I'm so demotivated, I can't get anything done. There's roughly a year of my PhD left so it's not worth quitting, I'm finishing experiments and starting my write-up in Sept and submitting next spring, but I wish I was finished so I could do something else. I get up in the morning and can't be bothered to start doing proper work, so I end up procrastinating all day. I'm supposed to be writing papers and analysing data but I'm doing more web surfing and drinking coffee. It doesn't help that I'm the only PhD student in my office (the others are foreign distance learning students who are abroad 9 months of the year), so I work without peer support, and I often don't bother to go into the office and usually work from home. It definitely doesn't help that I've made no friends since I moved here almost 3 years ago, and nowadays my life revolves around PhD work and watching tv. I just feel demotivated and bored :( Sorry for moaning, I really don't have anyone else to tell (my supervisor would have a fit, we are strictly professional and she is not good at dealing with personal crises)

She is a micro-manager generally. There have been situations where I've got in trouble for sending an email to one of my participants without clearing it with her first. With the last paper, I did the research study and she helped with analysis, I wrote the paper and she wrote the introduction as time was short and also did a bit of editing, then she put her name first because I had only done the actual work and she had done the literature bit for the intro and recommended which other papers should be used to back up the research (she claimed her bit was more complicated so her name should go first; of course she only told me this AFTER she had submitted it in her name!) The annual review panel made a big fuss over this and recommended in writing that any future publications should be in the name of the student. So you can see why I'm nervous about her intentions...

I've conducted a questionnaire and got lots of data. I'm experienced in qualitative analysis, but I've never done advanced statistical analysis before so I'm unsure how to start. My supervisor is experienced in statistical analysis so I asked for guidance. She said she would do the statistical analysis and give it to me, and that isn't a problem as long as I understand and can defend her results. I said I'd like to do it myself as I want to learn the skills, so she said she would do it and I could watch so I understood. I'm very suspicious - is my supervisor trying to get her name first on the paper about my questionnaire by doing the statistics? It wouldn't be the first time she's put her name first on a paper about my work. Or is she just being helpful? I hate to think ill of her, she's been great in so many other respects but it seems a weird offer. Should I insist on doing it myself? I'm concerned it might affect my future prospects if I have to admit that my PhD research includes statistics that I'm not able to produce myself.

You need to talk to your partner about not being supportive. If he/she loves you then he/she should support you in whatever you do. I couldn't manage without my partner, he lets me moan at him when I'm upset, makes dinner and cups of tea when I'm busy, lets me bounce ideas off him, and helps me with data analysis and other boring tasks (he actually types reams of boring things up for me when I'm too busy to do it myself). I'd be lost without him. You really need a lot of support when doing a PhD, I think you'll struggle if your partner isn't supportive.

In my annual review last year the panel said I had to work on my lit review. I've trashed everything I've written and tried to start again, but I'm so busy I haven't got very far. My next review will probably happen in February and I have no lit review! I've got 2 months to write it, which is harder than it sounds because I'm so busy. I'm panicking a bit now, I know the literature but find it so difficult and boring to write...

I do 6 hours teaching per week during term time, plus preparation and any marking for those classes, plus 6-8 hours of exam invigilation yearly, and I also have to deal with student queries in my own time. I don't get paid for it either, the uni pays my fees in return for my teaching and gives me a 12k bursary to live on (I suppose you could say my 12k bursary is what I get for teaching). It's annoying because other people who aren't funded through teaching get paid a fortune for it, plus a bursary as well, if I was paid for my teaching I'd get over £200 a week on top of my bursary :( But it was the only way I could get funded so I have to live with it. I spend roughly 9-10 hours per week on average doing teaching duties, it would really hinder my PhD if I didn't work really hard. I suppose it's good work experience though, although I still get the feeling I'm being ripped off :(

I sometimes find it easier to work just before Xmas because I'm motivated by the thought of a holiday. Then again, I've had days when I keep thinking of my holidays and can't focus on work. The trick is to aim for more of the former and less of the latter!

Moderators: is it possible to remove the restrictions on message length? It's annoying when I've typed a message and it's a few words over, and I've got to spend ages editing it to turn "it is" into "it's" and "you are" into "you're" and making minor changes just to reduce the number of words. I've sometimes just trashed my whole reply because I haven't got time to edit it. If I really want to post all my words I'll just post the message in two halves anyway, so the word restriction isn't reducing the number of words I post, it's just a hassle. Thanks for considering this proposal :)

I'll have to try to squeeze some extra data out of it because of the current study being cut short. The whole thing is annoying but not the end of my PhD, which I'm thankful for. I'm still angry at the woman who's caused all this hassle though-when I found out she was annoyed about my work I grovelled, and she accepted my apology, and then shortly afterwards went and caused all this hassle AFTER accepting my apology!

It appears the woman was annoyed about my research results, she felt it was casting aspersions on her work. So she passed it to the VC and informed my participants. I've contacted the participants' manager to explain but can't meet her until January. My study can't proceed because this has caused a lot of awkwardness between us, but I'm hoping to at least get them to finish the current bit (filling out forms). I'm going to just wrap up and salvage what data I can. The study I was doing next year is obviously cancelled, but I've found some new participants and the next study should actually get finished faster than the one I was planning anyway.

I'm doing a research study on a computer system in my uni. A lady in another department has been advising on my research, because she sits on various committees to do with the use of the system. I had previously promised my participants that the research would be confidential and would go no further than my research team and advisers, but now I've found out that this lady has forwarded my confidential research results to the vice chancellor of the uni without my permission or knowledge. Obviously when my participants have found out they've blamed me for not maintaining confidentiality, and have refused to continue with the research, and without participants my PhD is dead in the water. My supervisor says we have to find out who's done what, let people cool off, and potentially pull this lady in front of the comittee that manages research because she's posed a serious risk to a student's research through her actions. I'm very upset and feel like my life (and my research) is over.

Write a record of points discussed and agreed actions during the meeting, "so you can remember and you're clear on what you're doing", then get your supervisor to sign it and also sign it yourself. That way your supervisor can't disagree with what's written.

My supervisor has never been my best friend, I only see him for supervision meetings. He's never been really nasty, just cold. We had papers in the same conference so we travelled together, on the first day he was having dinner with some researchers, one of them had a student at the conference so he phoned and invited her. I had already arranged to have dinner with this girl, so when she was invited she rang and asked me to come along. When I turned up my supervisor said "oh, are you coming? thats nice". Why had the other person invited their student to attend dinner but my supervisor didn't call me? He obviously didn't know the other girl would invite me, as far as he knew I could have been sitting in my hotel room on my own. It just seems nasty that he didn't call me and invite me when others had invited their students. Anyway he didn't speak to me for the remainder of the evening, didn't ask how my tutorial that day went, or anything. I just feel sad because other people's supervisors are obviously friendly towards them and mine seems like he couldn't care less.