hi,
about the atmosphere, why don't you get in touch with people from the department, as it is different in every department. you could check the homepage or perhaps contact people from a student's society.
teaching is usually only available for PhD students. research assistantships might be available but you'd have to check with the department to be sure.

I suppose it depends a bit on what kind of course you are writing this for. If it is the basis for selection onto say a topic-specific summer school, I would definitely use "I". They want to see if your interests fit the course, so explain what your interests are! If you are already advanced in your work you can also be more "neutral" and show what you have already done, some results, rather than what you are interested in exploring in the future. It's really up to you. I'd try to figure out what the summary is for, that is, what whoever reads it wants to get from it, and then supply that.

in addition to it being journal specific, and the referees checking for the suitability of a specific piece of text for the specific journal, there is also this: whereas PhD examiners look at the thesis as a whole, the journal referees only see one part of it. now it is easily possible that not every section of your thesis is of the same quality, but overall it is a good piece of work. but if your, say, methodology chapter is the weakest of your thesis, in itself it might not be good enough for journal publication, if you see what i mean.

hey orian,
in my experience in the UK age doesn't usually matter much. compared to some places on the continent where it is an explicit criteria... like, no-one older than so-and-so will even be considered. relativ to that, i really find that in the UK people don't usually care about your age, as long as you seem able to do whatever the job description requires. so as there might be SOME ageism involved, i wouldn't stake much on that. not as an easy "excuse" for your not being successful ("well everybody is just ageist, that's what") nor as an "excuse" for not even trying ("well it's not worth applying cause they won't take me due to my age anyway"). might be easier psychologically, but is also defatist and will limit your real chances... it's tougher to admit to yourself that probably others were just better qualified, but that being more realistic it's also the attitude you need to keep going and to finally secure that job!

oh, and to avoid the problem in the future:
in word, go to the "cite while you write preferences" and there check the box saying "allow Instant Formatting on new word documents"

then any word document that hasn't been in contact with endnote previously will by default show your citations in "formatted" mode.

any document which HAS previously been in contact with endnote will show the citations in the mode you last had chosen. but you can always easily switch from formatted to unformatted, using the keyboard shortcuts alt-3 (format) and alt-4 (unformat) or the menu if you prefer.

Hi there,
I believe this is a simple problem with a simple solution!

{Andreassen, 1994 #100} is simply the "unformatted" version of the citation. Now if you press alt-3 (or through the menu go to format bibliography), it will format everything, it will look like it ought to and will also be in the references list at the end. that's all!

hope that works and that you can get on with your work!

hm i don't know the schering. i just know there are some private foundations that are interested in research in specific topics. you'd have to search topic-related. (there is for example the switzerland based but internationally active cogito foundation that will fund projects which aim to bridge the gap between sciences and social sciences; that kind of things)
there is also the IFUW international federation of university women which might be an option if you're a woman, and the IFUW has national member federations which also sometimes provide funding. or the wenner gren foundation which will generously fund fieldwork in anthropology. that kind of stuff.
but i agree with oz, try first and foremost to get a job as a research assistant!

um, against the vast majority... i have found that quite a lot of published papers do mention first names, not always, but in some cases at least - mostly the first time an author is mentioned. Like:

"Among others, Peter Muster has written about this. In his seminal book (Muster 2004) he argues that.... Muster also claims that..."

heya,
having a master's degree will not make it shorter, since in Germany everybody who starts a PhD has a masters (or equivalent).
and yes i suppose it is possible to do it in three year, full time! if you have a job on the side it will be much harder.
i would not head to germany without having the funding sorted out, unless you have a lot of savings and don't mind spending them.
depending on your field, you could look at private foundations. there are some international ones where it doesn't matter where you are from or where you will study. apart from that, sorry to say, it doesn't look good...

that's great, pink. sounds like you're going to have a good relationship with your sup. sometimes i think it's the little moments like these that make doing a PhD worthwile.

hey, perhaps you could look up publications by Prof. Ernst Fehr who is big in social values (not norms but I suppose it is related) in ecnomical theory. some of his team do social norms/values in business. i know some of these people which is why I know, but don't know their exact work. you could check out Dr. Lorenz Götte and Christian Zehnder, there should be more. You can find names on their webpage http://www.iew.unizh.ch/index.en.html, or perhaps better http://www.iew.unizh.ch/institute/chairs/fehr/index.en.php, also working papers.
hope that helps. if you'd say more about what you need and what for, i could ask and give more exact pointers.

aw, you beat me to it sylvester

i've seen stuff were "i wish to thank" is very neutral and formal and is used for those you don't really wish to thank but have to. then "my heartfelt gratitude goes to" is a lot more meaningful. you can also say "i am deeply indebted to" or "i am grateful".
hope that helps

jonesy, i'd check the PhD handbook of your future department. usually they will have guidelines on when it is 'normal' to do what. this could include some kind of first year report or something (in some departments people submit a chapter of their thesis at the end of the first year, in mine we submit a 5000 word paper on 'aims' and 'methods') and will certainly say something about the 'upgrade' process which will include what needs to be submitted for upgrade and when this is normally done.

the thing with knives is, they are less easily lethal. you might still have lots of violence, but there would be more survivors. and it would be hard to go on a killing spree with knives.

i guess, no matter what the legal regulations are, if someone REALLY wants to get a gun and go killing people, that person will be able to. you won't prevent this kind of planned thing with stricter laws. but if someone just gets angry and loses it, if there is a gun handy, he/she can kill lots of people in a short time. if no guns are handy, it won't be ok, but the damage will be more limited.