ooh, now you see I was thinking I liked Table 1.1 because then it denotes its the first table in Chapter 1.

Although I always put figure headings above as well as table headings - but then my figures are usually just flow charts or graphs - I like putting the heading above it :-(

what to do, what to do?

Ok, question...


if I go with the numbering e.g. my chapter one wil have the following headings..

1.1. Penguins on the ice.
1.2. Penguins on the snow
1.3. Penguins on beaches!

1.3.1 Penguins on beaches stealing ice creams

1.4. obesity in beach penguins

And I wanted to put a table in - which would sit in section 1.4. How would I number it??

Table 1?

Table 1.1? (as its the first table in chapter 1?)

or Table 1.4.1?

Its quite hard to say, not knowing a lot about the content. If your sups anything like mine, I'd just send through the intro again, saying you've done it and here it is (even if they've supposedly read it before) - mine wouldn't notice and would stop me having to do loads of unnecessary work :p

I'm literally writing my intro now and finding that it feels like I'm repeating a lot of stuff (although v briefly) and worrying that I'm overdoing it with the 'these are the gaps in the research' stuff, but then that's what I thought about another chapter which my sup thought was excellent, so really not sure.

Maybe give it to someone completely different to read and they can say whether they understood it or felt more info was needed.

I teach stats. to be honest although you could pay someone to help you, there's no gurantee they'll be any good. There are PhD students offering tutoring in my department and quite frankly, their knowledge is not up to scratch in a lot of areas.

I'd sit down with a good textbook (Andy Field's book if in social sciences), and go through it - he also does podcasts. It would only take a few days to get proficient at the specific tests *you* need (there's no point in learning every aspect of stats if you don't use any other tests.

ok, I think I might try numbering up until 3 numbers and then just have headings. I too find it easier to produce something that looks finished when I do drafts - my sup then thinks its finished. Otherwise, if I leave it and put in the email to her "am going to add proper titles later" I get a comment like "this needs proper titles!" 3 weeks later :-s

EEEEEK! Congrats! So pleased for you :-)

ssssh don't tell my brother, he's a Mac-Junkie and is always on about how a Mac would be better, conveniently forgetting SPSS compatibility (my uni doesn't do a Mac version) and the massive cost of the blimmin machine!

Ah...one day though. :-x

I don't think my uni has guidelines on anything. I actually think if I went to the admin office and just told them I'd handed in, had the viva and passed, they'd probably go "oh, ok, here's your certificate" - they really have no idea when it comes to the PhD process.

Rough guide is 'follow APA' but I think that looks a bit rubbish sometimes. 2 people have submitted their theses in the last year in my small group and they have used it (although I think they have copied each other on that)

some people seem to some people don't. I like it in some ways - so I can refer back to things in other chapters e.g. (see section 3.2 for a discussion) or something. But I also don't want it getting silly e.g. 3.2.1.1.1 or something - that's ridiculous.

I was thinking of everything after 3 numbers (e.g. 3.2.2) would be non-numbered, but maybe that makes the whole numbering thing obsolete?

yeah, I'm writing them separately at the mo, kind of dreading the 'big combine' moment though - am sure mendeley will flip out and start citing random things and go crazy etc.

Numbering titles? yes/no?

e.g. Chapter 1

1.1 Introduction

1.2. Theory X

1.2.1 Theory X critique

I think you must live very near me. I'd say, judging by the current state of pfizer, they may be assuming that you've been made redundent and then making more assumptions about why.

Realistically though, PhDs and many academic jobs often go to people who know the person hiring. A typical way to know this is if the PhDs only come on the job boards for a week or two. The best way to get round this, in my opinion, is to get your foot in the door somehow, in one department, and then apply for one with the appropriate supervisor once you are known to them.

errrrrm I hate things like this, my sup has asked me to provide an overview of my PhD, which I've done abou 10 times and am still not on her wavelenght - who knows what she actually wants??

My understanding of an empirical investigation is that you're actually collecting data, not just theorising, but sounds like you've already put that down (??)

I was suprised at how quickly MS Word descended into chaos with hubs' thesis, I mean 200 pages is not *that* much really. I mean it is a word processing programme - surely it shouldn't just start doing random stuff and being really slow etc just because its a long document??

I'm sure someone will now say I should use latex - the answer is NO, because I haven't got time to learn and also my sup's brain would blow up with confusion - she barely understands how to use track changes in word, anything more difficult will cause 'issues' :p

I got to the point where I was quite pleased mine forgot deadlines :-)

Last year me and my sup went through a lovely process of editing a publication, and it went through about 9 complete re-writes/revisions, this included completely removing key arguments, and yes, guess what, the final one, where she liked it, was EXACTLY the same as the original. :-s