Speaking as another old woman I'm glad I took the plunge, it is hard work, but fun too in an odd sort of way. Happy new year to one and all, hope everything goes well in 2010. I've started off quite well really, had a bit of inspiration for the chapter I'm writing at the moment, and am sending it off to my supervisor today. Hope he likes it! sun is shining - although its cold outside, but it makes everything better, spring is on its way- eventually -so happiness all round. Cheers all!:-)

Well I've done some work :-) but not as much as I should have done, I plan my work around school holidays, so should have done more, but I will send something to my supervisor tomorrow, even if it isn't finished, cos I'm supposed to be seeing him on Tuesday evening. tomorrow I've planned to sort out all my journals into alphabetical order, as I've got to the stage where I'm looking up stuff and thinking 'thats new' only to find tell tale annotations in it which prove I've read it sometime in the past. :$

I would make sure that you do not make your plan too rigid, but also make sure you take notes as you go along, of general ideas, paragraphs that are of particular interest, references to other things that you might want to look up etc. If it is a big book, it might also be worthwhile writing a short summary of what is in each one. If you think you can stick rigidly to your writing scheme then fine, but if you get a brilliant idea along the way, write it down, or you will forget it. you may, of course also find that you need to look up the stuff referenced in the book, which will add to your reading/writing times

I'm not sure you can say ' i will read so many pages a day', and it does depend upon what sort of book it is, and how important it is to your studies. What I have done, and have advised others to do is read the back first, then have a look at the contents, foreword, and any other bits that may give you an idea of what the book is about. For each chapter have a quick skim through to get an idea of what it is about, if you have any knowledge of speed reading, now is the time to put it to good use - and if you have no knowledge of this technique I suggest you get to know it - we have sessions for post grads that cover this, you may too. Whilst you are doing this you need to make quick notes about areas that interest you in the text, just quick notes, such as 'page 4 paragraph 3'  Once you have done these things you will have a good idea about what the main ideas are, and where it can be of use to you. Then you need to go through it in more detail. Use your notes to help you pick out bits you need to read carefully, and take proper notes. Then when you meet your supervisor you will be able to say 'I found chapters x,y,z really useful when a,b,c is mentioned. this leads me to think that the books 1,2,3 may be worth reading too' etc. One more thing, make sure you record the reference, in your reference file, not on a scrappy bit of paper which you will lose. Do this for every single thing you read, as soon as you use it, put it in your references. If you don't use it in the end you can delete it from your list as the final stage, but if you forget, it will be the one vital ref you really want to include, but you can't because you can't find it again.

I too went through the vet phase, but at my junior school a teacher did the collapsing can experiment, and I wanted to be a scientist. I discovered I was very good at cooking, I used to have a weekend job in one of the local posh hotels and eventually used to help develop dishes, and decided I wanted to teach this, only to find that the place I wanted to go to didn't accept left handers :-( so I went to another teacher training place, which was probably the biggest mistake I ever made, I stuck it out for 2 years and then left. I went back to science and ended up doing research which I loved, but then it didn't fit in with family life, so after working as a volunteer in my daughter's school for a while I decided to try the teaching thing again, only to discover they wanted someone to confirm I could write an essay, which I thought was rather strange, how did they think I obtained my fellowship - by drawing pictures? Anyway I went into adult teaching, which I followed up with a cert. ed. then MA, and now I'm doing this. My next thing is to change the world - gonna join me on that one????:-)

I've come to join you! My research is in education, but I'm not concentrating of teachers - even though one of the people who read my original proposal thought that was what it would be about... and suggested that was what I should be doing. Mind you this is the person who said I needed to define what a laboratory was (?). I'm pulling in bits from all sorts of areas (I have good old Aristotle in my methodology chapter - sounds like some kind of invasion doesn't it!) at the moment I'm buried deep in the realms of business and labour theory and trying hard to get chapter two finished and cut down to size, its way too big at the moment, but it is hard to leave anything out. Its one of the fundamental building blocks of knowledge that are needed to understand what I am on about, but I keep on finding refs to stuff I know nothing about, which is bad, but when I can see an article that looks like it is just what I need, and then I find it isn't available, that's a lot worse :-( I know I could order it, but that takes time, and it might not be as good as it looks, so i tend not to bother. The aim is to get a rough chapter sorted out to send to supervisor on Friday, keeping fingers crossed there! after that its some data analysis - and the dreaded lit review, I'm still not sure what to put in that, I'm sure it's harder to decide what to put in here than it is in the sciences  :$

Ah, but bug, you will have the essential pockets!!!!:-)

I too didn't have to do this, but the expectation here when I applied that you will either take the research Masters, or your masters will have had 'substantial training', that is at least one module, devoted to research methods. Quite frankly I think some kind of research training is an absolute necessity before starting a PhD, the research I did before was of a totally different type, and I found the module in my MA was very important. We have sessions here about various aspects of research methods and without any background it would be very difficult to follow, also it speeds up your choice of methods for your own research, if you don't know what is available, how will you choose? I may be wrong, but at this university I think that you could do part of the masters research module for free if you thought you hadn't done enough on research methods before, we can do any masters modules for free - with the added bonus of not having to do any of the assignments- as part of our training package for PhD students.

All I would say is - make sure you have pockets!:$. I usually wear trousers and a casual-ish jacket, because it is easier, I find somewhere to put something that doesn't involve a bag is very useful. Oh, and make sure you have turned off your mobile. I was once sitting in a conference, when I remembered I had left mine on, and all through one of the presentations I was thinking 'nobody phone me' it was a relief when the clapping started and I could turn it off.

You are right K. Never thought that could be the problem.

I have been told that there is a very good dummy's guide to SPSS, which may be of use, apparently one of the lecturers here swears by it!. I think part of the problem is that you have to know what you want the program to do before you know what you want it to do. Everything has to be set up just right otherwise the program just says 'no' - or it produces some rubbish result. I think Access is also a pain because of this. If you are having problems with the data you are trying to put in, forget that just for a moment, and put in data that you know will work, for example some numerical stuff ,to give yourself a bit of confidence. Then set up some coded stuff, maybe names, months of the year etc, and see how you get on with manipulating that. if you can get it to do what you want when you know what the result should be, it will help... failing that, see if your uni has a tame maths person, and consult them, they love this thing.:$ :-)

can't you use 1 for male, 2 for female?

sort out the chocs first. look at the eat by dates and sort them in order of that date. This should spread them out a bit and give you several piles in month order :-) and you will know how long the scoffing will last. divide the piles into your favourites and the rest (don't worry, chocs don't mind). You will now have several piles I should think, most chocs will last until April at least! Now, have a choc after all your efforts :$ put them in plastic bags, store them somewhere not too hot not too cold, and you can now eat each bag during its appropriate month and need, sometimes you need any choc, sometimes you need something special. If you are feeling generous, you could take a few into uni where they will disappear as quickly as the snow. -After that I think I will go and look at my own choc mountain, or shall I go for the crisp mountain instead.... I need something whilst writing

Bilbo - i could never resolve not to buy any more books, I have a pile to read too, but have to add to it. It's quite shocking really the number there are in this house, far, far too many, but I can't resist them, and now I can just go on Amazon, its just too easy to add a few more!

now, as far as resolutions go;
I will get all the newspaper cuttings I have sorted and commented upon, and will add them to my refs.
I will get out in the garden more, after all that can be thinking time
I will stop doing other things instead of writing
I will keep up with the exercise, even though it eats into writing time
I will not lose vital bits of paper and spend hours looking for them.

by the end of this year I should have
two chapters finished - one is more or less finished, the other is in the process and should be done by the end of Feb
results of surveys etc, analysed - I have most of the data, I just haven't done anything with it yet
once that has been done I hope to get another two chapters almost finished and two more on their way
here's hoping I can get at least half of that lot done!

Here they make allowance for the university not being open/boards not sitting throughout the process, for example something may need to be in at the end of July when everyone has left for the summer, so submission is allowed in September when they get going again, so I can't imagine there are not similar provisions made for no one actually being available to read the corrections at this time of year. If you have submitted, and have proof of submission the ball is in their court. E-mail your supervisor, and the admin team at your uni, they will be able to tell you, someone may even be there between now and the new year, and if not, I should think they will be back in by January 4th.

At the moment I am trying very hard not to get sidetracked from my main study. Which I think has a great bearing on the future of education, but I am finding the material I am is now using is from very diverse sources, this isn't a bad thing, as it shows linkage, but I need to be very careful it doesn't take the whole thing in another direction, which I don't want to happen. My title is deliberately vague, and therefore can incorporate all these other areas, and it is this which helps make my research different, but I still want it to be based in education and not in other areas. I'm going to suggest that there are possibilities for further research in these diverse areas in my conclusion, who knows, someone might even take me up on it!:-)