Hi sleepyhead,

Yes, its 30,000 words, so kind of halfway between Masters and PhD length I guess. Thanks for letting me know about the restrictions on using Masters work for the PhD thesis, I didn't realise that!

thanks,

Sally

And thanks for the advice Poppy. That all sounds encouraging, i'm glad its not a no-no to get in touch altogether, so I'll try what you suggest.

Thanks for the advice sleepyhead, I will ask about the conference papers.

The reason I'm concerned about duplication is that because its a two year Masters course, so we do a longer dissertation than is the case on most standard Masters courses, and I would quite like to publish some of it at the end. We're recommended to try and find an original topic (i.e. one that we could continue working on for a PhD).

Hello,

I'm a social sciences masters student and by internet searching have found a 3rd year PhD student in another country who is working on a very similar project to my planned Masters thesis. Is it acceptable for me to contact this person and ask to see their thesis, both as a way to ensure I'm not duplicating their work, and because it would be a useful source for my own research? Or would they think I was trying to steal their ideas? As this person has not yet completed or published their work, I'm wondering if it would be poor etiquette to ask them for this.

Thanks for your opinions.

thanks for the tips, very handy! my trouble with google scholar is the inflexibility of the searches, not being able to use wildcards etc. But I can see how it can be useful if you can get round this, or if you're searching for something very specific.

The other thread about this made me think: does anyone ever pursure a career after PhD as a research assistant? For instance if you want to be involved in furthering knowlegde in your subject in a field you enjoy but without the seemingly unavoidable hassle and sacrifice of pursuing a career via the lecturer-type route? Are there any prospects for career development within this type of work, or is generally always a spingboard for something else?

thanks for any opinions!

Hello all,

This is a great forum btw! Would be very useful to have some experienced PhDer advice on the following:

I am doing my first proper lit search (for MPhil thesis) and am wondering, if I've searched Web of Knowledge and CSA, is this enough, or do people normally search loads of databases? I hate google scholar so am trying to avoid having to do this if possible! I seem to be getting loads of duplication just within these two dbs, so not sure if its worth searching many more.

Also, how can you ever be sure if you're not duplicating someone else's research? Just because you don't find it, doesn't mean it hasn't been done somewhere. Especially if published in another language. How do you deal with this?

My field is pretty expansive and interdisciplinary (within the social sciences) so I'm struggling with a a fairly huge amount of lit!

Sorry for probably stupid questions!

Thanks