Can anyone recommend a good, reliable online company who can do the final hard-bound posh version of the thesis?

I've found a local place, but want to compare prices.

You'll be fine KB - just make sure you sleep and eat enough, rest enough. Its quite a long time in the scale of things, just picture you relaxing in 8 weeks...(so jealous!)

well, its only bits and pieces but its something for the CV :-)

Stuck trying to find examples of my analysis - seem to have lost all of my Nvivo files :$

clear the dance floor!


*does celebration dance*

Just got offered some lecturing work at another uni :-)

In the mean time I still haven't done much work, cos of the celebration dancing, must get on with work now!

I've presented the same thing with a slightly different title at 3 conferences :$ If I could afford another conference this year I'd probably present it again given the chance haha!

Usually, its submit a 500 word abstract, then if you get accepted you'll either present an oral presentation or a poster, depending on which you submitted for in the first place.

I've had one conference that required a full paper as well as an abstract, before an oral presentation, supposedly to encourage discussion, but don't think anyone read it haha! - I think this varies by discipline though, other people seem to have to do it a lot more.

I've presented all sorts, pilot studies, general ramblings, you name it (turkey)

:-p it will be useful for me to go back to before the viva, so I can answer dreaded questions like "so why is xyz technique better than grounded theory, in your opinion?" - so I don't go "errrrm, what's grounded theory?"

is this one - only html but better than nothing?

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ompLzg-e25QJ:www.environment-and-planning.com/epd/fulltext/d14/d140659.pdf+Technology,+power,+and+space+--+the+means+and+ends+of+geographies+of+technology&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&source=www.google.co.uk

Wandering about the internet - came across this, seems to have really good info for qualitative research methods

http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk/methodologies.php

You all probably know about this and are now laughing at me :$

today's lesson: don't spend 2 hours looking through dropbox and various external hardrives for a file you think may have the word 'table' somewhere in it, before checking your email - somewhere in the past, there is an organised version of yourself that made sure you kept the email!

My first year - I collected together a lot of the literature, I wrote sections/individual essays on each aspect of the literature (which was invaluable as I'm now collating them for the final thing). I also collected some data (but I'm in social sciences).

It was a bit daunting, I spent the first 6 months depressed and not knowing what to do, but it will all click.

I'd make sure you set out key expectations in your first meeting e.g. how much supervision will you be getting? how frequently? will you be set deadlines? how quickly will he get back to you with feedback about your work? what is expected in the first year? etc etc.

I'd prepare yourself by getting to grips with your area as a whole, I'd use the time before sep to understand more about the PhD process e.g. what is a thesis, look at examples in your field (try ethos.bl.uk for this), talk to others in the department if possible (its always useful to have a 'mentor' who isn't your supervisor). Have a look at reference management software e.g. mendeley and find how to use it so you can kick off in september (or beforehand) being organised!

I never secondary-cite, always use primary sources. For my entire PhD I have only read about 2 articles cover to cover, the rest i just dip in and out of, or just read the abstract. I also use google books to read a sentence - i will then cite as a primary reference. I don't think anyone ever said you had to read the whole article/book in order to cite them. I think as long as you understand what they're saying then that's fine :-)

Realistically citations are there so someone can read the work and say "ah yes, I will go and have a look at that work, where she is saying she read that" so as long as its faithful to that i.e. you haven't made up details and pretended they were in an article when they weren't then that's fine.

RIght I've already had a strange email conversation with my supervisor this morning.

I didn't get my analysis section done yesterday, so my first goal is to get that done by lunchtime, after I fill in a form.

My husband recently went on a training course about how to put together a written document (yes he already has a PhD haha), and the trainer had a phrase which apparently the entire team (well male members of) found hilarious and sniggered throughout the entire training week. The phrase was 'just bash it out' and now I find that it actually encourages me to just get on - get past the negative thoughts about how awful or difficult writing this paragraph is and 'just bash it out' haha.

I have no idea how people work late. I've just had to do some work on another project, so at least that leaves me a good full day tomorrow to do PhD work and my eyes are stinging and I'm so tired. BUt strangely not tired to sit and watch tv - just for working hmmm.