hi silentray,
i think, first thing, you need to de-panic. fails in viva's are very rare. there would have to be a huge, substantial problem. at worst, they will make you make changes/additions, but they won't straight off fail you.

second, see the positive side: this famous person is actually going to read your thesis. in normal circumstances, who ever reads a PhD thesis? so it's a great chance and perhaps that person won't just spot the holes, but also the good parts, which you might have lost sight of...

kathy applying againg next year doesn't seem to make sense, since you will be even further progressed - and if you are already too advanced for them now...?
rather i'd try applying directly for PhD, or perhaps for 1+3 programms.

a note of caution: academic life is full of temporary positions and therefore full of applications that need to be written. competition is fierce and you'd have to be extremely lucky to be successfull within the first two appl. you write, every time... so if the though of getting a second denial bothers you, you should think about how much it bothers you, because you will most probably be getting loads of such denials in the future if you go down that road.
i'm not saying it's not possible and you wouldn't get a job. you just need to be aware that the process of finding a job will most likely involve a lot of unsuccessful applications.

hey everyone,
as i grew up with an english mum but away from england, i missed out on most of the nursery rhymes or rather there wasn't anything to keep them in my memory as i grew older. i have this vague memory of something "hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,..." something about a dog jumping across the moon, a cow and a spoon and having fun. anyone help me out with this... how does it go, for real?
thankeee....

only thing i know is that you might be able to get a MPhil out of it. when quitting before your upgrade, you have the option of completing some written stuff (you'd have to talk to your department) and then getting that degree, which would mean your time as PhD student wouldn't have been wasted!

good luck with that job!

um, sorry, just read the older posts. my comment of course would require that you had enabled page numbers in the output style previously. using suffixes instead of page numbers will avoid this (though it wouldn't be hard).
jojo, in word, i find it easiest to right-click on the citation. that gives you the context menu. the last item on the menu is "edit citation". in there you can input the page number, either as suffix or as page number (the latter requiring that you have enabled page numbers).

i also write in "unformatted". however i would advise not using ", p. 104" but "@104". the difference is, as far as endnote is concerned, the former is a suffix, while the latter is a page number. that means, if you ever need to change the output style of your page numbers (for example, from (blabla 2003, p. 62) to (blabla 2003:62)) you can do it with a couple of clicks if endnote already understands that it is a page number, but not if it is a suffix - then you will have to go through every citation individually to change it. also it is faster to type and will automatically do things like pp. instead of p. for multiple pages.

yes i think contacting the staff is a good idea for your chances. best have some clear idea in mind, they won't have time just for a chat.
it is after all the department which will decide to take you as a PhD student.
apart from your grades i believe your proposed research project is very important, and that it matches some of the staff's interests, so that there is someone there who could supervise you.

jojo - what do you mean?

if it's the thing about the clear task with a foreseeable end... well i don't know that, it's just how it happens to me, why i consistently get sidetracked. any little project seems more rewarding than the PhD which will never end (at least not for several years) and for which there is so little feedback. every now and then i need to hear someone say "well done", so i go get that somewhere else.

you can also consider this: perhaps it is not the PhD in general that is not good for you, but certain aspects of it. you mentioned the unstructured days... and you can think about what makes that job so attractive. i have a suspicion that it might be the immediate feedback you got, in the application process; the feeling of having a clear, limited task with a foreseeable end...

if it is like that, you should consider if there are ways you can change/adapt your PhD life to make it more suitable for yourself, instead of giving up on it. i'm not saying you should not quit, just that there might be other options worth considering.

i guess it depends a bit if you want to do "any old PhD", that is, if you really want a PhD and the topic is only secondary, or if you are interested in that specific project. In other words, is it the interesting project that makes you want to do a PhD, or is it wanting to do a PhD that led you to that project. In the former case, maybe a backup PhD is not such a good idea, or, only if you find another one that you really find equally interesting. In the latter case, you should definitely go for a backup since otherwise you might end up without a PhD.

great, glad to hear you managed to solve the problem! sorry about the bell though.

oh, it always feels good to have done something meaningful after a days work. doing PhD stuff often doesn't give me that... PGF is good for that

I think you are right in that it would be very hard to establish.

Still, wondering how to establish that ageism happened presupposes that ageism DID happen. If it didn't then why think about how to find out? I am curious - do you think you might have been a victim of ageism? If so, how come... perhaps comments you heard or something?

I guess that's why I at least responded in the way I did. Cheers to you and good luck with any further applications!

well good luck with the bell ringing and later with getting endnote working properly again.

i'll be checking the forum for updates and am always glad to help.

ummm... I just reread your original post and their is something weird... you wrote that "the field codes were inserted" and you removed them. i think that might be the problem. because, what do you precisely mean by field codes? the field codes MUST be in the document or nothing with endnote will work. you would remove them only at the very end of your work, when you want to create a copy of your text that is just plain "word" and doesn't talk to endnote anymore.
i have a suspicion that you shouldn't have removed the field codes...
why don't you go back to your original document. where 'the field codes have been inserted'. and instead of 'removing the fieldcodes' you rather 'format the bibliography' (again, alt-3 or through the menu, both should work).
and then go tick that box i mentioned in the previous post. good luck!

as for the stepping stone question: i have a friend who did a MSc at LSE (different subject area though) and then went on to do another Master's in the US. I guess it depends on what you have done before. But in general, as British MSc's are only one year and in the US, as far as I gather, normally Master's are two years, a British MSc won't automatically be recognized as equivalent to a US Master's.
On the other hand, if you already have a Master's equivalent, say from Germany, and really what you need is just the name of a top university, the stepping stone strategy might work. But then I'd ask why you don't try going for the PhD in the US directly.
Hope that helps.