You say you have graduated, does that mean you have fully submitted including any corrections? If so i'm not sure how he could have your PhD taken off you unless he can prove you cheated in some way, which would also reflect badly on him. If you publish does his name need to be on the paper as shared authorship? If so and he doesn't want to co-author I'm not sure how you could publish without his permission. You need to check the rules on intellectual property rights. This sounds like harrasment but you need his reference. Def find a way like Incognito says, to distance yourself. Why are you still working for him if your PhD is finished? Could you not lie and say you have a job, any job customer service shop work etc (obv outside of academia) whilst your waiting on a post doc, he can't expect you not to take up any work! Just don't make yourself available. Failing this maybe check out your rights with the student union.

Write to the strengths of the departments you are applying to. This means, look at the potential supervisors in that department and find out what methods they are using and the types of things they are intersted in. I know you want to doa Phd that intersts yo but it should interest your potential supervisor also. You don't have to go with their methods but you may find the application process easier if you're at least in their ball park so they know how to supervise you. As the previous poster said, really your lit review should give ideas on the way your methods will go as they will describe what methods they are using. You need to justify your chosen methods against the gaps inthe literature and show why they are the right methods to answer your research questions in your context. You can easily google for basic texts on methods. BTW what you submit in proposal is rarely the project you actually do. It may not even resemble your initial proposal!

Lots of masters only do PASS or PASS with distinction. The OU being one fo them. Problem with the OU is the high grades needed for merits and distinctions anyway. 80% average in coursework and above 80% in exam/end of course assessment. To keep that up across all the modules is so difficult. OU will say their tutors are used to the marking scheme and mark accordingly. In real life I doubt this as they also usually work at brick unis and I suspect they mark them just the same meaning it actually is harder to get good grades at OU than anynother uni. I think this is why when you apply for PhD lots of unis will ask for your transcripts to see what percentages you actually got and a reference from the course that tells them what range you were int eh class overall e.g. were you in the top 10% of students.

Good universities usually have researcher training attached to them. Somewhere you should be able to get hold of the timetable for their classes, they often run things like presenting workshops, overcoming anxiety, making the most of supervision etc etc. Also there is nothing wrong with getting together with your friends in the lab and just practising presenting your ideas. You are right it is all in your mind about being nervous speaking with them. It doesn't matter if some people might know more than you. I'd totally expext PI to know way way way more than me otherwise why want them to be your PI? You just need to get over the fact that for the time being you are a student again, no longer at the top of your class but see it like starting school all over again from scratch and make it seem like a new exciting learning experiencce rather than feeling like you're not good enough to be there :D

Many congrats Dr. Xander :D

Started 30 day shred fitness routine. OMG I am so unfit. Stiff all over and after porridge for brekkie caved and had Mc Donalds for lunch but no extra snacks so that's good. Light tea tonight I think.

Marasp, forgot to add also try the app 'myfitnesspal' my friends said that really helped with calorie counting etc. :)

Bought a dress slightly too tight to motivate me to fit in it for Christmas ha ha. I want to cut down on all the bread I seem to eat too! worst for me is eating late as my husband works long hours and I'm sure eating past 7pm is bad for weight gain. A friend told me to try youtube for free fitness clips and look for something called hte 30 day shred? Time for some exercise tonight! Calorie counting sounds like it might work for you good luck with it. :)

I'm with Ian, the grade boundaries can change. Also what goes in to making up the marks for your degree can be quite complicated using weighted grade credits so what looks like a 2:2 can actually be a 2:1 or as Ian says there are times when grade boundaries are changed because of overly harsh marking hence the need for external examiner checks. Of course the external can change grades up or down.

I'm only in yr 1 and already seeing a big difference in weight increase as in my last job I walked to work and back each day and was on my feet most of the rest of the day. My issue is finding time to get out and about and get more active! Good job on the swimming :) unfortunately I have young children so when 'm not studying I don't exactly have spare time for exercice. God only knows when I'm going to fit it in but inless I want to put on another 3-4 stone inthe next few years i'll have to. Any tips would be very welcome.

I don't think employers really understand the pass rates they will just prob see the Masters degree, unless of course you are applying in an education setting then they might know. As for scholarship I think it depends where and to whom you are applying to. If you already know the supervisor and are at the uni you are applying to you can get on with a merit, there are people with scholarships at my uni who applied for phD before knowing their grades and then got merit but still kept the scholarship, although most have distinction It might be harder at the best unis or if you are applying somehwere that doesn;t know of you work. But it's a great chievement non-the-less :)

Good news on the degree and job. Well done :)

Does your uni do any support for 'imposter syndrome'? Mine does. What you are feeling is more common than you think. Speak to your uni counselling services.x

Mendeley is good for storage and note taking.
You can set up a 'watch' file on your PC and any files you save to it will automatically go to Mendeley, you can then set up folders to organise your files.
When synthesising the literature Mendeley is great as you can have numerous PDFs open at any one time and write across them all finding comparisions and differences.
You can type a key work in the search bar and it will search all your documents for it.
You can search literature from scratch in their search bar or it will also search for related articles to ones you have.
Only thing, be careful with using it for citations as it sometimes gets them wrong but it will ask you to check the citation and you can ammend it to show the correct one.

:)

I'm going to be controversial here and say I'm not sure your PhD has nothing to do with it. 6 weeks is a very short time to work anywhere for it to have made you so ill to the point you are clinically depressed. Unless of course you already have depressive illness in the past and working is added stress that triggers it or you're in one of those jobs where you're working nightshifts or not getting adequate breaks.

I suggest it's more likely the combination fo the two. You are doing really well getting your PhD finished and working at the same time must be very difficult. Be kind to yourself, you're doing a lot. Maybe you need to consider that you can't do full time work atm because of your illness and when your funding ends you would probably be eligible to claim sickness benefit (ESA) if you are too ill for work as you can't live on nothing. :)