Hi all,
I'm on the 3rd day of proof reading my final version of my thesis. I'm still finding typos and i still have to put my references in from endnote.

I'm submitting Monday/Tuesday next week. Will all be over soon.

but at the moment I'm sick of looking at it!

Hi guys,
I'm about to finally start referencing up my thesis before I hand in next week but I have a quick query about endnote.
I've exported most of my papers from Web of knowledge to save typing, but some of my older papers say anything before mid 1990's has exported the entire title in block capitals. Obviously I need the titles in normal text, for my thesis. Does anyone know a quick way of changing this without having to delete and retype?
Also what journal output style does everyone use? I'm in sciences if that helps.

any help will do.

What is everyone giving up for lent? and why? if there is a reason.
My personal front runner is my thesis. But as I have to submit in less than 2 weeks I don't think that is going to work. :p

Keep Calm
If you are using Word 2007, it creates a back-up copy of each file. I assume its just in case one get corrupted or lost or accidently deleted you can retrieve your work. Its what I think at least. word does seem a bit odd like that. c'est la vie. :p

Hi sneaks,
Hope the throat is feeling better today and the meeting went ok.
I'm having a good week so far - I'm doing my final chapter drafts for my supervisors. Am nearly done with them though I'm currently putting off correcting the stats in a chapter.
I got some good news from my supervisors - I've got my first choice examiners and my intention to submit form has gone in. So at the worst I've only got 5.5 more weeks of changing bits in my thesis. :-)
Target for this afternoon finish altering figures on my 2nd experimental chapter.

Thanks for all your replies. I am just going to take the bits of advice that make sense from each of them and try to incorporate it into my thesis as best I can. I know I'm not going to use all that they want correcting that's for sure.

I've always had issues with my supervisors since day 1. In fact my current supervisors only took my on at the start of my second year. My original supervisor felt I was too much of a handful and my project was too far away from her research interests. I've survived Supervisor A going on maternity leave for all of my 3rd year and Supervisor B moving universities to take up a chair position, again about the same time as A left for maternity leave. So I've pretty much run my own project throughout the 3 years with input from B as and when he could give advice.

I'll try and have a calm productive meeting with A sometime next week when the snow has melted and I can get to University. Though I have a feeling I may be spitting with rage afterwards for 24 hrs.

If all else fails I'm thinking of escalating it to the head of school as my supervisors have hardly supervised in the last 3 years so its about time they stopped being petty and gave me a hand so I can finish.

Hi Guys,
I really need some advice. I've been writing up since September and frequently chucking chapters at my 2 supervisors.
One supervisor, A, hates me, my work, isn't an expert in my subject area (she's a biologist and I'm a materials engineer) is my main supervisor, I'm not a patch on golden girl in her group and hasn't read a thing I've written. She has only just got round to looking at stuff this week I sent her back in November!
Supervisor B, I've seen on a semi regular basis, has provided good feedback, criticism and is more in line with my subject, and basically said if A hated my lit review chapter I could tell her to go spin on it. Alas B is not my main supervisor, can't sign my intention to submit and is no longer at my Uni.
I finally got to a full draft of the thesis just before xmas. Saw Supervisor B, who went through it requested corrections not major things but enough, told me to re-send ch 5-7 to him, but was generally happy with the idea of intention to submit going in and sorted out examiners. I've worked hard over xmas and this week to get all the corrections done and e-mailed to both of them.
This was fine until A has finally read stuff that B thinks is fine, wants loads of stuff cutting that's just going to wreck the flow of the work and even put in first person stuff!!! In my experience you never use I in a scientific report. All of her issues are due to her not understanding my subject, bar a few grammar bits. Worse still B is snowed under with work for the next 5 weeks and can't know when he's going to read stuff. I wanted to submit by February!!
I am basically waiting for them to come back with corrections but I get the feeling they won't agree with each other. Do I listen to A cos she's the one who could block my intention to submit form going in at the expense of my thesis making sense. I just feel shafted cos she hasn't been bothered with me for months. I also don't want this game of thesis chapter ping pong to go on much longer.
Also A and B don't get on with each other, I haven't had a meeting with both of them in the same room since my 2nd year upgrade. so the likelihood of trying that is slim. I was supposed to see A today, but got snowed in under 6" of snow.
I'm getting depressed, I want this to be over, I've spent 3 months with no pay, and my supervisors think they can just take all the time in the world. I've had a rough ride up to now - which some of you will know from previous posts. If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this please let me know.

I've just managed to get 3 1/2 chapters back from my co-sup yesterday; finally he's mostly happy with the structure and what I've written. Its taken 4 drafts of my lit review and its finally right! (given over to minor tweaking) I'm trying to get it done whilst everyone else is in the group meeting.
I'm going through my other 2 1/2 chapters with my co-sup this afternoon so fingers crossed he likes these as well. If he does then I'm mostly finished on full draft. Could be an issue though I have a mild hangover, didn't get a lot of sleep last night as I went out with friends that haven't seen me since the last time I came up to visit in October and I have to get a train home at 4pm.
Any ideas to get me motivated for the afternoon to come? I'm already on the lucozade.:p

Hello Apple,
I can completely relate to where you are coming from. I'm currently writing up, but my 3 years to getting to this stage has been difficult tricky and fraught with supervisors being difficult. I've had 3 supervisors over the course of my phd; the first only took me on so she got the top student of the UG course and there was no project outline so I've had to cook my phd project up myself. This is good as I get to research what interests me, on the other hand its bad as none of my supervisors understand the project or have any expertise in it. The first supervisor got rid of me at the end of my first year; I was making ok progress but the project wasn't what she wanted to supervise and hardly had time for meetings. Supervisors 2 & 3 I'm still with but I've had to cope with one moving university's to the other end of the country and the other naffed off on maternity leave for almost all my 3rd year. I will admit my 2nd supervisor does his best and always tries to answer his e-mail but it is difficult; he is also the only one making any effort to read my thesis chapters. My 3rd supervisor couldn't care less about me; but as she is my main supervisor i have to put up with her; hell I even didn't get invited to her groups xmas meal that how much they care.  The only thing I can say is keep being persist ant on the e-mail and with meetings and make them commit to targets i.e. they will have read X by Y date. The one thing I've found really useful is to have a mentor outside of the department, mine isn't even in the uni system that gets your general subject area who you can moan to and potentially be used as a proof reader. It helps if you really need some feedback and you don't think its going to be coming from your supervisor.
I hope this helps. Keep your chin up, it does come to an end eventually. :-)

Hey Wal,
I can't really add anymore to what the others have said. I'm not great at poetry either. But I do understand where you are coming from, I'm about half way written up at the moment and i'm really fed up. I'm struggling with chapter data that doesn't make sense aka doesn't match with the work previously done, my main sup hates me - doesn't help that I have a "golden girl" writing up at the same time as me, so all my stuff gets put to the bottom of the pile, i'm out of cash, its horrid dark and yuck outside, all my mates are away on holiday in sunny places and its my b'day tomorrow and I think it'll be spending doing data analysis as everyone else will forget/is away.
so you aren't alone -finish early today maybe and go wander round the xmas markets if you fancy. might make you feel better. I'm going to go treat myself to a coffee before attempting writing any more experimental chapters. Hope you feel better soon.

Hey, there are two ways of doing this I've found; The easiest way is just copy and paste (only select the text to copy not the references!) Ctrl A to select the text, Ctrl C to copy and Ctrl V to paste. This work really well especially if you've used the same formatting template on both documents. The other option is to go for pressing "insert", "file" and choose the one you want. You have to have written them both in the same template or it all gets messy in terms of numbering and figures. The references for the inserted document will appear at the end of the inserted document rather than at the end of the text. You can delete the list , select all the text and then re-formatt the bibliography  using endnote. The references will then appear at the bottom of the document in the original list. So it sounds like you need the second option for your stuff.
To check everything updates correctly do Ctrl A then right click and select update field and update entire table. I'm assuming your using Word and Endnote for this. I hope this helps.

Thank you! Must have been having a blind bat day to miss it.:-)

Hi guys,
Have just seriously started writing my experimental chapters of my thesis: only to find I have a small problem. I'm sure there will be others but....
Where has the equation editor gone in MS word 2007?
I know where it is in the 2003 version I have in uni - it must still be in the '07 version that I have at home.
Can someone please tell me where to find it in the '07 version?please pretty please.

Pineapple, I really feel quite bad for you. I'd like to just say I'm thinking of you and that your kind words back in May, when everything went wrong with my now Ex of 3 years really helped. All I can suggest is that you don't talk to him however hard that is, change your mobile, block him from messenger and leave alone. Don't let him ruin your ambitions of getting a PhD. You deserve it, keep telling yourself that. I know its very tough, I'm still reeling a bit even now, but it does get better. Go have a few days off, hang out with friends that aren't his mates and just chill out now writing or phd-ing until the shock has worn off a bit. Hang in there!!

I'm in the same situation as you, even down to attempting to write my conference presentation, which just keeps coming back from my co-sup with comments of changes all over it. I'm struggling to get motivated, I've written and re-written my lit review, but I'm still not sure if i've done enough lab work, whether the work is finished yet and if its good enough for a thesis. Comparing what I've done to my office mates who are 3 months behind me just makes me feel wreched as their projects are more biology based and seem to generate loads of data. My stuff seems paltry in comparison. I'm just trying to do little tasks at a time, overlaying 3 graphs and mastering the chemical drawing software was my morning's achievement. :-) chin up you aren't alone.