Thanks Reenie, but it would appear not.

I am choosing to take it as a bad sign and am looking at other supervisors in other universities, but keeping this one open in case nothing comes of that. I left the meeting feeling rather disappointed, and I don't think that is how it should have been.

I am currently looking for a University to do my PhD with. I will need to secure funding for this from somewhere and this is turning out to be my major headache.

I had a meeting with a potential supervisor last week and he was interested in taking on the project. I discussed with him my need for funding and asked for any pointers on how to approach this. He wasn't able to give me any advice or direct me to anyone at the university who could help. I then asked if he would at least be prepared to help me tweak my proposal to maximise the chances that it would be successful in any applications for funding I make. He said no, he didn't have the time.

Now, I felt rather deflated after that meeting, but don't know if I have a right to be. Would a supervisor normally help a student formulate a proposal for funding, or was that an unreasonable request? I guess I am thinking that, if he is not prepared to help at this stage, which is the decider of whether or not I can take up their offer, how does this bode for support for the future?

Any thoughts on this gratefully received.

Psychology, if that helps.

Luckily my research questions can be stated in two, relatively brief sentences. I am not sure I could add to that even if I tried. Some of the background provides the rationale for the research and I think I might be confounding my background with my motivation for research. I have cited relevant studies and theories in both. I wonder if that matters.

Oh, and I have stated the broad aims of the study as the end of the background. I am not sure that I have a good reason for doing that. I think I might have been in essay-writing mode and thought that would be a good introduction to all the gumpf I then went on to talk about.

I am with the other posters. Your priority is currently not your PhD but you. Talk to student counselling as a first step, but accept that you might need more intensive input as student counselling can sometimes be fairly lightweight and leave you feeling as though nothing has changed. Cognitive behavioural therapy is useful for the types of thoughts you are having. It might even have got to the stage of needing a course of antidepressants if you are currently not feeling strong enough to even think about a talking therapy. Talk to your doctor about this if you get no joy from student counselling.

Accept that you are not fully functioning at the moment and that this is OK. These things happen. I would also agree with those that suggest taking a break from the pressure of study whilst you sort this out. Meeting new people probably feels like the last thing you want to do at the moment, and that is OK as well. But, once you get some professional help to pull you out of this, these are things that will help you sustain your improved mood.

One step at a time.

My next issue.

The university I am applying to requires that the proposal be no more than 1000. I am finding it very difficult to do justice to the research idea and put in enough detail to show I have thought it through with such a limited word count. I have completed a first draft and got it down to 995 words, but I am dissatisfied with certan sections (like methodolgy) as I just don't have room to convince them that I have found a realistic way to do this. It is qualitative research and all I have room to do is drop words like "survey" and "thematic analysis". I have devoted about a third of the thing to the stages of research (methodology), a third to background (which is telling them what they already know, but I felt is was essential to set the scene) and a third to motivation for research (so, the phenomenon that I identified that needs further exploration and links to existing studies and theory). The rest is the research questions (v brief) and existing interests and experience. I am not counting my ref list in the word count.

Does this sound to be the right sorts of proportions, or have I given too much to one section and not enough to others? Have I missed something essential (the guidelines are very vague "Research proposal: please state what you can bring to the project; research methodology/critical approaches, experience, original contribution to knowledge, key themes/concepts/ideas, bibliography etc.").

Any thoughts on this would be most welcome.

Ah. You having raised this question, I went back and looked on the site (could have done that in the first place, couldn't I?). It says "an academic reference from your most recent period of study", so that is that. Bog-standard, you-did-an-MSc-with-us-in-the-Dark-Ages reference it is, then.

But thanks for the input.

Fabulous. Thanks for the tips. I have got to the can't-see-the-wood-for-the-trees stage of the application process and can't trust my own brain to make any sort of sensible decision. I will contact the Uni and tentatively offer them the outdated MSc ref plus current Chief Psych ref and see what they say.

Onwards!

I am finally looking to start a PhD and have found a potentially ideal studenship and really don't want to mess up the application. I have so much stuff to sort out in a very limited timeframe (I found out about the studentship three weeks before the deadline for submission).

The thing that is currently exercising me is who would be the most useful referee? The application info states that one must be an academic referee, so I should really approach the university where I did my MSc, back in 2000. Trouble with that is, I really didn't do a very good job of the MSc. I was working full time, had health issues etc. I did only just enough to scrape through and got a pass. I wonder if, 13 years on, this will come out in the reference. I am imagining that they won't have much info on me apart from the fact that I attended and passed. So, should I risk it and go to that university for a reference or to the one where I took my first degree, worked like a demon and got a first?

Secondly, who would be best to use for my second referee? I am a consulting psychologist (the PhD is in a psychology-related subject) and could approach one of my regular service-users (the Chief Psychologist of a charity I do work for). The advantage is that it would be current. The disadvatage is, I don't do research there (although I have published a couple of brief articles in their in house journal). The other two options are to approach my supervisor from a job way back, for whom I did quite a bit of research. However, I left this job in 2002. I also lecture part-time, so could get a reference from there as well. It is not in the area of psychology that I intend to do my research in (I am dual-qualified), but it has some academic relevance.

Or should I just contact the university offering the PhD and ask them who they would like to hear from?

Any thoughts on this would help my bad-addled brains immensely.