I think it's perfectly normal to feel insecure about your capabilities before embarking on a PhD. I know I certainly felt like that anyway! I had a 2:1 and a Masters but I still didn't really feel like a 'good scientist' as you put it! However, if you have achieved good results in your previous studies and you have the desire to do a PhD and work hard, then I would say go for it. It is daunting as it is difficult to know what to expect, and as each PhD is different it's also difficult for a fellow student to describe to you what it's like. There were times during the PhD that I thought perhaps I had made the wrong decision (mostly because of self-doubt creeping back in), but I got there in the end. I never felt stuck though - you can always leave!

During my undergrad, I never saw myself as someone who would be able to do a PhD. I compared myself to others who seemed to grasp things so much quicker than I did, and thought I'd never be good enough. But I picked a subject that really interested me, and applied myself. I took the PhD in the direction I knew was best for me (i.e. more computer-based stuff, as little lab work as possible as I'm rubbish at it!) and overall found it to be a very enjoyable and worthwhile experience. I still don't see myself as super clever, and sometimes can't believe I actually have a PhD, but that's just the way I am! If I won the nobel prize I'd probably still think they gave it to the wrong person... ;-)

Take a look at this article on impostor syndrome. It's been talked about before on this forum, and I know I definitely have it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome

Like Bilbo, I prepared for my viva mostly by myself. I wasn't offered a mock viva, although I might have been given one if I'd have asked. By the time my viva came around I was working full time, so during my lunch break on the Wednesday before (my viva was on a Monday), one of my supervisors called me, and we talked for about 45 mins about the viva procedure, possible areas of controversy in my thesis, and possible questions that might come up. As it turned out, none of the things we talked about were asked in my viva, but just talking it through with my sup made me feel a lot calmer.

I had another supervisor too, but they were little to no help - I get the feeling that this is because they have worked with my external on various papers, so were distancing themself from the project a bit. All other prep I did alone, by re-reading my thesis and re-familiarising myself with all the important papers. I also gave myself a mock viva by reading a question then answering it out loud - sounds a bit crazy, but you need to practice talking about your research without stumbling over your words, and I found this really really helpful. I couldn't have done this in front of my supervisors as they make me nervous at the best of times!

I handed my thesis in towards the end of Feb this year, and was notified of the date about 3 weeks later via email from my internal examiner (roughly 3 weeks before my viva). I don't think I was ever told which room it would be in - I just went to my supervisor's office on the day and they took me down there. My uni did send me an offical notification through the post that had the date/time/location - it was finally delivered the day after my viva, so wasn't much help to me! I would just send an email asking about the time and location - do you have a postgrad admin person who might know?

I did my PhD at a uni about an hour/hour and a half away from me (depending on traffic!). For me this was too far to travel every day, so to start with I just went in to uni once a week or so. Gradually, as I got more confident in my research, this dwindled away until I barely went in at all, and only saw my supervisors once or twice in the last year or so. We kept in touch via email and phone, and this was plenty for me. It does depend very much on how you like to work and the project itself; some people like to see their supervisors face to face more often, and for some projects it might be necessary. However, I am happy to work alone most of the time, only asking for help if I get stuck. Others prefer to be in the office environment and to have the opportunity to mix with other students.

I did feel that I missed out on the more social aspects - I didn't attend the weekly meetings within the department, or get to see the other PhDs present their work at the monthly meeting. I also felt that occasionally my supervisors forgot about me and prioritised the other students over me to some extent, which is hardly surprising as the other students could see them every day and be much more 'visible'. I was a bit older than the other students so wasn't interested in living the 'student lifestyle' so much anymore, so from that point of view I didn't feel that I was missing out on friendships or anything like that.

A lot depends also on the relationship you develop with your supervisor. If you aren't going to attend uni regularly, then I think it is important to establish early on that you can be trusted to get on with things. I sent very regular progress updates at the beginning to show that I was motivated and working hard. I also made a real effort to attend uni whenever they asked me to, such as if there was a specific meeting they really thought I should go to, to prove I was taking an interest in the department as a whole.

Congratulations Dr Neuron, enjoy the celebrations! :-)

Hi Lughna,

No CV required at my uni either, but one of the pages they suggested including at the beginning of the thesis was a 'The Author' page, which had a brief description of my academic career. It read something like:
"The Author completed a BSc in XXX at XXX University in 2000. This was followed by an MSc in XXX at XXXX University, completed in 2005. The Author then began a PhD at XXX University under the supervision of Dr XXXX and Prof XXXXX."
I didn't mention my published paper on this page, I mentioned this at the end of the relevant chapter in my thesis like this:
"A version of this chapter was published in the Journal of XXXX:" followed by the reference. I didn't mention publications from before I started my PhD.
However, none of this was compulsory, just suggested.

HTH.
Smoobles

Congratulations Dr Stressed! Glad it went so well, look forward to hearing the whole story when you've finished celebrating!

I would only include the first project if you can link it to the second in some way, otherwise it will make the thesis seem very disjointed. Are there any similarities between the 2 projects at all? For example, did any of the techniques that failed to work in the 1st project lead you to make certain decisions about your 2nd project? In my PhD, I started with a lot of experimental work. The results were ridiculously varibale and hard to obtain, so I switched the focus of my project and it ended up being entirely computer-based. I included the (fairly rubbish!) experimental data in my thesis, and used this as a rationale for why my project then changed direction. Could you do something similar?

Before the viva I prepared my thesis by putting markers in for the beginning of each chapter, and also for areas that I thought might come up - for example I had a paper published during my PhD, so I had a marker highlighting which bit of work that came from. I also had markers where I had written what I felt to be slightly 'controversial' statements that I thought the examiner might pick up on.

As it turned out, I didn't use any of my markers - my external had a list of things he wanted to bring up, and we went through them one by one with him giving out which page number he was on before we discussed each point. I also took in a load of relevant papers so that I could refer to those if necessary, but in the end I didn't need them.

A few days after the viva I received a copy of the corrections from my external. They were basically just a page of hastily scrawled notes, but they were mostly typos/grammatical things that I had already spotted so fairly easy to correct. If my corrections had been more extensive then it would have been useful to have taped the viva in hindsight, because I didn't take any notes at all - I was far too nervous to think straight and although I had a pen and paper at the ready I never thought to actually write anything down!

What I would say is that there is definitely no harm in applying - you can always turn it down in the event that you are offered one. Even if the project doesn't sound perfect for you, you might find that you attend an interview and really like the supervisors/department etc and really want to work there. Additionally, you may be able to get a feel for how much flexibility there is in the project. For example, the PhD I applied for ended up being very different from the PhD I actually did, as I was able to lead the project in the direction that interested me the most. It was supposed to be very heavy on lab work, but I hate working in the lab so I did a tiny bit at the beginning, but then persuaded my supervisors that it wasn't working and in the end the project was almost entirely computer-based.

I would say roughly 50-60% of my original PhD topic interested me, but I went for it anyway as I wanted to do a PhD, and as I knew I didn't really want to pursue a research career afterwards, the precise topic wasn't vital for me. If I were you, I wouldn't apply for anything that totally didn't interest me, but I would apply for things that were close to what I wanted to do and see where that led. You've got nothing to lose from applying. It might even help you get some decent contacts that may lead to a project more suited to you, you just never know!

I haven't any experience of this so can't answer your question, but I just wanted to comment on this part of your post:

Hi Anteloop,

I passed my viva in March, so I can remember exactly how it feels in the run up, and it is not nice! I couldn't sleep, was barely eating, and just felt sick at the thought of failing. I had a job lined up which was dependent on passing, and so I had the same mortgage worries as you.

Those errors you have mentioned - THEY ARE NOT BIG!! I cannot emphasise this enough. Everyone makes little errors like that in their thesis, your examiners might not even notice them! What I did was make a list of any errors I spotted, and then I went through my thesis and corrected them all. Then, when my examiners raised the issue at the end of my viva, I pointed out that I was already aware of the errors and had addressed them. Therefore they knew I was on top of it and it wouldn't take me that long to complete the other minor errors they had spotted.

The other advice you have been given is also important - no matter how you are feeling, try and act confident and relaxed in the viva. I know full well how hard this is (I thought I was going to be sick the whole way through!) but smile, take deep breaths and stay calm. They do want you to pass, and the viva is there to help you really sell your research and maybe explain any little points that aren't quite clear in your writing. Don't build it up in your head to be some terrible negative ordeal to get through - the vast majority of vivas are not like that, they are fairly relaxed, and mine even felt quite chatty and pleasant at times! I genuinely expected to scrape a pass with major corrections as I had very little confidence in my work - I was so surprised to be out in just over an hour with a list of minor corrections that took me under half an hour to complete!

So please try not to panic, things are nowhere near as bad as you imagine them to be - I had made some really silly errors like the ones you have described and it was no big deal, especially if the examiners can see that they are just typos. As long as the research is sound, a bit of sloppy editing is nothing to worry about. Don't waste any more time worrying about it, get on with your viva prep, and best of luck! If I can survive a viva then anyone can ;-)

I agree that 'Thesis' looks weird so would go with 'thesis', but I wouldn't worry about it too much either way!!

I would agree that taking a break might be a good idea - a proper week or so off where you don't even think about your PhD. I think you probably also need to change the way you write. For example, if you normally start with a blank page in front of you and find that intimidating, try making a mind map first of the important things you need to include. Or start writing in bullets, and then gradually flesh them out into sentences and paragraphs, stopping before you hit the waffle stage! And don't beat yourself up about it, everyone needs some writing help somewhere along the way. It's perfectly normal to have a phase where you don't feel like you're achieving anything, but it will pass eventually!

And one more thing - you won't be too old! This year, I finished my PhD and got my first ever 'proper' job at the grand old age of 29 :-)

Hi Jono85,

Firstly, congratulations in getting the job!

If it was me in that position, I would try and look at the bigger, long-term picture. Is this job a gateway to a brilliant career in what you want to do, or is it just a job that would do for now? Similarly with your PhD - do you need a PhD to go into your ideal career? If the job is well-paid and is what you want to do, then personally I would go for it. Who knows what the job market will be like when you finish your PhD, and you might end up unemployed. On the other hand, if your PhD is the only way of getting into what you really want to do, then I would stick with it if you only have a year or so to go.

It's difficult, but please try not to base your decision on a girl - you might really end up regretting it if you don't take the job and the relationship doesn't work out.

Best of luck whatever you decide!

No, this isn't plagiarism - obviously we are taught not to lift sentences straight from other people's work, but sometimes it is unavoidable. The sentence you are talking about is so short, it is difficult to reword it anyway. For example, the second version of the sentence that you have written actually doesn't read as well and makes the sentence more difficult to understand. Inevitably, sometimes people are going to repeat things that have been said before - it would be impossible to ensure that every sentence you write is completely unique!

If a much longer sentence had been repeated, then yes you might suspect plagiarism. It is difficult to say exactly where the line should be drawn and there are no hard and fast rules, but if it was only this one sentence that was repeated out of a whole manuscript, then no it is most definitely not plagiarism. If a number of sentences looked familiar then that might raise suspicions. Generally, you just have to make your own judgement call - I am sure some of the sentences in my thesis could be found in other people's work, but that doesn't mean I plagiarised them - it just means that we used the same way to describe something. It's tricky to define exactly, but as I said, f it was a long complex sentence that had been copied word for word then that would be plagiarism, but a very short phrase such as your example is probably just coincidence!