textbook: maybe this could help: first write as you like (e.g. using personal statements) with the aim just to express everything you want to say. And then when it is done, you can go ver the text again and make changes according to the recquirements. for example, firstly you can write: the aim of my research is.... firstly, i did this then I did that..Afterwards you change it to: the aim of this study is....Firstly, a survey .....was conducted etc.
This approach helps not to loose your 'voice'.

On the one hand, I agree with you ULUG. The main aim of a PhD student must be to finish his/her PhD in time and in a very good quality, publications will follow naturally from a PhD afterwards. On the other hand, you cannot get a proper job in a good university if you have no publications. That means, you have to get one of very limited postdoc places (with its relatively crapy 'salary') and then write publications. So, maybe it is a good idea to have at least one publication while doing PhD. But of course, it varies from field to field.

Social Political Sciences, first got published one year after finising MPhil. it was a paper from my MPHil dissertation. Oh, and a year before that I wrote a book review:) A minor, but still publication. :)

I usually reference journa papers from JStore as journal papers, not as links. I.e. Author (years) Title, Journal title, Volume, Issu, pages. Jstore is just a tool, place where you get papers, nothing more. Like library (we dont write the name of library we get papers from). So it does not need to be mentioned in the refereces.

the same here. Spent the firt 7 month mostly reading and then in the last 2 months wrote a first year progress paper (basically literature review& research project description). And changed the direction completely in the middle of the second year.

It is always ups and downs:))It is my 3rd year of PhD. There have been moments when I have seriously been thinking about giving it up and been really bored, unmotivated. And thre have been moments when I have really enjoyed it.

sylvester

I am afraid and quite sure that those knowledge workers who will decide to leave this country will be soon replaced by Eastern Europeans for whom life in the UK is paradise compared to what they got.

Just a though came in my mind. I was reading job adds in Times Higher Education Supplement. Imagine, some kind of 'overseas student officer' gets 24-28,000 a year! And recquirements are only an undergrad degree and some experience. The same as a lecturer with a PhD! Is it fair?

"Why are British people (being very generalistic here-apologies) so obsessed with getting on the "property" ladder???

In other countries it's perfectly accepted to rent a flat (even if you are a doctor and have a family and earn a lot)."

Because in the UK rent is as high as morgage repayments. Any reasonable person will say that if you have to pay to bank the same sum as to a ladlord, you better pay it for the bank and thus some point of time have your own house paid off instead of having nothing for the same money.

I started my with re-stating the aim of the study and a summary of what methodology has been used to achieve this aim.And then proceeded with describing and jsutifying it. In past tense.

I fact, despite being an outgoing, sociable and comunicable person, in any academic setting I get some symptoms of autism....So, probably environemnet in Academia makes many of us little bit ackward.

If you would be autistic you would not be aware that communication creates any problems for you. So probably you are not autistic:)

*formless sweaters are great for wearing at home or whilst gardening, but should not constitute part of an outfit.

....unless they are made by Calvin Klein

rah: either email to yourself or save on a memory stick the file that contains all your references and then save it on the another computer. basically the same as with any file.

there is no free/cheap Endnote but you can by a student version of it for £75 https://directory.adeptscience.co.uk/products/search/1/1/474/cat474.html

Actually £75 is definitely a good price taking into account how much work Endnote saves.