Nice to hear that things have started to go better. My own attitude towards my work when I have financial or familiar problems is different - I work even harder then, but it's kind of desperate because it's working without a focus which, I agree, is a really essential thing.

Hi, I haven't been hanging around the forum for a while and just wanted to say hello! I've read that some people managed to get scholarships from the research councils: good for them! Congratulations! Any interesting holiday story? I took 3 days off in July and went to France and am now in Madrid... buried in archives :(

Hope everything's going fine for everybody!

Hi Mlis,

I do sympathize with you, I'm in my first year only but I sometimes feel very isolated, as most of the PhD students of my department work from home or from other libraries and I don't see much of them. Is there anyway you can set yourself a schedule for the remaining of your PhD which consists in several small deadlines instead of "the" big deadline of submitting? And then after each deadline you could set yourself a prize or something which keeps you motivated, for example: you have to finish your chapter 1 in 2 months and then you'll go to see your family or friends or have a little break or whatever motivates you.

Are not all British thesis stored by default at the British Library? If so, they surely can ask the BL for a copy? (after working out a proper excuse to avoid admitting they were too desorganized...)

I'm not paying my tuition fees, and I still don't know if I would have started my PhD if I had to pay them myself (ie I have a fees-only studentship). I do have to work (it's freelance stuff, approx. 10-12 hours a week) to cover my living expenses, but my case is not exceptional in the humanities, mind you, I even know international students paying 10,000£ for the tuition fees + the same for living expenses! In the sciences almost everybody tends to be funded though.

Times New Roman 12. I've written in this font for years and it's the one required by my department. I'm started to hate it though, and now I find Arial (surprisingly!) much more readable...

Plus in general competitions (those who are opened to a number of disciplines) there are subjects which are misunderstood or undervalued. I applied for 2 such scholarships last year, didn't even get to the interview stage (though my qualifications weren't in any respect weaker than those of people who did get into the interview) and the conclusion I got from the feedback received was that the idea of a PhD in music seemed somehow obscure to them, specially when it didn't involve any performance or composition.

Hey PinkNeuron,

I'd just like to point out that about 1 year ago I was in the same situation as you, and then over the summer someone who had received one of the scholarships rejected it (I think that this was because he received a more substantial grant), so, as I had been nominated as first reserve, I ended up with the scholarship. So, yes, things can still change.

In a more general note I agree with many of the comments posted here. Probably in most fields there are so many outstanding candidates and so few scholarships that sometimes should be like a draw out of a hat... (continues)

Sorry in my previous post it should be "especially" instead of "except"...

Hi Apostrophe,

Your proposal sounds very sensible, except in regard to particular choices of vocabulary or images which might be difficult to translate with 100% accuracy into English (and there are some examples of this in my quotes). I'm not sure however whether my readers (few of whom probably speak Spanish) will appreciate having the original version available, plus including translations + originals will increase substantially the word count, and I'm currently very near the limit... Will have to sort this out. Many thanks indeed.

I am now in the process of revising a paper of mine which has been accepted for publication, and one of the remarks of the editor is that I should state whether some material I quoted from foreign newspapers has been translated into English by me or not.
I have indeed translated all these quotes myself, but I don't know how to express this in the text. Should I add a footnote to the first quote and state that this and all the subsequent quotes are translations? Or a footnote for every quote? I am using the MHRA style guide but I haven't found anything helpful to this regard, nor there are clear instructions in the style guidelines of the publications.
All help much appreciated.

I finished writing the first draft of a chapter today (10,399 words ) but it will have to go through extensive editing... so I think I need to join in!

Be careful if you plan to organize a raffle, prize draw etc to reward your participants - someone at my uni tried to do that but when she had already got some people to take part, she learnt that our university doesn't have a license to run such competitions. There wasn't any problem with rewarding participants with an amount in cash though.

hehehhehehe...

Those magic moments...

I always try to have a list of 3 or 4 things to do, and at least 1 of them is more related to administration than to actual research. Thus if I get tired of writing a chapter or reading papers, I can always go to travel websites and plan my trip to a future conference, or write or phone libraries and archives which I may need to use in the future to ask for opening hours etc. So I think it can be a good way of relaxing and having a break from more demanding tasks...