For stats I'd get someone to check it, if you get a clued up examiner then I always think that getting stats right is easy in the sense that its a silly thing that could get you in trouble and is relatively easy to get sorted. feel free to pm me anything if it is general SPSS stuff, I (scarily enough) do the stats help for all postgrads in my department :$

From my experience, there's no point getting someone else to read your writing. My sup has her own style and if its not that style then she doesn't like it. So you could get the top Harvard professor to write a thesis and she'd red-pen it all saying it wasn't right anyway. So if your sup is like mine then getting someone else to read your writing might mean a whole load of unnecessary faffing about changing/rechanging it

I always thought I had to stick to "this study shows that.." kind of language rather than "I did this" but recently I've ventured into 'we' for publications. Not too sure about thesis though - as you can't really say 'we' as there's only 1 author. I definitely won't put 'I' ever - perhaps apart from a section I'm thinking about putting in which may be a reflective few pages about my thoughts and experiences doing the PhD, but still not sure about this section, it seems a bit too 'Dr. Phil' for me.

Anyway, so generally I stay away from 'I'

just to add/moan, I wrote 40k words last summer (2009) and handed it to sup - she hasn't even opened the file yet. But I have been able to use most of that writing since, so it is not a waste :p

ah, at least he knows you're putting effort into your health by being at the gym. That is so weird though! I have to travel for 45 mins to see my consultant, I can't imagine seeing them locally!

I only have 1 sup (my second is like a silent/paper supervisor so has no idea even what my PhD is on - he actually didn't know he was my sup until recently). She reads nothing I send her until its the final final version. This is very annoying, but I've come to realise that I'm going to have to get her a draft thesis and THEN go back and edit edit edit, rather than hone my writing skills throughout the PhD. It may be best to get on with the writing and then hand them a lot all in one go?

it may well be that your sups don't know how you should analyse your data and are bluffing, they don't know everything and i know far more about stats than my sup, which is often worrying!

congrats Wal!

I should be at the same stage as you but I've not even submitted 1 chapter yet :-(

I would imagine it would help to do it in a similar subject, but for me, it only mattered it was a good project and well written. My supervisor looked through it before my PhD and said she liked my writing style. Its in the same area as my PhD i.e. psychology, but is nothing about my PhD subject.

I'm not too sure about fees - its all so up in the air at the mo. If you have a good project idea there's nothing to stop you self funding, at the mo the fees at my uni are about £3.5k. And have a look at the unis you prefer - there'll be departmental PhD funding competitions - if you see one you think you could apply for, then approach a potential supervisor at the uni and enter one of the competitions :-)

Also the research councils e.g. ESRC, EPSRC and others offer funding, as well as certain charities.

What I would say is that your age shouldn't stop you doing it - you can clearly use a forum which is well beyond my parents' (aged 62) abilities!

I've been to a few job interviews like this. So far I've said that I'd do the PhD in my spare time. I go on the fact that they want someone to do their job in x many hours per week - so they won't want you using those for the PhD - they're not wanting to pay you for that.

I also say that because I've done xyz e.g. lecturing, voluntary conference work, seminars and workshops not linked to my PhD and any other work I've picked up, I am very good at compartmentalising my work and juggling multiple projects.

So I would highlight your organisational, project planning/management skills e.g. setting deadlines, handling multiple projects and that you are used to working weekends.

I made sure they realised that THEIR work was the most important and would always come first.

I've got 2nd place in a few interviews now, I think the PhD was the main reason, but you can't do anything about that now, so why not go for it, highlight all your skills and good luck (up)(up)

I use survey monkey, www.surveymonkey.com as does everyone I know at my uni. Its good, you have to pay about $9 a month to get everything you need to get data out of it in excel format.

The only thing it doesn't do (that I've noticed anyway) is piping. Which is the ability to reproduce an answer in a question later on. e.g. a name, so...

Q1: what is your friends name......Dave
Q2
Q3
Q4: Where do you usually meet Dave

(it isn't able to do this)

but is good in every other way (up)

If you PM me I can show you a survey i currently have running - to show you how it looks.

trying to! got my heels dug in anyway :p

I was forgetting - I teach on an MSc, so it must be a completely different story with hundreds of undergrads. I think that's why its important to consider what the appropriate thing to do for your uni was, which you did very well IMO. I reckon they were just looking for any excuse. It sounds exactly like the interview I went for :-(

I think you did everything right - I think it all depends on the culture of the uni/group. in my group, our admin woman comes to all meetings like this, but if that's not the norm it could look way over the top and freak everyone out - which leads to tension and bad feeling, making the problem worse.

It sounds like a stitch up, whatever you said they would have found an issue with it.

TBH is not something I would have ever considered coming up in an interview - how naive am I??

I suppose you could have met her with a 3rd party - i.e. the administrator responsible for the course - to take notes?? Seems a little excessive though and if they wanted the other candidate then they'd pick holes in whatever you said IMO!

So did they bring up that example in the interview or did you?

ooh hair cut - and here I was thinking you went with the blue bald look :p

I am putting together syntax and output files so sup understands what I've been doing - very dull!

sorry Eska, he sounds like he's either a moron or he's trying to ruin your future chances in other interviews. Saying I was a 'rule breaker' when dealing with conflict is the LAST thing i'd do in an interview!

I'm confused!

I know there is a general policy to meet students to resolve conflict - but surely you need to email them to arrange a meeting!? not just hope to bump into them in the corridor at some point, maybe you should try a summoning spell next time(?)