I would advise against this. Your current supervisor is the one who will mark the project, so there is little point going against his/her advice and seeking others'.

If he/she is giving you little/no support then I'd ask for a meeting to clarify what/how you mean to progress. If there is still no luck then I'd talk to your student support function and they can help you. Your uni should also have some kind of student help in how to write a final year project etc and they should be able to guide you too.

yes, I agree with that, but if it was a recognised system then journals could have 'fast track' PhD processes

I have long thought that all PhDs should be by publication. You should spend 3 years producing 3-4 publications (in my field anyway), you then get a viva purely to check it was your own work.

Then you get awarded a PhD 'grade' based on the quality of your publications. In my field, we are * rated on journals, so you'd get a 3* or 4* PhD. Or perhaps an 'impact factor of 2.3 PhD' or similar.

That was your work is peer reviewed by a range of people AND the viva examiners and should you have 4 publications going into viva, it should be impossible to fail unless they can prove it was someone elses work.

not sure you can really compare us with the U.S. model. Their professions are more likely to require PhDs anyway e.g. in my field you can become a practitioner with just a masters, but over there they require you to have a PhD.

I also think that the high rate of attrition demonstrates that it is a worthwhile and difficult qualification to get and therefore has value and it will put you ahead of the crowd, you might need experience as well and shouldn't consider doing a PhD means you don't need as much experience, but I think it does provide you with skills and a level of analysis that is hard to come by in any other position.

I don't think you can really say one country is better/worse than another. Each institution, or even school, department or group has different methods/norms of what PhD is and how one goes about getting one, so I don't think you can say Germany PhDs are better/worse than UK ones for example. It isn't really a standardised qualification like that, its an apprenticeship and the quality comes from the people who train you and the circles you move in as a result.

I know you said no forums, but I joined a forum a few years ago to give me tips on my wedding. Then a 'splinter group' formed and about 200 people from the forum created a new one. I was nosy so joined the new one and now have a great group of friends from it. Its now a private forum so it can't be googled etc so we all actually meet up and use it as a better resource than facebook where we can all talk all day (it really does curtail work!!) - just saying they're not ALL bad - perhaps try finding one that is about *something* e.g. football, manga, fitness etc rather than just 'finding friends'.

Personally, I'd restrict access until you've had a chance to publish, unless you have already. I've had people asking me for a copy already - so far I've just ignored their emails, as they're people who will probably then use my lit review and findings to support their consultancy and they'll make a ton of money by spouting MY research badly (as they won't really read it properly and take everything at face value, rather than taking time to understand my work).

See my post on this thread about transcription buddy http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=18710

my 1st question was essentially "why did you choose this area" - I think or "why did you choose to do a PhD" - I forget

I was an avid user of survey monkey, but now I think qualtrics has better options and is available free from most unis

I got qs on my epistemology, but only cos I had a chapter on it and its quite rare to do that in my field - usually people ignore it.

would the teaching unions be able to help?

Can't you just email the .com person and say 'oi, stop it!'?

Read a thesis or 10 in my first year (sup banned it so spent a long time wondering what I was supposed to be producing)

Decided on a clear strategy about when to publish - I faffed around for a year wanting to publish, going back and forth writing chapters/papers/chapters/papers and then not publishing in the end and leaving it all in a pile for afterwards - if I'd just got on with the chapters I'd have saved a lot of time.

I was exactly the same as you. I got to 5 days before and panicked having done very little prep. My main advice would be...

- read your thesis at least twice
- as you read identify areas you think are weak and think about how you will defend them
- write down your thoughts on the 'Bilbo-5' - these can be found on other threads
- write down and practice answers to the broader questions e.g why did you do this subject... (these are also on a thread called 'viva questions' if you google it) - this was my first question I got asked


If you can try and get someone else to help you - I wrote out all my questions on individual bits of paper and got my hubby to grill me on each one - did this about twice before the viva. He wasn't allowed to skip questions so forced me to answer the ones that were more tricky

yes, I got v annoyed with mendeley towards the end, but it was too late to change. TBH I'd be tempted if I had more than a year to go to change to a more reliable one. I think mendeley is fantastic and has great features, but the crashing and some issues (e.g. not et al-ing and stuff after you've modified the citation) really annoyed me.