can see how much more researching you will have to do in order to fulfill there criteria.  Most uni's wont expect a fully worked up proposal and a definitive research title and questions, thats what you start working on after you've been excepted. Just choose an area that you are very passionate about because its a long lonely project and you will need to love it to stick with it, and then some.  Good luck.

Hi,

The IT dept at the uni I used to work at provided all the software they had, just charging a deposit, which included Windows, maybe your uni does the same, would save you a lot of money.

Hmm, sounds like you've already gone - mentally speaking ;-)

Congrats PhDbug, you have obviously worked really hard for this and deserve all the positive comments, all the best with the rest of your PhD (up)

Hi, probably not the best time for me to reply as I am completely worn out, I also have 3 children, I cooked a roast dinner this evening for 5, the kitchen is a mess, there is lego all over the sitting room floor, and I cant be bothered to move.  My husband works 6 days a week, doesnt take much time off, so anything to do with the house and children is my responsibility. I do all my work when the children are at school, holiday times are a write off, almost - but I do put the younger ones in an activity club 2 days a week so I can keep ticking over until the hols are over.  Cant do anything in the evening as husband doesnt like me working in his time. So I just make sure when I do my PhD work I really focus and make it count, ignore the housework and everything else.  I feel slightly worried when I hear of other people putting in 8/10 hrs everyday, but upon questioning the people I work with this includes meeting friends for lunch, time on facebook, surfing the web, checking emails etc. I also try to do other menial tasks associated with the PhD, collecting library books, searching for more resources etc outside my daytime work hours so it feels like I am doing some real work and making small progress.  I just think its important for people like us not to procrastinate, not to let time slip so nothing has been achieved for a few weeks - its tough. But weekends and after 4pm week days is family time, which bottom line is more important than my PhD.  Can you do everything? Can I bring my children up to be secure, happy, well rounded beings and get my doctorate, look after the house etc and keep husband happy?  Will I still have my sanity at the end? Phew!!  Sure I can!!X?!! (Actually I do know of quite a few divorces amongst PhDers)  :p

Hi Fairycakes, I am also 6 months in and to be honest with you I would be equally nervous at presenting at a conference or writing a paper, and would of told my supervisor that I am not ready to talk at conferences but I would love to have a go at writing a paper, assuming that he would be editing and sending it back for corrections etc. I think its early in the PhD and too soon to be expected to do everything, speak to your supervisor, if you had some of the tasks taken off you, you could probably start to focus a bit more rather than setting yourself on a self-distruct mode. Take one thing at a time, starting with the most pressing, yes obvious, but your putting so much pressure on yourself by worrying about all of these things - and you say your a homebody, well it will probably do you good, we all learn when out of our comfort zones and it pushes the confidence barrier a bit further. Good luck :-)

Thank you for your responses, they are very useful and is interesting to see the different methods, this has given me confidence to see what works best for me, thanks (up)

Hi Ergogirly, that is drop out rates at my uni for the structured route - which concerned me, but other uni's may have better retention rates.  I would love to complete in 3 yrs, because I have so many other things to do and I fear my focus and attention span may waiver if I was considering a much longer time, also life can take different directions, so the sooner the better - but I have given myself a personal limit of 4 yrs. Time will tell if I also will be making one of those happy posts 'I'm a Dr now!' or not.  All the best 8-)

Hi everyone/anyone

I'm currently reading loads of articles to try and write my lit review, just wondering if you have any tips of the best way to do this. Athos78 (might have got the name slightly wrong) put up some really useful tips for completing a PhD, and suggested writing a brief summary of every article you read for the lit review. How did anyone else manage the lit review, did you write detailed reports on every article, brief notes, do the lit review as you went along, read everything first. I'm just not sure how I should be approaching the lit review and how to organise myself and would really appreciate advice from those that have been there and done it. Big thanks :-x

Hi, jst wanted to pick your brains - sorry, I will post a seperate thread also, so no pressure to answer - point 7. lit review, you say to write a brief summary of every article you read, I am grappling with this at the moment, do you do it in note format or a more academic report, so you can cut and paste, just wondering how detailed this needs to be and what should be in there - thanks :-)

Well done!!! and many thanks for your advice, I will surely find this very useful ;-)

Oh and my proposal was 2 pages long, 1.5 spacing.

Hi Ergogirly

I started a structured doc beginning of this yr, thinking that it would be nice to have fellow colleagues alongside me and have plenty of help from tutors and structure to follow, but I recently changed to a more traditional PhD, as for the first two yrs I was going to be working on assignments, not necessarily on my subject and would not be able to start my thesis until the end of the two yrs.  I was just so itching to get started on my project and learn all I can about my area that focusing on assignments on various subjects just seemed to be taking me away from research. Now I have an office with all the other PhDers so I have company anyway, I get help and support from staff at the dept if I ask for it, and this site is great for giving advice.  So for me the traditional route is the best, and hopefully I will be able to complete in 3 yrs, previous students from the more structured route were still working on their thesis 5 yrs later, the drop out rate was 1 in 3. Probably more suited to people that havent taken any research and design modules at masters level.  Good luck

I was going to start a post asking what a postdoc is, as I have seen it mentioned by a few (just another one of my stupid questios!) - but dont bother on that sort of money I'm no longer interested, I'm doing my PhD on love alone, but that salary is laughable, lol 8-)