well hatethelab, i read somewhere once that one intercontinental flight is about as bad, carbon-footprint-wise, as a full year of driving your own car. so he might have been right...

i haven't been bored much at conferences so far. i've been excited, met interesting new people, i even met my supervisor for the first time at a conference. and i've been terribly disappointed by people who's work i had admired before i saw them for real. but never really bored.

i use I when i'm describing what I am doing. so, mostly in the introduction, conclusion, and in connecting bits. "in this paper, i will start with a, followed by b, concluding c"; "after having discussed A, i now turn to B"; "i have demonstrated that C". when i'm actually demonstrating C, there are usually no I's. but when i am saying that i did demonstrate C, well, it's me who demonstrated C. no-one else, not "the paper", "the article", "the author". just me. so why not say it?
using the first person also helps to avoid ambuiguities that sometimes border on plagiarism. if you write "it is argued here that...", is that your work/achievement/argument? or are you using someone's? but when you use I to mark your own arguments and active tenses for other people's arguments, there's no danger of that. you don't plagiarise; and you don't short-sell yourself either, as your own thoughts/contributions are clearly marked as yours.

smilodon, well, i haven't published much overall yet. one theory/lit-review article in a non-peer-reviewed grad-student journal. didn't use any first person in that article. another publication, non-PhD-research related, that compares conditions for PhD students and young researchers in the UK and Switzerland, has several "I"s as it builds on personal experience. This was peer-reviewed but a minor journal. I've written a co-authored paper for a working paper series where I used "we". My masters thesis had I's in it.
but you know, i don't use I everywhere and for everything. i don't write "in my opinion" or "i think". however i might write "thus, we use this theoretical concept rather than that one".

using the first person is a must for me. it's the only thing i can live with, personally.
if your university provides you with rules prohibiting it, that's one thing. but if not, and you're worried "because it doesn't sound sophisticated", then ask yourself: do you want to write a sophisticated thesis or do you want to write a thesis that sounds sophisticated?

obviously, it can't all be "about me". so i use the I with consideration. i use it then when i actually did, thought something, and it is relevant that it was me. but i will never use passive constructions to hide myself.
it takes some thought, but IMO those papers that use the I exactly where needed, not never and not always and not randomly, appear most sophisticated to me.

So I have been thinking of what to do. Should I try to just write ANYTHING, even if it is a bit pointless? Should I come out clean, tell everyone that I’m sorry but I just don’t have anything? I really do not want to disappoint the PI as she has been very helpful in the past, and really started the project because of me. But I also just don’t see myself creating anything, let alone publishable, from what I have now.
I feel very bad about all this. Like a complete failure, useless, people have placed trust in me and I have not lived up to it. To some extent I also get angry because this project has been misconceived from the start – how can you run a research project when half the people aren’t getting paid? But mostly I just feel a failure.
Any advice on what to do?

My problem is: For the last month or so, I haven’t been able to write a single meaningful sentence. I’m totally blocked.
My draft is nonexistent. When I think about it all, I just panic.
I haven’t progressed with my PhD as originally planned. So I don’t have the material I was going to have by now. So I thought I’d base this paper on just the part of the material which I already have. But: a) It is only very little material. b) I haven’t analysed it all yet; c) there is nothing in the material that I can really use for the common topic of the project (which I had suggested). In other words: I think this just doesn’t work.

Now, 2.5 years since the official start of the project have gone. At the workshop next week we are supposed to present our results. There are plans to make a book. Some important people in the field have agreed to write chapters for the book, or a comment at the end. However, the financing of the book remains unclear. The PI expects it to cost about 15’000£, over all. There would be a lot of work involved and so far, nobody has shown any sign that they are willing to do that work. So I am a little doubtful if the book will actually happen or not. I think it will depend a bit on me. It would be a good opportunity for a publication, but also a lot of work.
Ok so now to my problem: As the workshop next week is meant to be where we discuss drafts of our contributions to this possible book, everyone was supposed to send their drafts to the other participants by last Friday.

Hi all,
I wonder if anyone can give me advice?

Next week, that is tomorrow in a week, I'm going to a workshop in Switzerland. Flights all booked and all. It is the final meeting of a three year project with which I've been involved from the start - it was basically started because I was so interested in the topic. It is a cooperation between my then University and three Russian researchers. Unfortunately, there was funding for the Russian side of the project only. The Swiss side was expected to be funded already, from elsewhere, and to work on the project for free. I was basically happy to do that, because the whole topic was closely related to my PhD project which I was then applying for. So the project provided me with a forum to discuss my work. But no one on the Swiss side of the project had funding, apart from the PI, and so commitment to the project overall was quite low, and there were no meetings, and no opportunities for discussion apart from the annual workshops.
In the first of those workshops, the whole project group set a common topic, which was basically my suggestion.

On the other hand, if your supervisor won't let you submit parts of your papers, then that's worth fighting for. You may need to tell him strictly, clearly: "Listen: For this paper, I did a, b, and c. This included getting the initial idea, and following up on it against your advice. You did - what? You 'polished' it for publication? You have to admit that the crucial science in the paper was done by me. So I can use it for my PhD. I will mention you with appropriate thanks if you want."
As a negotiating strategy it might be useful to start with both and then cede the first point - but hold on to the second. And always be clear in your mind what you need to achieve from the negotiation: The possibility to submit in time. It doesn't matter if he likes you or not.
And: If you decide to go through with this, just get on with it - don't waste time worrying and feeling sorry. Give it your best shot, submit a less than perfect thesis, and leave it all behind!

Lara - it is really up to you. If you want to pull this through, you are going to have to stand up to them, but also negotiate and compromise. It will be important to decide which points you need to contest. So, if your supervisor thinks you are a lazy good-for-nothing, does that matter - as long as he lets you submit? No. Not really. So, don't fight for "looking good". It's not worth it. Don't say: "Listen: If you are saying that I got paid for doing my PhD while RA-ing for you, you are wrong. It is not true. On the contrary, I put in more time for the job than I was paid for. And you wouldn't let me quit when I wanted to."

sheena:
1. you need to put your references into endnote.
2. you need to install the "cite while you write" plug-in in word (the manual should tell you how)
3. when you write in word, and need to give a reference, press "alt-7". an endnote-window will pop up. search/choose the appropriate reference(s), press enter.
4. when you're all finished, press "alt-3" to format your bibliography/references. choose the appropriate style (eg harvard, numbered, ...)
that's all! feel free to ask again if you run into trouble.

lol, swantje, that's funny. gives a whole new meaning to the idea that you "don't have a life" during write-up...

jouri, and there was me thinking, no problem in advertising that article on here as hardly anyone here reads german...

i've got to say that my original submission was a lot more critical of the "english" system but the editors didn't believe me. they mentioned a lot of experiences of swiss people who went to england as visiting PhD students 5-10 years ago and enjoyed it all through. i told them that things had changed significantly since then. but they made me use a more moderate language. oh well, maybe that's to the better.

and yes, LSE is... well... i guess at the end of the day, it's more important wether you've got a good supervisor, the reputation of the uni matters less. as has been discussed often on this forum.

vicky, where are you from?

there are many different ways to finance a PhD - just about as many as PhD students...

having your fees paid for you is already half way there.

to add to that, you can apply to your university's research fund; to the research council; to your home country, if you're not British; to the international federation of university women; and many more places.
you can also get try to get a loan from a bank, or assistance from your parents.
and you can get a little job to make up for the shortfall. don't worry - whereas there are some lucky people who are fully funded, most everyone does work a little on the side. there are advantages to that, too (i.e. time structures)

swantje, you're doing your masters in germany, if i recall correctly? i was in switzerland. indeed similar in many ways.

i'll be interested in how you experience the move to london. i found it not always easy. i've actually written an article about the PhD experience in London as compared to Switzerland, which was published here: http://www.frauenstelle.uzh.ch/publikationen/universelle.html (PDF "universelle 8")

for now, good luck in your final race, both swantje and lara! there comes a time when you just need to get it over with. the end is nigh!