Does your university or a nearby print shop offer a binding service? At my uni most people print it themselves and get their thesis bound for £20-40 each.

Congratulations on getting some progress! Fingers crossed that the external reviewer finds in your favour.

Hi Springtime,

Your understanding is about right for STEM fields at least. Although you get out of a PhD what you put in. If you put zero effort in, you are only gaining that sweet sweet Dr title and lose out on a lot of other valuable skills. Publications are not necessary but you still want to use the time to grow.
PhD by publication in my university at least, is an utter bureaucratic pain and for some reason people expect more from a PhD by publication. With a standard thesis you can put in extra unpublished data to bulk it pout and explain minor points more clearly without having to worry how your publication fits into your thesis.
Thesis chapters and publications have a different writing style that make copying and pasting difficult. Usually a thesis chapter is bigger than a publication but rewriting them shouldn't to difficult

Hi Cibarrar,

I am very sorry to hear about your experience.

I honestly can't say if you will get a job in science but taking a few months away from STEM might do you a lot of good. I know several people in the UK who took several months away from their field after their PhD because of burnout. It is normal to get fed up with your field after working on one project for so many years, so having some time to recharge and get some perspective is great. You can work out what to do with a clearer perspective after you have submitted.

Hi Noz,

Mature PhD students are fairly common and there isn't that much stigma attached with going into industry and coming back. There will be skills that you acquired in industry that will cross applicable, so use them to compensate for the fact you don't have as up-to-date knowledge. Showing genuine enthusiasm for the project/field can compensate for most CV shortcomings.

If you are stuck with what to do; decide if you want to choose your own research project or apply to a self funded PhD. You can find self funded PhDs at place like findaphd.com and have a simpler application process. Even if you don't think you are a perfect fit, apply anyway just for the experience. Some funded PhDs are surprisingly noncompetitive. You can also email the PhD supervisor to ask questions and see if you are suitable. Most academics are fairly nice and will be honest with you. If you want to do your own project, you need to start working on your proposal and read as much literature as you can. It can be more competitive but it is your own project.

If you have any more questions, just ask on this forum
Good luck

I think it might worthwhile to raise it to the journal's chief editor (or equivalent). The complaint is till within the journal but they will have less attachment than the reviewing editor and might be more receptive to retraction. After that i would go to funding body's/ plagiarist's uni as I don't think the publishing houses get involved in the retraction process.

glimmerbat, the more you describe your supervisor the ever more stubborn he sounds.

I would just give up on him and press the nuclear button, ie publish without him.

Hi YorkFuller,

Nead is right, what have other students at your uni done in the past. I think the 3 papers for a thesis is something that guarantees you pass your viva and not the minimum requirement. First name journal and conference papers and a second name paper is still a lot. If you ask around in your department (or look at the university library) you will probably find people have gotten PhDs with zero publications. Your supervisor might be a bit biased in this scenario as they will obviously want as many publications as possible but you could just focus on getting data and writing your thesis, ie don't write any papers. If you are done with academia, just get enough "publishable" material and say that you will publish after your thesis. It might make your viva a bit harder but it shouldn't stop you.

I can understand your feeling with regards to the simplicity of industry. I am working as a research assistant on a project lead by a company and it is so refreshing. I didn't realise how nice it is having realistic goals with a real timeline without any pressure. I love that I can work flat out for a week so that I can have a chill 2 weeks before the next deadline. Not worrying abut the next part of my PhD is so relaxing. I told my supervisor this and she didn't get it, she enjoys the non-stop pressure. I might be rambling here but I genuinely belief that to succeed in academia you need to be a borderline workaholic. Academia is not meant for everyone and there is no shame not enjoying it.

No corrections for annual reviews, journal articles or your thesis is incredibly rare and virtually never happens. So don't worry about getting minor corrections, as that is very good. If reviewers give no corrections it means they see it as perfect which is uncommon when everyone in academia is so opinionated. I understand you feel that you have let people down and it is natural to want to do better but don't expect the near impossible.

Hi Bugs,

I was torn about this story because I think you trusted in airXIV too much. I always thought that site was protecting data, hypothesises and unique ideas and was not a general copyright protection method. Re-summarising other people's work is in the basis of all review articles and editorials with a blatant (but seemingly acceptable) level of copying. It is most likely that the editors might have tipped them off but incorporating other people's ideas into your work is somewhat acceptable. Given that, your choice is simple; give up up or make your paper even better than theirs

Can you send it again?

They have given you a pretty half-hearted excuse but a difficult one to argue against. So resending the complaint, while clearly specifying that it is more than just causal similarities might work. Other than that you could make a complaint to the corresponding authors institution.

I suggest not to send that email and I 100% agree with glimmerbat.

Postdoc applications can be super competitive with several applicants more than qualified for the role. Sometimes you are just unlucky and email strikes a very ungrateful tone. So don't damage your career for no potential gain.

Done

It should be perfectly fine to present your third year project instead of your 4th year if it is more relevant. The interviewers probably don't care what you present as long as long as you present it well and it somehow relevant to doing a PhD or your project.

Saying that, you might want to quickly mention that your 4th year project was highly technical focusing on..... and that you gained skills in these areas.... Just so that it doesn't look like you are not hiding anything and that it just wasn't research focused.

Goodluck!