In my department everybody is first registered for a MPhil and then upgraded. There are no differences in regard to your previous grades and qualifications. The only exception, I think, is for people who have done research previously (for example who do have a MPhil or who were previously registered for a research degree) - they may be eligible to register directly for a PhD.

Usually after some months of research you might be able to improve the definition of your research topic and in this regard that can make your application stronger when applying for research councils funding.

My university allows you to register as "continuation status" or something like that in your 4th year if it's assumed you are merely writing up, and that costs about 300£ I think.

The British Federation of Women Graduates offers grants to women in their last year of a research degree -don't know if that applies to an eventual 4th year though. I can't remember the website address but it should be easy to find by googling it. Bad news is, you have to be a girl.

In my area (music) it is also not strange to see lecturers without a PhD but with lots of publications and a good academic career. In fact areas like music, management, drama (I suppose it's the case as well...) do not have an academic tradition as strong as (say) History or Biology, and some decades ago people would start their careers directly in industry and then progressively shifting towards research (not necessarily attached to an university). However, as these disciplines are now growing stronger academically, I think that the cases I described below will be more and more uncommon and at the end they will be subjects as anything else.

I am in the humanities and therefore I guess it's pretty different, but so far (I started in October) I have covered about 20% of the primary sources I plan to look at and read about 90 articles and books as secondary literature (however they have been quite randomly selected and there are many areas in which by no means I have achieved a general overview). However I haven't started the writing process until the few last weeks and I've written about 10,000 words but I am currently still awaiting feedback from my supervisor so I don't know if they will be any good.

In general I think I now have a good understanding of some of the areas I want to cover, but in some other areas I'm completely lost.

I meant 25,000 words altogether, not 2 chapters of 25,000 words each!

Mine wants at least 2 chapters which should not be less than 25,000 words. I'm only 5 months in, but yes, it seems quite a lot

My favourite museum in London is the Picture Gallery. Some sections of the V&A, Tate Modern and National Portrait Gallery are worth seeing too. I love walking slowly between Waterloo Station and Southwark Cathedral on the Southbank side, specially if it's a sunny day, however it isn't really a shopping area. Ever been to Camdem Town? Everybody I know loves it (except for myself).

'not an easy to answer question, as for most posts in Spain you will need to have your own funding (and some are very expensive!)'.

I don't really agree with that - tuition fees in Spain are really low compared to the UK, especially the overseas ones (I think it's no more than 1,000 € per year in Spain), as for the living expenses they depend pretty much on the city you live in, differences can be amazing but it's usually cheaper than in the UK.

There's the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) which offers a range of scholarships (www.becasmae.es) for foreign students, but I think most of them are for Hispanic-Americans. The system is quite complex, with lots of different scholarships and different requirements for every of them so I would suggest asking in your department if they know which one would best suit you.

What Ann said. Isn't there at your department a PhD coordinator or something like that, that is, a lecturer who can give advice and listen to research students? I would talk to him in the second place, if you supervisor doesn't react to your e-mails/calls.

I don't think the idea of looking for external support is fair. But I don't mean is not fair for your University - it's not fair for you. I suppose you have paid your tuition fees (or somebody else is paying them for you) and that gives you the right to receive something in return - that is, adequate supervision.

Hey Athina, it's nice to see you back...

@404 - that's one of the reasons I had thought it might be a Belfordesque institution... however they don't seem to sell degrees like diploma mills...

http://www.lpu.co.in/lpu.html

Do you think is it yet another Belfordian variant?

I think that an important thing is to outline why the topic you intend to explore is relevant and important for your discipline i.e. how does it fill a "gap" in knowledge or how you intend to give a new perspective to an already explored area.

And no topic is isolated - it would be a good thing to show your knowledge of the existing bibliography in related areas, at least to demonstrate that you are proposing something new which hasn't been covered before.

Kind of, I learnt to speak and to read relatively soon and started to write poems at 4. However my parents never wanted me to be placed ahead in my group at school and they encouraged me to go and play with other children although I would have preferred to stay at home reading or composing music. Even more - before I started school I insistently told them to teach me to read but although they could have done it (they are both primary teachers) they refused because they thought I should just play around like any other child. I think they made quite a wise choice however.