i would not copy anything to give out that wasn't my own words to a general audience. You can say that the basic info came from the book(s) or the basic ideas/layout came from a book, and give the reference. Laws on copyright are very complicated and it is best to avoid anything that might remotely look as though it breached the rules

I used this method to collect data. there is a book 'Internet communication and qualitative research: a handbook for researching online' Mann, C and Stewart, F. (2000) London: Sage, which you might find useful. Plus articles: Coomber, R. (1997) Using the internet for survey research. Sociological research online, 2 (2). Huff, C. and Rosenberg, J. (1989) The on-line voyeur: Promises and pitfalls of observing electronic interaction. Behaviour research methods, instruments and computers 21 (2), 166-172. Watt, J. (1997) using the internet for quantitative survey research. Quirks marketing research review, July. not just about questionnaires, but also about other things you need to think about. there are others which you should be able to find using things like swetswise to track them down

there are many pitfalls to online questionnaires, some of which did not apply to mine because of the group that I was targetting, but which could be important if you are going to make a broad sweep of possible sources. my group we on a closed sites, so I knew that all the participants were genuine, - which is a very important point - and I had been, and still am a member of the groups. You need to think aobut how you are going to colect the data, how you are going to make sure the questionnaire arrives in a suitable form, for example I knew that I could not include any pics because they would have been screened out by the net nannies of my participants location. You have to make sure you can preserve anonymity etc. so lots to think about

:-)

i think a lot depends upon your subject and where you are in the process. The way I work depends on what else is going on, I work in a school and therefore have some of the holidays, and that is when I concentrate on parts that need several days together for example to get a structure or outline to a section and get some basic stuff written down. During school time I tend to read, write notes (forget where I've put them, spend ages hunting them down etc.etc. :$) and slot bits in when inspiration strikes, or I find a good ref.. the next holiday I rewrite the sections I've added notes to, and start on whatever bit I want to tackle next. Its a bit hit and miss, sometimes I can spend a whole weekend on this, sometimes other things intervene and its just a bit of reading or something. Best thins is to find out what is best for you, if you fret when you think you should be working when you are not, you may need something a bit more structured, if you are happy to work as inspiration strikes, and think that time spent reading or just thinking is OK then be a bit more flexible - don't however forget that time is shorter than you think and allow yourself too much time away from the coalface :-)

Universities go up and down in the tables. other things are also important, like the people who will be your supervisors, are they top of their field? are they good when it comes to supervision? read the messages on here about supervision to see what I mean. You are going to be there for a while, so make sure you are going to be enthusiastic about the subject. funding is good, but will not compensate for a subject for which you have little interest, so I would take these things into consideration over the rank of the university.

I also think you should register as a part time student. This will reduce your fees, and allow you to work. It is what I am doing. This doesn't mean you can't get on and do more than would be expected- for example I could finish mine next year (Ha!) but gives you flexibility if you need it to take longer. To try to do both full time would, I think be very difficult.

Can you put any of it in an appendix...or as endnotes, neither of these count, I already have one appendix and loads of endnotes, and expect there will be loads more! :$. mine has to be no more than 80,000, but they say they never actually count them!

This older supervisor, respected or not, has been rude, and perhaps unwise in the strength of his criticism, but this is something you can deal with. The object of criticism is to be constructive, and your other supervisor should have been helping you to view this in a positive light (your other supervisor seems either a bit of a wimp, or too scared of his own position to stand up to the other one). However, you have had your rant, and this has told one of them how you feel, which is good. The other one might be a bit more tricky, they probably have a bigger ego, so, what I would do is take a smallish part of your work, and try rewriting it, taking on board what they have said. Send it to the person with a note asking if this is more the style they require, and how much you would appreciate their comments before you go further. keep it low key and see what the outcome is. I expect they will be pleased to help. Having someone say how good something is isn't necessarily the best type of supervision, we are all on a learning curve, and part of it is learning how to write, and learning how to cope with critiques of your work, better sooner than later. Think positive if you approach it in the right frame of mind only good can come out of this.

glad to be of help!

I suppose this stuff may vary from subject to subject, and my -second hand - knowledge of the viva so far is from the humanities but I too went to a seminar about the viva at my uni a little while ago. The guy who gave the talk said that the examiners should not be out to get you. Your supervisors should have picked out people they know will be sympathetic to your work and, as in the case of one person I know here, they actually said when she walked in that the corrections she needed to make (a few typos only)would only take her an hour or so, but they were really interested in her subject and wanted her to talk about it with them. They also asked her at the end what she would like to happen as a result of her work. Which might be something you should consider (don't think they were after an invite to the wild celebrations though!).

However the guy also said that you should have prepared a 3 and a 5 min resume of your work, as they will almost certainly ask you to summarise it. You should have a copy of your thesis which matches theirs (that is the final version) Mark the start of all the chapters so you can find them easily. Be prepared to defend/justify your approach - that is make sure you can say why you eliminated certain possible approaches. check on the internet for any recent work in the same area - he said he always searches for information in the area, and may question the person about studies that do not appear in the thesis.:$. Mark all the typos etc. that you have discovered since submitting (!) so you can show them you have read the thing since handing it in.

You may of course have discussions about the materials you used, and about statistics - I'm hoping to keep that to a minimum, my excuse being that I need to compare the results with those produced by others who just used simple graphs and charts, but I expect I will have to delve a little more deeply into some statistical bits, which I will study when necessary, and if they ask why it is simple I will probably say that it will be more easily understood by those not au fait with statistical analysis!

Best thing to do is probably to make sure you know your stuff, and steer them away from areas you are not so sure about if you can!

note any strange results you obtained and be able to explain them - or, if you can't, offer a possible reason. Check any tables as they may ask why the results are as they are.

Take your time, when they ask a question, consider your answer before speaking, if you don't understand what they are getting at, tell them so and ask for clarification. The sip of water is a good thing to do, it gives you thinking time.

Have you made use of endnotes/footnotes and put things in an appendix or two? I'm trying to keep each chapter close to the number of words I've allocated, they are still a bit over, but not too much and I'm hoping that once its more complete I will be able to see what can be removed. Incidentally here they have said there is a word limit...but they don't count the words.

I'm self funding, and haven't even tried to obtain any funding, partly because at my age it is unlikely that anyone would even consider it, partly because I don't want to go full time as I like my job and it fits in well with part time study (up to a point anyway) partly because I want to work with the supervisors I have, but mostly because the area is one that on the surface is unlikely to have the wow factor - although the results will make people sit up and take notice - I hope :$. The whole thing was inspired by my supervisor and the work I did with him during my MA, and as I have said to him and to others it is through him that I have both seen what needs to be uncovered and have the help to make it known to a wider audience. - my goodness that sounds either quite pompous or quite dramatic I hope it will be that latter! I can just about afford to do it, so may be lucky in that respect, but I couldn't afford to give up my job as there is little hope of getting anything permanently academic (too old) although there are other things that I can do in this area which my supervisor wants me to do. It is unfair to suggerst self funded people are not as good as those who get funding, it can well depend upon the area of your research, if there is an off the shelf topic you can do, or even maybe where you are based. Some people. like me, have had several different career changes and conducted research in all of them with different, but maybe equal value to PhDs, approaches. Well done to those who have managed to get funding, but also well done to those who go it alone.

I can't work to music at all, I find it so distracting, however someone talking in the background is completely different. :$.

My uni put on a speed reading course for us. Its a good technique, but is easier taught than read about, it took less than two hours to learn the basics, so perhaps you could persuade your uni to do the same for you?

first I would get some large pieces of paper, and use one to write down everything I wanted to cover in the whole thing,(remember to dot them about, don't write in columns or anything) use headings, bits of notes, anything you like, just everything you can think of, not how you are going to do it though, at least not yet. now, remembering you will need intro, methodology, conclusion etc, collect these thoughts into groups, number them, use highlighters, whatever you want. This should give you some chapterish structure. Give each of these a fresh piece of paper, one per chapter structure, put down your headings for what is going into the chapter from your first sheet and start making a few notes about what you are going to do for each one. Use these to decide which one you feel most ready to describe in detail, then repeat the process but concentrate on just the one chapter this time, you should then be able to see the wood from the trees, know what will go in the chapter, where the info you need will come from - at least in the first instance, go and look for the information in a bit more detail, so you can say, for exam[le for the first section I will need to write about the the eco system of the pond, I will look at the work of Smith on the eco system of ponds which will inform tjis. There are also journals 'pond life international' which have excellent articles a,b,c which will be useful and which suggest that Tomlinson has written specifically on the red gnat which appears to be important in this study (I've made all this up, so it may not be true and ecologists may be amazed at my stupidity in this area, but you get what I mean :$ ) and of course - don't panic. - just read your subject, so gnats are definately not on the list of possibles are they! :-)

Part of the problem though is that school does not prepare students for uni. At school they expect everything to be handed to them, to be as rude as they like, and still expect teachers to do their bidding, and expect uni to be the same. I used to have a very part time job in the uni library, basically I was there to answer their questions about researching etc on a Saturday. I had loads of students who did not have the first idea how to start planning their work, no idea about making a plan, and we quite unable to master the library bookshelves, let alone the journals, and had to be shown how to use the search facilities. They also came in on Saturday afternoon for help on essays that were due in on the Monday which they had yet to even start. Part of it might be a fear of failure, because they may never have experienced it, and they might be using bravado to cover it up (I'm being generous here :-) ) but as for them not shutting up, pick out the ringleader and just ask them if they think they are making the best use of their time/ the facilities, and how do they think they might improve on their learning experience without disrupting the learning of everyone else, which is what they appear to be doing at the moment!