It depends on your discipline but I think that in most of the humanities is extremely rare to find someone who has published before his 2nd or 3rd year, and many people finish their PhD with no publications whatsoever and still pass their viva.

As for conferences - what about putting together an abstract for a conference, send it and see what happens? At the beginning of this year (my 1st one) I was a bit under the pressure to start giving papers immediately so I sent an abstract to every conference which suited my interests - I've presented in 2 so far and still have 4 before the summer. In many fields there are conferences or study days exclusively for PhD students so they could be a good start point - usually they are more relaxed.

The last reply was for pamw obviously! Sorry I have misspelt your name.

@pawn - I didn't mean to be offensive, I'm only stressing the fact that this option was presented to us as a backup "if things went wrong", and as if this kind of position involved little research (which is considered by many academics to be the best part about their jobs, as opposed to teaching) and lots of teaching. I have done a distance degree my self (not through OU though) and I know how hard it can be.

In a seminar about getting an academic job I was told that some people who don't manage to get a proper academic job after they finish their PhDs do some tutoring/teaching for institutions specialized in distance or adult education such as the Open University or Birbeck College. I don't know whether this option is realistic but could help you gaining a bit of teaching experience...

Well, I think it happens all the times in the humanities... It depends obviously on the area but there are not a lot of manuscripts or documents left unstudied!

Earlier this month I discovered an article which seemed to cover about 40% of the chapter I'm writing now - I was slightly disappointed but when I read it, it turned to be very useful:

1) The chronological scope of this paper was wider than that of my chapter, so it provided me with a sort of historical background.

2) I discovered that, from my primary documentation, I had gathered a rather larger number of facts than those mentioned in the paper.

3) My interpretation of the same facts was only partially coincidential - so in a sense some of my thoughts on the subjects were confirmed, but I felt I still had enough room to develop my own ideas.

Hope something similar happens to you as well!

It would be nice to know which European country you want to do your PhD in, as in Europe there are 30 or 40 countries, each with its higher education system and application procedures.

2 I think... but progressing towards 6... or even 8

Have you got a second supervisor to rely on when your main supervisor is busy? If not, could you try to have one appointed?

Well, there are people who end up having 2 PhDs but usually the second one is in a completely separate area and done not to enhance career progression but merely out of interest. For example a PhD in business who ends up working in a big corporation, and some years later he decides to complete a PhD in English just out of interest... not very common but it happens.

Yes, absolutely. I would recommend you to apply to every financial aid available (unless you're a billionaire and you don't want to make the effort of filling up paperwork!). The worst thing that could happen is that you are awarded 2 or more scholarships and you have to reject them.

I was in a similar situation last year, asked my future supervisor to put my name forward for my university's scholarships and at the end I got a full fees scholarship, which is not too bad.

For every paper I read, I make a Word document which I name with the author's surname, then I group the papers in topics. I tend to write down only the aspects of the paper which might be useful for my research, which confirm my hypothesis or which challenge them, rather than offering a complete overview of the paper.

I also get veeeeeeery sleepy after I have lunch - usually it goes from 2 to 7 pm (when I usually leave the library and go home).

Well, if you have been rejected for a MA on the basis of "being too advanced for them", can't you just apply directly for the MPhil/PhD programme at the same institution? Also, I would try definitively to contact the department who rejected your application (maybe through your tutor) so that they could advise you about the exact reasons of their rejection and whether they think you can apply directly to their PhD.

I had similar problems when applying for PhDs (I had a postgraduate course, but somewhat different to a typical British masters), and I discussed the possibilities with different departments before sending a formal application - most of them were happy to help.

In most humanities subjects, you are required to have a MA before proceeding to the MPhil/PhD status. The MPhil is rarely a qualification people take for its own sake, more often than not you are required to register initially as a MPhil student and then, as your research progresses, you get updated to PhD status.

However, as you say you're a graduate in fine arts, I reckon there might be another issue here: is it that you have graduated from a very practical programme (i.e. few theory and lots of painting/sculpture etc), applied then to a "practical" MA, and now you want to have an academic career but more focused on the theory part? If so, I suppose that a "theory"-based MA would be useful to get acquainted with research methods, theory, history... (as opposed to a MA which is more practice-based).

Oh, and about job prospects - I usually take a look at the postdoc/lecturing positions advertised in www.jobs.ac.uk (I'm only 6 months into my PhD, it's out of curiosity reality) and I'm always amazed to see that, in the Humanities area, Religious Studies positions tend to be the most frequent! Don't know if that's really indicative of anything - but one would say there's a boom of the discipline or a shortage of academics...