Thanks everyone, I'm still torn though! Pjlu, my former supervisor wasn't an active sabateur but the difficult professional relationship left me feeling emotionally drained. Our last conversation didn't go well and was six months ago and we haven't had any contact since then. I'm pretty sure they blanked me in the corridor when I saw them recently!

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if it is common practice to include acknowledgements at the beginning of your thesis, and whether it would seem odd if you didn't? In my university's regulations it states that we 'may include acknowledgements if we wish' but its not a stipulation. What are people's experiences with this? I'd like to thank my current supervisor, and others of course, but there's some awkwardness between myself and my former supervisor. They didn't take the change of supervisor request very well, and their assistance was limited, which was why I did it and why I'm reluctant to acknowledge them in the thesis...but then I don't want to come across as petty...

Hi Drew16CW,

Congrats on passing, and I hope everything went smoothly with your ammendments! I was wondering if you could shed some light on the sort of things you were asked in your viva? I'm also doing a Creative Writing PhD, and as you'll know, there's not as much information/guidence out there for vivas in creative disciplines so I've no idea how to prepare. My thesis consists of a fictional novel alongside a critical exegesis.

Thanks for your reply!
I see....to be honest I don't really know anything about what's expected of you/the requirements of being a postdoc. I'm just testing the water as I'm coming up to the final stages of my PhD and starting to look at my options.
It would make sense then that an institution within easy commuting distance would be most appropriate for that kind of fellowship. I didn't realise it was heavily focussed on teaching rather than research. I had looked at other schemes, and jobs listed directly through universities, that were primarily research based and I thought this was similar.
Thanks for your help!

Hi guys, I'm looking at applying for postdoc research funding through the British Academy Fellowship scheme. I've been mainly looking at universities and research instiutions within an hour radius of where I live, but I wondered if this is common practice or whether people look at doing postdocs elsewhere? I suppose it would depend upon how much time the postdoc would be required to spend physically at the institution per week/if teaching was involved etc.
Moving is not an option for me as I've recently bought a house, but I would be happy to commute anywhere in England if say, I was only required in on certain days, or I worked flexible hours. I assumed that such posts are primarily independent research based, e.g. you can work from home most of the time. Does anyone have any experience of this? Can any postdocs shed some light on how much time they spend at their institution?

Hi guys,

I would be really grateful if any of you lovely people would be kind enough to take my survey on Fact or Fiction? for my PhD research. There's just six questions and most of them are multiple choice. I should only take two minutes.

Here is the link:

I recently had my second year progression viva and it didn't go as well as I'd hoped. As a bit of background my supervisor has been flakey this year (to put it mildly) and as I'm doing a 'new type' and 'non-traditional' creative PhD there's a lot of confusion (at both ends) about what I should actually be doing/how much etc. Changing supervisor isn't an option because its a small department and no one else is specialised in my subject area. So in the end I did the best I could and what I thought was right. When I did occassionally meet with my supervisor I was told my work was really good and I was ahead of where I should be, so it was a bit of a shock when in the progression viva I was told I wasn't and that in fact I needed to do a hell of a lot more. I was also given a lot of suggested changes that I didn't agree with and neither did my supervisor, but I'm torn between who's advice to take. And to make it worse, instead of defending myself/my work I just went into my shell and was too upset to say anything. I did pass, however feeling major impostor syndrome and fading confidence in my project following this. Any advice/shared experiences/telling me to pull myself together would be much appreciated!