hmm, I think tone is always a question of interpretation, and the tone of this struck me as more top-down than the collaborative tone in most other responses. As I said, these are all matters of interpretation, widely variant from intended meaning etc. :-)

I still find it a little terse, but never mind! I have a paper to present tomorrow and perhaps am just freaking out over that !

======= Date Modified 30 Oct 2009 23:51:48 =======
cobweb

when you said these stories could be for the rest of us to laugh, did you really mean it?

I have been reading this thread from a manicured Washington DC (arrgh, dying to get back to London), and have not felt so horrid ever before as after reading these stories..

I have three dogs which live with my mum, and I love them to bits and love all pets to bits, and am the first person to start weeping in a pet tearjerker even if the pet is simply just ill.

hi there

Hmm, interesting. I have the exact opposite situation (i consider it a real problem, my sup and others who read/hear my writing say it's just fine) but i still think I have a prob!

Consider these:

A colleague of mine might write: "Subject X has been researched by many scholars (name, name, name, name) and in 2003, X and R found that "girls and boys were dancing around in the sun" (x and y, 2003). Again, in 2007, Scholar M disagreed by pointing out that "goats eat cheese and then cows dance on the moon2 (M, 2005).

But my writing is like:

For many years now, goats and cows have been researched from multidisciplinary perspectives, cutting across diverse research priorities and ambitions. The motivation to look at the dancing patterns of goats in the 1990s (for e.g. names..) was replaced with a tendency to study cows in the 2000s (names...). Three questions seem significant at this point: A, B and C. All three seem to indicate new ares of research, and all three present complexities. ...

I do not use almost any direct quotes and because I write very fast I write any crap, very soon. IMHO this is a real problem, but others seem to think different...

Your post makes me think how i could use a bit more of direct quotes and use less of my weird opinionated style of writing..

makes sense?

i think you are fine!

hi there

Hmm, interesting. I have the exact opposite situation (i consider it a real problem, my sup and others who read/hear my writing say it's just fine) but i still think I have a prob!

Consider these:

A colleague of mine might write: "Subject X has been researched by many scholars (name, name, name, name) and in 2003, X and R found that "girls and boys were dancing around in the sun" (x and y, 2003). Again, in 2007, Scholar M disagreed by pointing out that "goats eat cheese and then cows dance on the moon2 (M, 2005).

But my writing is like:

For many years now, goats and cows have been researched from multidisciplinary perspectives, cutting across diverse research priorities and ambitions. The motivation to look at the dancing patterns of goats in the 1990s (for e.g. names..) was replaced with a tendency to study cows in the 2000s (names...). Three questions seem significant at this point: A, B and C. All three seem to indicate new ares of research, and all three present complexities. ...

I do not use almost any direct quotes and because I write very fast I write any crap, very soon. IMHO this is a real problem, but others seem to think different...

Your post makes me think how i could use a bit more of direct quotes and use less of my weird opinionated style of writing..

makes sense?

i think you are fine!

oh my gosh! What a thread :-)

Hmm, I dont know how I got 4 stars. I joined at the same time as Stressed did, and I have lesser posts than Rubyw who also has 4 stars. but I am very very very grateful to all and very happy to get these stars!

ta!

Hi all

Can anyone tell me if traveling by eurostar (i am non EU) to an EU country from London kings cross needs me to arrivwe with plenty of time in hand for immighrations etc? is it like before a flight?

I leave for belgium tomorrow and the train is at 7, was planning to reach at 6.30, but should it be earlier?

thanks all!

Cheers

======= Date Modified 25 Oct 2009 07:10:13 =======
Just to say that a few weeks ago when I got feedback on a paper I am very ambitious about (the feedback was essentially to rewrite it), I actually told my sup that I would stop writing.

Of course, I have now sent Version 15 to her to discuss tomorrow :-)

We have these phases, and my sup tells me one thing- that as a teacher, one's responsibility is not essentially to bring every student up to a certain uniform level of excellence, but to identify what each is capable of (i.e. be interested in them individually) and then do one's best to see that each student is able to reach *their* maximum potential.

Hence feedback, you will find increases in severity in any one of two directions: A) f you are completely crap and there is something seriously completely wrong in your work or B) you are doing very well but can do far far better and to let you go without pointing that out to you would mean wasting your potential.

If you have been taken into a PhD with funding, despite not having a msters, I think you belong to category b :-)

thanks walminski :-)

But maybe i am being stupid/naive, maybe I just think its going well when it might suddenly go badly (very possible as I am on a money in-money out mode by the week).

But great thread!!(up)

Hmm, am worried, for I ticked extremely well. After reading through later posts, and thinking through the first year which I have just completed, I feel a little scared that things might suddenly go wrong (I might burn out if nothing else) but I still think its going well. There's (touch wood) brilliant supervision, a great dept, that helps it and balances the working every day to earn money bit i think.

But, I thought I had to give myself and all who help me a pat on the back, and hence ticked Extremely well :-)

hello

I am an int student doing a Phd in M and C, and my tuition fees are divided between two scholarships from my uni and from my dept. The livings costs I work on a project.

There are many UK and EU phds who have got ESRC studentships in our dept, and many who have not. Other int students who work on topics about their home country get funding from their home country.

It depends a lot on your nationality (home or int), your proposal and its fit with the funding body's prefs and your support from supervisor and dept.

Hmmm.

wondering what to contribute to this...

Sigh.

I wish I was.

like other 24 yr olds who go out, shop, eat out...
who dont have to feel too tired to cook and not be able to buy something they *reallllllly* want to eat from a take away...
who dont have to stay in a hall of residence where they cant even get anyone over,, and where their fridge space is a plastic box with a padlock.

But..then...

I am also a 24 yr old who's furiously multi tasking...
who feels *overjoyed* and *elated* when the hard work does pay off...
when little lines accumulate on the CV, with the complete support and encouragement of all around her..


I guess it doenst have to be this kind of a price to pay, but so it seems it is. Sometimes, I feel so awful when I want to buy something for myself but cant, just CANT.

At least I dont have a partner or a child through this, I cannot even imagine how I would have managed. But a family is aslo sustaining I guess, and I realise that absruptly when after a hard day's work, everyone esle goes home and watches some silly tele prog with their families (or even groans about responsibilities eating into own space) and I come home to an empty room.

Gosh, this almost sounds dramatic!

You have answered yourself, and should not do the phd for you clearly dont want this. It's like if I try asking myself if I want to be a lawyer or a doctor. No. Why? bcos I want to be a researcher, scholar etc etc.

PS: Your comment about the inherent racism in homogenous cultures will probably attract attention here. I am picking my own disagreement, and that's with the homogenous bit of it.

I think we have long proven, that 'cultures' of all things, are far from homogenous, whatever else they are.

About the racism inherent to this, well, I am off to catch a flight and hence have no time!

I have won this again.

I am off for 4 cities, in 3 countries, and 2 continents, in the span of 14 days tomorrow!! Haha, am I crazy or what and returning to hit fieldwork in full swing.

So, I am happy to fly off tomorrow, after having won this long drawn battle!!