Instead of going for conferences, you could try to engage more with your department and fellow PhDers and see what you can organise yourselves. Over the last couple of years me and a few other PhD students have really built a social community in our department and, on a more concrete level have organised an international conference and a seminar series. Focusing on such issues not only will stand your apart from the crowd come job time, but also mean that you don't waste time on conference papers that cover ideas that are at an early stage of their development and that you connect better with your department (which is probably the most important point).

I'm using US policy documents and I pretty much use your second version. In endnote I file them as "reports", which seems to work just fine.

You could try group exercise classes. Going regularly there's a chance of talking to people, it gets you out of the house and it makes you a lot fitter (which does improve general moods).

From the book of Slizor (13:37):
"Quit your jibber jabber, fool."

Accept these words, and your salvation is at hand.

How about "Try to avoid strenuous masturbation during the interview"?






Can anyone tell I'm alone in the office with a pile of marking?

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Most subjects take 3-4 years for a PhD. But in business? Probably about 3 minutes.

A fellowship tends to be different from a scholarship. *content / link removed by mods*

Mainly my complete lack of publications. My supervisor was actually very helpful and did say, on a later version, that it was vaguely possible I might get shortlisted. Since I don't have much of a research profile, she said, my job was to sell them an idea of my future and show I have an idea of where I'm going.

I put in my first job application a week ago. My supervisor's view of my application "I don't think you stand a chance".

Good times.

Join relevant research groups and study associations; they should have information on conferences that would be helpful.

What I've done (and will be doing in 50 minutes) is split the group into groups of 4-5 that they remain in the entire semester long. I then have one person each week presenting to the rest of their little group (so 4 people presenting for a 20 person seminar) and have numbered assigned readings (which they do alongside the core reading) for each person in the group (i.e. I've got a reading list numbered 1-5 and each person in a group has a number 1-5 - gives a bit more variety to the reading).

My seminars basically start with the presentations (which finish at different times, so you need a "plate-spinning" question to ask the groups that finish early), then I draw them together with a bit of board work (I love mind maps, they seem to make students less intimidated about talking) before maybe a little bit more group work and then launching into a whole group discussion. The beauty of this seminar design is if you burn through your prepped questions because you're getting a lot of silence you can slow the seminar down by throwing in group work while you think of what to cover next.

I would like less structure, but hey, it's better than sitting in silence.

You're all wrong. The answer is no more, and no less, than 15, regardless of chapter length. If you put in too few, it shows you've done no work, if you put in too many you haven't read them all. Fact.