I work around 9 hrs a week and more in the next two years. Have just completed first year, and am hell benton a 3 yr phd (Depsite financial pressures) and concrete CV stuff (which has thankfully been happening). Must mention, I have a phenomenal supervisor.

Anyway, my work is RA work ona very relevant project. Working part time during PhD is phenomenally hard!

Hmmmmmm interesting Q... honest about??? I mean we dont tell them "everything", for that matter there isnt anyone in the world I would tell "everything" to, but that's normal for any human relationship at all..

I'm assuming you're talking of dishonesty, or concealing imp facts or twisting things?? Hmm, I'd never do that, I guess I'm very much in awe of my sup LOL...

Hmmmm thanks Bilbo, very insightful! My sup is *super fast* and I am kinda fast too, so uptil now we'e been doing table tennis with versions.... I find your timings very useful, and I find it positively encouraging to hear that yes, people do pump out chapter drafts in a month (even while doing a part time PhD). Writing early is also a good thing, and doubtless, something constructive, so yes, thanks for sharing!

Good luck with your work :-)

Dear all,

Here's a planning/strategy related question for those near or at the end game. Tell me, for those of you on firm deadlines, and full time PhDs:

1) How long did you have/would anticipate to have between the time you submit your first draft and the time you submit a thesis?

2) When you submit/ted a first draft how many versions had the chapters included in that first draft gone through, or were there any chapters in there that were first drafts themselves?

3) How long do you take (and I know this differs for everyone) to write a chapter of say 12,000 words? or perhaps 10K...

4) Finally, more generally, how many versions do you do of some major submission with your supervisor? 1, 2, more??

Thanks all! (Just thinking aloud and trying to figure out a rough agenda over the next year/s...)

Cheers, Bug

The "means" to an end could even include cheating in an exam hall (the end being potential fail/pass in the course, the means being cheating.

paying to get an essay written for you, thereby rendering the competition unfair, thereby breaking all possible conceptualisations of research ethics, and still entering a PhD not regretting it for a moment leaves me speechless.

Anything under the sun can be a means to an end, if that is the attitude. Exam hall cheating, paying others to get work done and forging forward with your CV permanently bearing the good results of this act, plagiarism, where does it stop?

I am struggling to fathom how it can be an 'acceptable' thing to do for any academic, the scale of it is hardly the point, getting caught is hardly the point, not learning for oneself is hardly the point.

It is the ethics, ethics, ethics of it all.

You see, it all depends on what your phD is. If iti is such that the Manchester degree would substantially help you (intellectually, and line on the CV) then you can take the best call. But there is no reason to assume that doing an extra masters will necessarily boost your application. After all, it is not the norm to do such a thing. And your current course sounds good, and if your PhD could easily take off after this course, then why go for a second masters?

But you say you have funding to do this. i also assume you are too late for this years PhD applications and hence will in any case have to spend a year in between. In which case, you may wnat to use the bursary and do the degree, simultanously brainstorming the PhD and contacting potential supervisors...

Best!

======= Date Modified 24 May 2009 06:43:23 =======
OK. This is plain and simple CHEATING.

I shan't even go into learning, not learning, anything else, for the valuable posts earlier in the thread have done it. You are CHEATING.

And I'm wondering how you're OK with that.

And person below, you got your "best mark yet"??????? YOU got it? And you mean to say that you are actually happy with it? In what do you imagine that you got the mark, of course you didnt! One person wrote the stuff and another got the mark for it. After cheating faculty, (and of course yourself), you actually feel OK to talk about it and feel contented?


I wasnt going to post on tis thread for I completely agreed with the replies till you came along and did two things: 1) demonstrated the lovely deed you did and 2) actually helped us in getting a response from OP who has clearly proven that all the rest of the replies have meant nothing to them.

OK. This is plain and simple CHEATING.

I shan't even go into learning, not learning, anything else, for the valuable posts earlier in the thread have done it. You are CHEATING.

And I'm wondering how you're OK with that.

Hi, my one year Masters has contributed SO MUCH to me intellectually, and in terms of getting to get my thoughts together for the PhD, deciding on supervision, knowing the academy a bit, reading the right thing, I could go on. I'd be completely lost in my PhD without it.

As for funding, May-June is too late for any external body. Open scholarships from trusts and similar do declare their results around now, but they all had deadlines in Jan-Feb, and max March. Research councils are out of the question now.

Schools sometimes have full scholarships (only tuitiuon though) but all decided by now, applications in Feb, in line with ESRC etc usually. I am not aware of exceptions. The only things that happen now I think are departmental and school studentships which are at best partial, cos a small sum of money is divided in a pool of very many new and contininuing PhD-ers

Sorry to bring disappointing news, but isnt it worthwile spending a year reading or gaining relevant experience if funding a Masters is difficult even in the next yr? Just throwing ideas around..

Good luck!

I have a completely diff style. When I submit something (which is 5 days before every fortnightly supervision) at supervision I get verbal comments. Now that I am submitting drafts, ie. review (13K) or chapter (12k), she sits me down and goes through her scribbles page by page. I never make notes for I cannot listen and write, but the saving grace is that I remember everything.
I come out and make a table cateorising her comments into theory, method and style, so that I dont forget anything and send it to her. She responds and I tackle those and make version X+1 of the doc and then ot gpes back to her or to wherver it is supposed to go to.

I find this a really useful way and nothing else would work for me.

What's this new route and traditional thing? And can alternatives not be combined?

Didnt you ask this some days ago, where Joyce replied with the names of some books... or was it someone else? In any case you may find some stuff in the threads and also in the long thread called Tips List

And would anyone know the converse? I have a huge PDF report that needs to be converted back to word (arrrgh) and I am wondering if there is a way of doing it...