Ginga, at 200 pages you're almost there already so dig in and get it finished--you've done well to have so much written up already. If you have no new results after September and you continue writing up as you go along, then you should have no problem submitting before January 2010. Good luck!

Better to ask postdocs/others in the lab this kind of question. Yes you need to increase the pH with NaOH. Do you need instructions (pH meter, mixing, etc.)?

It's quite common. The 4th year should be for writing-up, so ideally you wouldn't need access to the uni as the research-phase has finished. Getting a job or getting the dole are basically the two options.

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Getting out of bed earlier will make you feel much better, plus most people are more focused in the morning so it could make you much more productive. With a bit of will-power this can be fixed in one day: even if you slept late the night before, you just set the alarm early and force yourself to get up. You'll feel tired but will fall asleep in the evening and wake up at a normal hour the next day. To stick to your new sleeping routine, it really helps to make it a set habit, and make rules like no tv or computer after 10pm.

Erratic work habits, procrastinating etc. are common but can also be fixed quite easily. There are different opinions on this but the best advice I could give you is to make a schedule. Do not be a binge worker--leaving everything until you feel guilty and time-pressured then binge working, repeating the cycle ad nauseum, is unhealthy. Make a schedule and stick to it. It's very effective to combine a schedule with goals too, and gradually increase the goals as it becomes easier to meet them. For example, "I will read/write from 2pm until 5pm and I will write 250 words per day". Increase the word count as it becomes easier. Keep a record in Excel or SPSS, or whatever program you prefer, and record your productivity each day. For example, if your goal is to write more, you could have columns for month, date, day, words written, project (e.g. Thesis), comments, and met goals (Y/N). Doing this will also teach you a lot about yourself. Works very well for me so I'd recommend trying it. Good luck!

In the rest of Europe, the preference is to use a 'Europass Curriculum Vitae' template. You can find a Word version of the template here http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/europass/home/hornav/Downloads/EuropassCV/CVTemplate.csp . Yes you should include a photo as everyone else will.

Ahh engineering, that explains it. The engineering department is the only one in the whole university where 2/3 of the cars parked outside are brand new Jags or Beamers. :p

Guitarman I'm guessing you was employed as a tech too or something along those lines? I've heard of CASE studentships where students get a bit more (maybe £16k) but never heard of a PhD stipend higher than a postdoc salary.

And I agree most PhD students are in it for the subject not the money (what money?!). The only very highly paid job specifically for fresh PhD grads I know of is Quantitative Finance (writing algorithms to trade the stock market etc.), though there aren't many of these jobs left anymore.

Definitely customize your letter for the supervisor. Introduce yourself in the opening paragraph as a former student of his during an Erasmus exchange year, and explain how during that year you developed a keen interest in his research, etc. Generally you send the letter directly to the prospective supervisor.

That's still v good! More than the national PhD stipend rate in the UK.

If £1600+ p/m is a pay-cut compared to your PhD salary then you've been very lucky as a student.

The examiners will probably just make a joke about it and suggest the re-arranging as a minor correction to be made before final binding. As you know, what really matters is that the examiners can tick boxes similar to the following: -

(i) the creation and interpretation of new knowledge, through original research or other advanced scholarship, of a quality to satisfy peer review, extend the forefront of the discipline, and merit publication;
(ii) a systematic acquisition and understanding of a substantial body of knowledge which is at the forefront of an academic discipline or area of professional practice;
(iii) the general ability to conceptualise, design and implement a project for the generation of new knowledge, applications or understanding at the forefront of the discipline, and to adjust the project design in the light of unforeseen problems;
(iv) a detailed understanding of applicable techniques for research and advanced academic enquiry.

Typically, holders of the qualification will be able to:
(a) make informed judgements on complex issues in specialist fields, often in the absence of complete data, and be able to communicate their ideas and conclusions clearly and effectively to specialist and non-specialist audiences;
(b) continue to undertake pure and/or applied research and development at an advanced level, contributing substantially to the development of new techniques, ideas, or approaches;
and will have:
(c) the qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment requiring the exercise of personal responsibility and largely autonomous initiative in complex and unpredictable situations, in professional or equivalent environments.

In my field (biology), starting salary ranges from a bottom end of around £25,623 to an upper end of around £29,506 (without London allowance). That's ~£1624 to £1856 after taxes, NI, etc (according to www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk).

£1300 p/m after taxes is ~£20k p/a gross, which is definitely too low for a postdoc and more in line with a graduate salary.

Postdoc salaries in the UK are quite good when compared internationally; still not concomitant with all the education and training though! I have friends who left school without a-levels who are earning much more!

Unlucky! Ask your supervisor? I'm sure the examiners will notice and just remind you to get in the right order for hard binding.

I got a 1st and don't think it made much difference in my PhD application when being compared to the 2:1 candidates. One of my supervisors got a 2:2, yet now he has a couple of 1st author Nature papers, and has had TV crews around the lab and radio interviews.

Also if you look at most academic's websites, you'll find they almost never put their undergrad degree classification up. By all means do your best but don't get too attached or stressed about it. If your plan is to do a MSc then it matters even less.

T.S. Eliot said "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter", and I think the same applies to a thesis. A lot of words doesn't necessarily mean a lot of content. A concise writer aims to communicate information with the least amount of words: as Professor Strunk says, "Rule #17: Omit Needless Words".

I have a 130 page science thesis here that is just outstanding--a pleasure to read. Next to it is a 250+ page thesis which has less data, but is obviously longer, largely because the writing is not as concise--not a pleasure to read.

Writing mostly in the passive instead of the active voice will also make a thesis much longer than it need be. Also, students who are insecure about whether they have done enough work tend to write excessively long theses (IMHO). Two of the least productive students in our group have written 350+ page theses (70,000+ words) yet don't have enough work in there to publish a single paper. Most science theses are about half that length (35,000 - 40,000).

The most impressive thesis I've seen was European (from Sweden I think) and extremely thin. I thought my supervisor was kidding when he brought it out into the lab and announced its brilliance. When we looked inside, it pretty much consisted of a TOC then five chapters, each one a 1st author paper.

Don't get caught up in thesis length or word count. The goal is to say everything you need to with the least amount of words.