An older version of Miss Marple?! I couldn't pull that off.

Did she leave a phone number? :$

Hi, I'm new to the one goal thread. Are there any basic rules to setting the goal? I did manage to get dressed and go shopping today, which is two goals in my book! In the future I need to teach Sneaks how to walk and shoot a semi-automatic machine gun at the same time (multi-tasking huh), but there are some practicalities to overcome with that one.

If you're right handed you could probably get a good price for your left arm. Or kidney, lung, blood plasma. You could try selling one brain hemisphere depending on the type of PhD you are doing (arts/science), but make sure it's the right one.
Hope that helps.

Incidentally if anyone wants to buy 'wax' to polish furniture, just ask!

I'm sure this is familiar to most of you - I have lots of tasks to do: experimental work, planning, lots of writing up and organising literature that would be sensible to do. So I write a list and prioritise them, then look at the list and think "I'm not in the right mindset for that.. or that .. or that, I wonder if 30 mins. of Call of Duty will help clear my mind".

How do you break the deadlock?

Thematic notebooks could be tricky if the theme changes. Or 'when' the theme changes! You might end up with lots of notebooks to carry around. I'm going to resort back to loose leaf pages and a folder, if the University like it or not.

I had my first conference presentation last Friday to an audience of about 80 people, so it's fresh in my head.

A few tips from the beginning - Have some idea of the work you want to do before you submit a really vague abstract to the organisers! Otherwise, like me, you'll be rushing through epxeriments the week before the conference, trying to find interesting data.

Right the presentation before you get on the train, otherwise, like me, you'll be rushing off to quiet corners during the breaks to produce your ppt instead of networking.

When you get there don't go out the night before and drink a) wine or b) strong coffee, otherwise, like me, you will only get two hours sleep for the whole two days and sit hyperventilating before you're called up. If you are in that situation focus on a calming flashing light on the amplifier rack behind the speaker and remember to breath!

Go through it a few times with supervisor until your happy with the content.

Practice the presentation. Over and over again.

Don't be surprised by anything through lack of preparation - go and stand by the podium when everyone is at lunch and look into the room. If you have the option for a lapel mic. or a podium mic. choose the lapel mic. to enable you to walk in front of the podium if you need to. If you stay behind the podium you are normally side on to the screen and any laser pointering will be tricky.

Practice practice practice <- most important step. Run through it in your mind many times, remembering that it is interesting and fascinating stuff you're doing and there will be equals in the audience who want to learn from you.

I knew I'd get nervous when I was called up so during my practice I clinged to the trigger "good afternoon", if I can stand upright and say that everything else will follow ".. my name is and I am going to talk about" your topic, your chance to tell loads of people how fascinating your work is.

You can make it difficult for yourself (which I did) by not including all your text in the ppt and reading it verbatim like some people do. This is boring. Page of text goes up, everyone reads it, then the speaker reads it. Boring. Instead have the story in your mind, highlighted with bullet points, clear graphs and pictures on the ppt. Speak idea first THEN bring up bullet point. If you pull it off (which I did :-) you can recount the story fairly fluently without looking down at cue cards or your monitor, people make eye contact with you and give lots of reassuring nods etc which make you relaxed, whilst behind you the bullet points appear a few miliseconds later. It's subtle, much harder work but really makes a difference and stops the 'death by powerpoint' feeling.

Don't be tempted to wonder off on tangential thoughts, stick to the story.

It is better to allow yourself to stop to clear your throat, breath, sip from a glass of water than to race through with a crackly voice trying to reach the end. These pauses give a nice pace - speak, bullet point, pause, people read and think then move to next sentance.

When you finish, keep the acknowledgements brief. Smile, ready for some fascinating questions you probably haven't considered. You probably have but it's nice to get a different angle on your work from someone other than your supervisor.

Don't be disappointed when your supervisor just says "that was ok", there's no huge prize other than a few people coming up to you with daft ideas.

Relax.


8-)

Like most of us, I am require us to keep a fixed-leaf notebook to document .. 'stuff', in the event that my University need the evidence to take away my Nobel worthy IP.

I have never been good at sequential thinking, in the past my thoughts emerged iteratively on loose leaf pages, collected into a folder and re-organised in a fairly organic way. So this fixed-leaf notebook has really been a problem over the years, in terms of creativity and organising myself. Now entering my third year I thought I'd ask your advice, better late than never.

How do you seperate the dull admin supervisor-related notes from your genius scientific outpourings? My notebook is a mixture of underlined dates and the same three names of those who attended my meetings, scribblings explaining pythagoras to MSc students, and random bursts of thought repeated over and over again because I forgot I had that thought before or fell alseep before realising an indexing system would be useful.

Do you have a virtual 3D mind-controlled environment you keep attached to your keyring or .. lots of spare time?

No matter how much I've done, or how pleased everyone is with my progress, I am always made to feel like the past few weeks was a waste of my life. Is there a good way of turning negative meetings into positive ones(without cake and beer)?

To add to this question - how do you cope with being overwhelmed by work when you come out of a period of low motivation?! I have been feeling low in work avoidance mode for a few weeks for various reasons (my software not working, seen v.similar work at a conference) one of those weeks was an unproductive holiday. I'm now back and trying to cobble together a transfer report out of 16 months of badly taken notes.

Day 170 in the PhD house and Graham is beginning to feel a bit queasy. "Graham can you come to the diary room?" for a supervision meeting with your once friend, now arch-nemisis, and the boy wonder.

"Why do you exist you snivelling wretch?" asked my arch-co-supervisor-nemesis
"I don't have sufficient evidence to speak" I whimpered. I'm trapped inside an evidence-based research catch-22 situation, if I say "I did this", the response is "why? why? you damn nemotode", if I say "I didn't do this, the response is "why? you disgust me". I'm paraphrasing of course, this is merely my interpretation of how supervision meetings go, but any PhD student will recognise this situation and empathise with me here.

“I think this”, “I think I think this”, “I think I have enough evidence to suggest I think I think this”, “I haven’t seen any large sample, randomised controlled studies to suggest contrary to my preliminary belief that I think I thought this”, “ok ok my thoughts are irrelevant, despite reading 110 journal articles in five days, compared to your 20 years of clinical experience, please don’t hurt me, please, not the pointy meta-analysis! arrgghhh!”

As I said, I’m paraphrasing.

And from one PhD phenomena to the next, sitting at a laptop at 9:10 with a bottle of wine venting spleen (ouch) and thinking “there are others out there, I know there are other out there”. Solidarity brothers! (and sisters!) .. yeah solidarity Reg.

Anyone who has been on the sharp side of DE’s mind will know exactly what it’s like to physically feel all ones confidence and strength seep out of their body and ooze out of the room under the door, leaving silence. DE in silence watching you, like a dementor, silence, feeding of off the positive energy in the room. And if you know him, you will know that he supervised my MSc, we broke the ice, we got on once, chums even, I respect him. Oh but that was before PhD supervision, DE is a creature from before time, a creature that would make Gandalf wet himself. He’s been over to the dark side, bought souvenirs and a small timeshare and come back .. with no expression.

And poor SG, sitting there, UN Peace Observer to the inhuman act of viva supervision, thinking “I’m actually the principal supervisor here, I should be running this meeting”.

Aldous Huxley, he spent a night on Mescaline and wrote Doors of Perception (from which came a rather good band fronted by Morrison), Franz Kafka .. well he was just a bit odd and wrote the excellent metamorphosis. How many PhD survivors have written a fictional book? How many Dostoevsky’s, Blake’s and Orwell’s would there be if 'the brink' to which PhD students are pushed up against wasn’t patrolled by pillow bearing Spanish Inquisition??! Aye? Aye? Tell me that. "Oh yeah man I've seen it", I've been there, don't ask me .. etc etc said the Vietnamese dolphin as he found the depth charge.

Day 170 and Graham is having his nappy changed and being put back to bed.

A few years ago I organised a big meeting with suppliers of an expensive piece of kit, all manner of people were booked to attend including my technical director and business group manager. The time was set for the afternoon and I left the site to work in a facility 10 miles away. I later got a phone call from the secretary telling me to get back because I was late for the meeting! I wasn't, the group manager had changed the time and not told me. I was meant to be chairing the meeting. I arrived, made my apologies and sat down, the group manager was chair and as I sat down looking around trying to read name badges, the manager said "Graham will now give us a presentation on .. " Completely unplanned, completely undiscussed with me! I ad-libbed as best I could and the meeting progressed.

When it was all over I marched up to him outside his office within a huge open plan research centre, looked up at him (he's a tall chap) and calmly said words to the effect of "what the hell do you think you were playing at back there?" He was taken aback and made excuses about challenging me (which I guess was true), then push forward all my work deadlines. I was later told that action impressed him greatly, which may have been instrumental in securing a longer-term contract. The company had problems anyway so I didn't go back .. yes I was an undergraduate on work placement. 8-)

I'm here tonight with a bottle of wine venting my spleen after the usual weekly (Friday afternoon!) supervision meeting. With hopes of quickly flicking through a draft presentation to get feedback, it went downhill. Slide 1 "Stop. Explain to me what you mean by .. ", thirty slides later I was ready to walk out of the PhD. I know I know it's good to be pushed, avoid stagnation n'all that, good to get feedback and be challenged. But! but .. I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!!

I appreciate the need for viva style supervision meetings, but what ways are there for PhD coaching that don't push us to the brink? What methods have you used to "manage your supervisor" as the good book says.

Is it bad form to take the bottle of wine into the supervision meeting? Now there's a thought .. "you don know me ya .. f .. where's my shoe"

Did you make notes on the journals you read and then piece them together later, or did you lay out the structure of a document from the start and fill it up with random paragraphs and references as you went on?

I didn't anticipate the journal filing system issue with a PhD! Cross-referenced to notes and databases. I hope my chosen system is good for the next three years!

It is my second post about this topic Rosy, perhaps because I'm looking for 'permission' to go home! I could generate work to keep myself going 24/7 and probably do a spectacular PhD, but it's a question of knowing when to call it a day. At around 6pm I'm choosing between my coat or the coffee pot and wondering what other students are doing.

My supervisors technique is to make students always feel like they've fallen short of their potential, to drive them harder. He doesn't need to do that with me anymore because I do it to myself!