Well, I must admit I am a little concerned since the WHO raised the threat level, and my brother (usually immensely laid back about all things) phoned me saying he'd been given lots of serious advice from his company.

For a little light relief (concerning a 'Bird Flu Contingency Plan', but equally applicable now!):
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/rebecca-tyrrel/rebecca-tyrrel-days-like-those-468831.html

For a standard lecturer's job, the interview process normally requires a presentation - does anyone know how long the presentation normally is?
Is it an hour or 30 mins? or longer?

In the past, I have been asked to give a 20 min presentation but that was for a postdoc, not lecturer job.

I'm trying to prepare a presentation that I can use at all potential interviews.

======= Date Modified 28 Apr 2009 15:27:22 =======
A PhD that references/incorporates your own papers shows the examiners that you are working at a publishable standard, and thus it looks quite good. But, having published papers won't necessarily help pass your PhD. In my dept. students who have submitted and passed their PhDs within 3 years, tend to have no publications to their name (obviously because they were busy working on their actual PhD), others who have publications and lots of presentations to their names tend to extend their PhD time.

In social science/humanities, I've found zero to 3 published papers seems to be the standard amount.

Edit: The more important aspect of publishing is whether you intend to pursue an academic career - in which case you really do need to produce 2/3 papers.

I've was told at a viva course that 10% of students fail (without any degree or referral) - it's quite a sobering statistic.

Thanks guys! That link is very helpful, and yes I should remember about admin work etc. (I forgot that's very relevant in academia!). I just wish I had more relevant work exp.

======= Date Modified 21 09 2009 16:09:36 =======
I'm re-writing my outdated CV and it's looking rather sparse! I have headings for Education, Work Experience, Presentations, Publications, Awards, Memberships, References. Am I missing anything out here?

My main problem is lack of work experience. I have RA positions and a fellowship, but they were from a few years back, since then I have only concentrated on writing my PhD (which has over-run badly) and keeping my head financially above water with non-academic jobs (freelance work mostly). Now from looking at other academic CVs, it appears that one doesn't put down non-academic jobs. Do you put non-academic jobs on an academic CV??? I don't want to appear amateurish but I also don't want to appear lazy.

Another issue concerns including a full description of the PhD? I've noticed some academic CVs have attached page at the back which describes the PhD or current research work. Is this common practice?

Also, do you list attendance at those education development courses? eg. GRADschool etc.

I just think my CV looks quite crap...any advice would be much appreciated.

I hate updating my CV....I need some chocolate...:-(

How strange! This recently happened to me - a cat jumped through the tiny window in my study and scared the hell out of me. I had to clean the room from top to bottom, because I'm very allergic.

There is not a great deal the owner can do, she isn't going to keep her cats in her house so there isn't much point confronting her about it. I would advise getting a water pistol (something quite forceful), and spray them next time visit, cats apparently hate this. Also put metallic things (cans, CDs) across your window sills.

I'm going to put screening on my window...although I've not exactly figured out how I'm going to do this yet.

I'm not very tech savvy - so can't help much Eska. If I think there is a virus on my PC, I back up all my files on a separate drive and then reset my PC to factory settings (which takes ages).

Here's some info. on how to manually remove it:
http://www.2-viruses.com/remove-personal-antivirus

If you can't pull that page up, let me know and I'll cut and paste it all on here.

I'm pretty sure politics and communication is up for the chop! I'm up in the NW of England at the moment, and the newspapers have been heavily covering the issue of Liverpool shutting down its poor performing depts.

Liverpool is becoming very commercial like many other leading uni's e.g. expanding to China, international branding, focusing on the lucrative postgrad market, and anything underperforming is under threat.

Liverpool is a very political city and known for its politicians - it would be a travesty if they lost a politics dept.

======= Date Modified 18 Apr 2009 08:15:32 =======
Authors often do get paid for journal articles, but whether payment is forthcoming seems to depend on one's discipline and the publisher involved.

In principle though, I agree with what you say Sneaks, no other field would put up with lack of payment, but publishers can play upon an academic's desperation to publish.

That said, the margins of profit on many academic publication are tiny, so if you factor in administrating a royalty payment scheme, or giving a lump payment to the author, the publication in question may run a loss; although I don't believe this defence can be levelled at many of the big publishing houses.

It seems the meaning of 'atrocity' is rather variable!

That's bonkers!! Only in academia, eh?

Well done for getting your supervisor to foot the bill.

Pamplemousse, I wrote virtually the same thing as you then deleted it as my belief in freedom of speech got the better of me.

But that said, it would be interesting to know why you want to write this exposé Stardreamer?

For instance, are you genuinely interested in researching the PhD experience and infrastructure (both the good and the bad), and suggesting improvement/reforms? Or have you simply had a bad experience yourself, and want a platform to publically vent and expose your dept.? If it's the latter, then it will across unprofessional, and there are already many such exposés online.

Bullying/discrimination, working for less than the minimum wage, and intellectual theft are probably the top three 'PhD atrocities' I've come across in media reports.

The main problem at the moment is we really don't know when the economy will recover - it might be next year, it might not be for five years, but the UK will/is being very badly hit more than most other countries, even the US will recover before us (look at the IMF data).

But, I do definitely agree a PhD is the way to go now, but I do think it is crazy for someone in a successful job to give it up at present, unless they are in financially stable position for at least the next 3-5 years and accept the fact they may not get back on the ladder at the same place they got off.

A further point to consider is that if you job is under threat, it's best to hang tough and wait for the redundancy package (in pharma and biotech they can be very generous).