perhaps Sue has a not so secret admirer!

I did wonder. I had designs on blowing it all on booze in fresher's week. I'm sure I could have a good week on 3 months though. Obviously, this post has nothing to with me having to pay rent up front or anything!

This may vary by uni or Research Council, but how and when do you receive the stipend? Are you paid monthly or do you get a whole year in advance?

I guess this is the problem with many academics. They have big egos and their research is always correct!

Yes, it was me that mentioned it. It seems the world has moved on from simply buying essays over the internet or simply paying someone to write one. Now they put them out to competitive tender. Wow!

I have a bone to pick with O&U. On another post you were suggesting that i was covered in black and white fur and spent all my time chasing birds. I'd like to take issue with the statment - I'm not covered in black and white fur.

in reference to the original question - you're doing a PhD, what do you think??

Not if you're full of good bacteria from those yogurt drinks!

I have my Cycling Proficiency, beat that!

Golfpro - do you mean the Serpentine in Hyde Park by chance?

I'm not saying you quote the review (unless that review makes conclusions itself). Of more interest are the papers that they read and making sure you read them for yourself. The review is merely an opening into the topic and the state of current knowledge.

I focus my effort on those reviewed papers which have direct relevance to my dissertation.

I'm not boasting about the 76 papers I read over 15 months, but what did appreciate was that reviews frequently quote articles wrongly, or miss the point of the paper, or selectively use those parts which support their own point of view and disregard those whioch don't.

It's also common for a review to be less than comprehensive. I was amazed that a recent review in my field completely ignored a very emminent piece of research that was very relevant. Why? Because that article was written by a competing research group (who themselves were ignoring the first research group's research).

Who said academics were thorough?

Not necessarily bad to have old references, but you must check that the research has not been superseded in the meantime. This is where review papers give some steer.

Alternatively, why not stick the said article's title and author into Google Scholar and see who has more recently cited that article and what they were talking about.

My undergrad dissertation of 20,000 words contained 76 references. Most of these were very relevant but others were simply acknowledgements that several authors had come to same conclusion on some issue.

I tend to find review articles a good benchmark as to the amount of knowledge/literature there is in an area (obviously depending on how closely the review article matches your topic). Hence, if they find only a few references you can safely assume that you're not going to do much better than them.

The best advice I can give is that relevance is they key here rather than the trophy-hunting!

I think it's horses for courses. If you're charged up and keen to get up and running by all means start early. For me, I'd rather not because I urgently need a break to recharge my batteries. Having written a meaty proposal for this (which effectively started the PhD), I can hit the ground running in September anyway.

Personally, I am chilling out for the summer. My batteries are well and truly flat after my final UG year and that killer dissertation. I need a good break from intellectual and academic thought to do more mundane things like watch the World Cup and Big Brother. That's my approach anyway!

Most of my academics suggested to me that it is better to go to a different university than that of your previous degree in order to broaden your experience, meet other academics and to see how things are done in different places. Therefore same as the world of work - work for a range of employers soon after graduation, take their training and take away the best bits of each.

procrastinate here daily