As always any advice much appreciated!

My supervisory team is meeting this week to discuss my work so far, this is only my second meeting with both professors and my friendly third more technical supervisor has had to at the last minute send her apologies, but we net last week so she knows what I've been working on.

I have to send the two sups a document detailing my work so far, I have chosen to keep this fairly short and in a bullet format with a quick intro outlining what I have done in The last 4 months, (I spent 2 months reading and drafting a doc with ideas and a summary of current research but it is nowhere near being readable!), and then I have written my three areas of research as empirical questions with a detail of what I've done towards each area.

Which got me wondering and not a little paniced, What are people expected to have done by now? I'm always chasing my shadow as I worry so much I don't put enough hours in, and whenever I see my sup he just let's me tell him what I've been doing but never really asks for anything tangible. I do have to have carried out enough work to present at a conference early next year, that is all I've been told!

Many thanks!

======= Date Modified 15 Aug 2011 00:11:37 =======
I was a part-time student, so it's difficult to compare time-wise. My PhD lasted just under 6 years.

After 3 months I had completed my literature review though, and was moving onto research.

By 8 months through I was well into my research.

But 16 months is probably a fairer equivalent time. And I was deep in the research phase.

I got on with my literature review quickly because I had an experience of a full-time science PhD before (which I had to leave due to ill-health developing), where students typically spent the first year doing their literature review. So when I fell ill I hadn't made much progress. I was determined to push ahead quickly in my second go (history this time, part-time).

But I was rather odd I think, in finishing that literature review so quickly. It was perfectly thorough though, and I hadn't started researching it before starting my PhD.

Oh and my illness is a progressive neurological illness, so another reason for pushing ahead with the PhD as much as possible at the start. I knew I would be less able to do it by the end (by the very end I was managing on no more than 5 hours total a week, spread throughout the week in 1 hour chunks). So it made sense to push ahead fast at the start, and get things rolling.

Hey Hiccup! It does depend on what type of project you are doing, obviously, but by 8 months (as far as I can remember!) I had completed my first literature review and submitted it for publication, started my second lit review, completed a detailed protocol for the project, obtained School and NHS ethical approval and associated approvals/documentation, and had started to test and recruit my participants. Other people who didn't need NHS ethical approval had started collecting data earlier than I did, but many others who had to recruit through the NHS didn't start collecting data until second year. Best to just work as efficiently as you can without wearing yourself out too much, and not to compare yourself unfavourably to others- each project has different challenges and timescales. As long as you can show that you have been working hard for 8 months you'll be fine! Best, KB

I was also PT so would be slightly different, however at the 8 month point I had completed the formal paperwork (ethics and project agreement), conducted the basic literature review for setting up the experimental work (this would be defined later on to my findings as well) and was deep in the experimental phase. The findings were good but the direction had not fully evolved at this point. I had also drafted a journal article for submission a few months later.

Hey Hiccup - I have my own annual review coming up and am basically in a similar process of compiling info on everything I've done over the last year, everything I want to do next year, and a written piece of about 8-10,000 words with the aim of having it a) published in a journal and b) forming the core of my theory chapter.

As for the last 12 months I've had a paper published, done two presentations, attended numerous methods and skills courses (mandatory ugh), attended as many workshops/conferences related to my area as possible, read a reasonable amount of literature (no idea how much but probably not enough to be enough, but more than enough to be relatively unconcerned about what I need to catch up on) which I've written papers about (both around 8000 words), not for publication but will eventually form a substantial part of the literature review. I also work part-time in a job where i've been able to develop a lot of transferable skills (fieldwork, research, workshop organisation, presentations etc) so what i've lacked in terms of academic output I've made up for in all around development as a researcher.

Sounds like I've had an extra four months on you - and DONT be panicked by subjective experiences. And as for feelings of paranoia I'm pretty convinced (enough to have sleepless nights) I'm the same - not working hard enough, not reading enough, not writing enough - seems to be the feeling for all first year students. Aside from trying to work a little harder, read a little more and write a little more the only other thing I can think to do is hope that I'm not one of the few who "really" isn't doing enough.

======= Date Modified 15 Aug 2011 20:59:42 =======
I guess it varies on subject and background.  I was already a materials engineer, therefore I was able to get stuck straight into the literature review and get the practical work up and running.  I got off to a flyer.  A big help was my predecessor was around as a post-doc for my entire PhD, which was a big help.  A good indication of progress was I consulted him less and less as time went on (everything I needed to know was in his thesis and his predecessor's thesis anyway) and left him largely be after about a year.

I had original findings within a month.  However, I had a large data matrix to set up, so presentable data with conferences and poster presentations took nearly a year.  This was two pronged though, so once the data was there was lots of it with quite a few presentations to follow.  I had an experimental rig, which although temperamental (nicknamed 'the beast') was literally churning out prolific amounts of publishable data.

I'll comment I decided to do literature review and early experimental work in parallel, as doing nothing but saturation literature review would have done my head in (i.e. a bit of one, a bit of the other as I went along).  Literature review took six months rather than three as a result.

18 month progress report went well, with three quarters of the data matrix complete.  At that stage, I was optimistic submitting not too far off.  With nine months to go, I started write-up (hours ramped up quickly to 12 to 16 hours a day).  All went well until discussion stage and that's where it got seriously difficult.  I had to learn the standard style to write in and it was over a year late when I finally got the results, discussion and conclusion into a water-tight package my primary was willing to let me submit. This was a killer to get through.

As I've said elsewhere, he gave me the fright of my life after submission meaning I knuckled down and on alcoholic advice of predecessor revised anything that I might be expected to know (others have said that there's not much you can revise and depending on subject and field I respect that).  That took two and a half months up to viva.   I'm glad he did as I was far better prepared and the viva itself was a straightforward affair (though the day itself was a bit nuts as said elsewhere).   I don't honestly know had I not been prepared properly and if I'd shown a sign of weakness, if that would have been the case .

Corrections done in a week and I finally returned to normal about ten days after.   Two papers came out during the PhD and one shortly after, written by my supervisors though I provided a good part of the data.

I returned to the data later as I promised my external examiner and strangled out a further six papers and a reference book chapter from the data produced, including data left out of the thesis (I produced far too much data, part of the reason for the delay in submission to be honest).   The last of these papers is at final proof stage a good few years later.

EDIT / ADDITION: It takes some people up to a year to produce something meaningful (some longer), so if you feel if progress is slow at eight months it's not panic stations yet. If you feel you should be doing more, the meeting with your supervisors is the chance to ask what more or different you can do.

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Thank you everyone, really really appreciated. I started my PhD 4 months behind (In Feb rather than Oct) my peers, and in fact my research group is made up of 2 x 3rd years, 4 x 2nd years and me as a 1st year so it is very hard for me to judge what I am expected to have done at what stage. I have also been in industry rather than in academia so I have hit the ground running in terms of assessing the technology I want to use, creating a brief for work I want to have done externally (I know my limits and credit will be given) and effectively doing a feasibility study on my ideas's as well as writing a project plan for when I want to have completed various deliverables.

However what I don't know is the more academic side of things, I've been asked to write my Masters project up to submit as a paper and have given a talk on it at a conference, I've done a very draft review of the literature which gave me my three research ideas and I have drawn up empirical research questions within those three areas which my sup is *very* happy with. I started to go out of my mind and became very isolated doing the lit review, and eventually admitted as much to my sup informally and his take on it was well in that case get on and choose some reaserch questions and start researching! I have identified my study sites and identified willing participants, I've drafted my ethical approval document (to be signed off at this meeting) and I've gone some way to developing the feedback mechanisms I want to use.

I do need a writing task though, I shall ask for something tangible to aim towards at this meeting on Wednesday. As far as the mandatory CPD elements I have done a few sessions but I need 10 credits, thats 10 days, childcare is £45 - 50 a day, therefore CPD is costing me dear. I have done a paediatric first aid course which I intend to ask for credit for and I am learning sign language, I'm also doing a mahoosive cycle fundraiser which I am going to try and beg a half credit for.