To see if it has legs you can do that by checking out the research interests of academics you would like to work with and see if you can get a dialogue going with them before application. Tell them your ideas and see if they would be interested in supervising you. If they like your ideas you can submit a formal proposal, if that's accepted you can be as certain as you can be that there is enough in the proposal to work on, of course your proposal will change once you are in the door. The nw researcher development framework will mean you get opportunity to undertake relevant methods training as part of a PhD. :)

HI, sounds like a facinating area of study and well done on your MA results. First I would check out the universities where you think you would apply to and check out their entrance criteria, you don't want to end up taking a course that doesn't meet the entrance requirements, like metabanalysis says, you may be able to take one or two specific courses. Also, many unis do a 1+3 phD where you do the Mres as part of the PhD. Good luck x

A job is a job, you can't hang around with no money. HazyJane has it spot on, keep your hand in. Did you do an MA dissertation? If so what does your previous supervisor think of it, if you got good marks for it you could always re-write it and try for publication? That way you will still be working on your writing and critical thinking skills and have something to tell on PhD applications. ;-)

Really tricky. If they have delivered this at conference then others might pick up that it's not their own work. I get that you are worried if your sup doesn't pick up on it and it comes to light it might reflect badly on the department but it should have no bearing on our PhD. I guess you might be worried about having your reputation damaged by association (plus you might like your sup and want to protect them) but I think it would be really remote that this would happen. Not the ethical thing to do I suppose but I would probably distance myself from this. Whilstelblowing can still cause more damage to the whistelblowers reputation than the reputation of the unethical party! Unfortunately :(

I know this has been a drag for you and not ideal but these things do just take time it seems. It's about 12 weeks until your viva date, which isn't that long now and I would say so soon i wouldn;t be worth the fuss to trya nd get them to move the date nearer. You will get clarification of your award on your viva, pass no corrections, pass minor, pass major, R&R, Mphil etc so in 12 weeks you will know what you have and depending what you get you can apply for positions without the actual certificate but you will have to be clear with prospective employers what that viva decision was. Does your uni not have a careers advice service. They should be advising you on what you can effectively apply for at this point.

You will do another Masters degree if you go through Teach First and you commit to a set number of years, but a plus is being able to also do a year in industry too. Depending on your degree classification and subject and what you want to teach e.g secondary maths, Primary languages etc, you may get paid more (bursary) doing a traditional PGCE, (although some PGCE encourage you to take at least 30 credits at master level.) Carefully look into it as the PGCE route isn't always uni based as many schools have been given the option for 'direct' candidate selection where they actively advertise for trainee teachers rather than you aplying to a uni. You can either go on the DfE website for a list of schools directly advertising or check the recruitment section on the websites of the schools you would like to work at to see if they have any advertised places. Good luck ;)

I think your supervisor might be best to advise you on the type of lit revew you need to do. If you do go for systematic review there are books out there on how to do systematic reviews in the Social Sciences, just google it. Also, you might want to look at youtube for academics discussing systematic reviews. Or check if your uni has an online research methods repository. I know what you mean though as not all current data in social sciences is in academic journals, I spent lots of time checking other sources such a government policy documents, charitable trusts research etc that are published as reports and don't always come up on searches but are never-the-less invaluable to informing lit reviews or adding depth to your background discussion.

Thanks everyone. Tester, your point about supervisor attending might be a good route to pursue. I will certainly consider that.

:-)

I approached an organisation to do a case study PhD on the,. They agreed and I submitted a PhD application for studentship. It then transpired the organisation needed permission from the other project participants (a non-academic department of the uni I actually applied to!). 7 months down the line after attempts I've now got a meeting with all parties but the original person that gave consent says I've got to sell my research benefits to them, which has confused me after consent was originally given aswell as reassurances that the person at the uni just wanted to meet to tie up loose ends. Do I mention this in my sipervision meeting or wait to see how it plays out? I am petrified they will withdraw consent and my PhD will be in tatters less than a month in and my supervisor will think I'm a fraud for having said I can get access.

Great story. Many congrats Dr :-)

Yes Ian you are right, even younger people out of college are often told not to even put A levels, esp if they just need a job, any job and are going for shelf stackers or cleaners. BTW my previous company ran many Jobcentre Plus contracts, still do in some local areas, so you could well have had that advice from them. I think it's a sad state of affairs not to give your achievements. I don't think it's dishonest to not put a qualification you do have but it's def dishonest to say you have one that you don't.

I hope I do well enough to get my PhD and will certainly love being Dr and would love to use the tilte, but I would probably go with PhD instead.

I have found that excellence and academic achievement isn't always condusive to gaining employment in the private sector particularly. I have a teaching and advice and guidance background working in employability. and it is sad that we regularly advised people to 'tailor' their CV and applications to the level of position they were applying too and to omitt some achievements.

This is because you get the "you are over qualified" This is partly due to HR procedure matching skills sets and renumeration They literally can not take you if you are more qualified than the job spec. The other is jellousy and suspicion. Many managers are put out by the arrival of highly qualified 'others' into their department for fear of being supplanted or worry about managing someone with probably a higher academic ability than themselves, they become fearful. Slap me down for my sweeping generalisation but lots of 'older' managers got their positions through experience not qualifications, It's not like that now, you need more and more quals to get in the door meaning some managers who have fewer or no quals are worried about well qualified newcommers :-( A senior manager at my last place openly said she is suspicious of people with firsts!

BTW non of my lectures use Dr :-(

You have had very good advice here, particularly from Ian. This other work could strengthen your PhD in that you have a different slant on it (as long as you acknowledge them as Ian rightly suggests). The fact others have started to work on this area you could argue that growing interest in the subject validates your reasoning for choosing the topic as it's current/topical.

Maybe the person at your uni was refering to someone who has published work and submitted in the wrong format. At my uni you have to apply for permissions to submit your thesis in the form of journal articles as an 'alternative method',otherwise, yes you can get into trouble over it but it's fine to write your thesis in a traditional manner and then publish parts of it along the way as journal articles, which will have a different layout to your thesis.

:-)

It's an educational marketplace out there so if you are willing to pay the money and they are willing to take you so be it. I suppose the question is why the MSc? is it MScRes? The open University do an Mres, they are also more fexible on entry requirements. Good luck :-)

Sorry to learn about this :-( Although you are devestated thinking the end was in sight, you are totally right to see the positives in that the examiners comments can help lead you to that end goal. I hope the next part of the process goes more smoothly for you. You've done most of the hard work already xxx