I would also check what training is available to you at your University - e.g. at mine the grad school training is focussed mainly on SPSS and Nvivo so it would make sense to use those packages as there is support available. So yes as others have said, see what your collegues use, see what software you can get free or reduced price as a student/staff member at that university.. and also consider what analysis you wish to do. I used a mixture of Excel, SPSS and M+ in my purely quantitative PhD. SPSS does far more than just 'basic regressions' as other posters have mentioned..there are a number of add ons you can get for SPSS to do more more complex analysis too, good luck!

HI Dan, Did anyone from your research team go to present the findings? Having an abstract accepted is not the same as being published in the proceedings - e.g. I had an abstract accepted but I haven't got the funds to go to the conference so I can't claim to be in the proceedings.

n.b. in the case you mentioned either way, none of the examiners recommended an outright fail or MPhil, so that is really positive btw!

Has this happened to you or are you just wanting to the know? - They will have to come to some kind of consensus - they may go down the route of pass with major corrections (rather pass with minor) if that is an option at the particular university. The viva is an opportunity for the candidate to convince the examiners (in particular the one who recommended an R & R) of the originality of the work, why certain decisions were made, e.g. methodology, types of data analysis etc and how well you know your field and can comment on the impact your research may have. I *think* that I managed to talk myself out of a pass with major to pass with minor in my viva as it was commented that I did really well, and demonstrated that I would be capable of making the changes they suggested , and really knew my research area well.

ps. I have just googled my name and my thesis title and the free access pdf came up in the first few items found!

I would check with your graduate school/university library to clarify this. When I had to submit my final copy of my thesis I was given an extensive booklet regarding all of these issues.

There are different rules that apply to hard copies of a thesis, compared to an online version deposited in your university's library system which will most probably be free access.

If there a few figures you need to get permission for, it is worth seeking permission, but then you can either put the statement above saying all efforts have been taken to contact the author etc. ... Or (safer) you can remove the figure from the online version (and keep in your hard copy) with a statement that explains the omission. I removed items from my appendices of my online Ph.D thesis as there was no way I would get permission to reproduce the items - they were items from a test battery. Ultimately you are responsible for this, so check what your university grad school/library advise and then go with that. It is worth doing it right.

If you thesis is free access, then theoretically anyone could view your thesis - including the authors who's work you have quoted so it's working looking into a little.

This should be absolutely fine, just make your potential new employers aware of the dates/reason for the absence in advance. In any case, I am sure they wouldn't refuse attendance at a graduation ceremony! :)

Hi Mirena90,
good luck with your current application - in any case if this is not successful they should give you some useful feedback to feed into future applications.
Fingers crossed that your current university will launch a round of departmentally funded PhDs at some point. Anotherpossible option is to get a relevant RA job.. and then over time this may develop into a PhD project which can either be full time funded by a research council or funder (that is what happened to me) .. or as happening more often these days as I see with collegues, is that the PhD maintenance aspect is funded by yourself by working as an RA (but the university you are working for waive the tuition fees as you are staff) - this may mean the PhD takes a bit longer of course! :)
Good luck!

ps. Thanks for clarifying that Reenie :) - I should have read the rules more closely!

Hi Reenie, out of interest, why was the link removed? I have seen others post links to specific jobs, funded PhDs (including yourself). I was just trying to be helpful :)

Hi, this does depend on a few things - are you fixed to a particular location or university. Or, could you potentially move to a different university, whilst still keeping your dissertation supervisor involved as part of your supervisory team?

If you can't move University then speak to you supervisor more about this - they will be able to advise you further - many universities are currently advertising for PhD students in a range of areas - so that would be good if you want to stick closely to your original plan. One other plan would be for your supervisor (and you) to write a research proposal together for funding that would gain enough funds for a 3 year project - there are lots of places you could consider, e.g. ESRC, British Academy, Nuffield etc.

If you want to do a PhD but you don't mind changing your research ideas to fit in with an existing project that has already been funded, then look on Jobs.ac.uk and choose PhD - there are lots of different options for funded PhD places on there. Indeed, some of these are not that specific so you could keep your original plan , e.g. Strathclyde:

For mine, I was lucky enough to get an ESRC CASE scholarship, but that scheme has now closed, though the ESRC do still fund PhD's if the university is in one of their 21 Doctoral Training centres. The Open university have just closed a round of applications for PhD funding, they may readvertise this at some point, worth checking on their site too.

Good luck!

*Link removed by moderator*

Hey, I just checked mine and it was 11,000 words (I passed last summer with minor corrections overall but no changes needed on the literature review), I would say between 10-12,000 definately sounds right as charliebrown said- 24,000 sounds far too long for a literature review! good luck :)

To be honest, you can't really infer much from this unforunately - just that pretty much all the participants responded the same way to this question. As survey questions are used to differentiate between participant's feelings/views/beliefs/knowledege (whatever your survey is measuring), it would suggest to me you should not include this question in any further analysis, but simply report it as you have done above.

Was the research published in a peer reviewed journal? and when was it published? Indeed it is really great that you have identified this paper/research now, rather than after you have completed your research and submitted your thesis. If the research was peer reviewed, then you need to include it in your literature review, and explain how you will be building on this research in your piece of work, e.g. by validating it in a different population using different methods. I understand that you are frustrated, but it this happens quite often, often because of the time lag between completing research and getting the research published.

It's good to consider your research study as not a stand alone piece of work, but rather something that fits into a wider group of research studies, each of which build on each other. What did the research you mention find? was it similar to the effects you are expecting for your research? what did the paper suggest for further directions, what did they say about how to improve the research for future research? I would even go so far as to contact the authors of the paper, and explain your plans, and speak to them about to how to move research in this area forward.

Good luck! :)

Hi, it means that the process is waiting to hear back from the assigned reviewers to agree to review your paper in the required time frame. Once they agree, then the paper will be sent to them for review.

hey, I don't use that software - but it sounds like a 3 way ANOVA to me;
1) repeated measures - Time (time 1 before/time 2 after)
2) between measures - Strain ( type 1/type 2)
3) between measures - Injection type (control, 1,2,3,4,)
in SPSS you would start off choosing Repeated measures ANOVA, and then put in Strain and Injection type in as Between measures variables so it may be similar on your software perhaps :)