Hi All. A useful event for postgrads wanting to present their work and get feedback:

The Postgraduate Forum on Genetics and Society (PFGS) annual colloquium is to take place at Lancaster University on the 11th and 12th December 2008. The colloquium this year goes under thetitle of "Social and biosciences - a critical collaboration".

The colloquium provides an opportunity to postgrads and recent post docs to share their recent work with their peers and gain valuable feedback. The colloquium also has presentations from experts in a range of fields and this year will have a keynote speech from Professor Ruth Chadwick (Cardiff University) and Dr Steve Sturdy (Deputy Director of the Genomics Forum). Other sessions will include public policy and ethical issues raised by obesity testing as well as patenting.

The colloquium is open to all postgraduate students and recent post docs in any discipline with an interest in this research area. All accommodation and refreshments are provided and travel bursaries of up to £60 per student are available.

Those wishing to present a paper should submit an abstract of 200 words (maximum) in either plain text or MS Word format, together with a short biography, to [email protected] by Friday 7th November 2008. Papers should be around 20 minutes in length. Submissions should include: name and title, paper title, affiliation, email address, telephone number and postal address.

For more information and to download a registration form visit: http://www.pfgs.org

I agree with many of the posters. I think the hardest thing is maintaining the momentum, it is often very much like a rollercoaster - with the slightest thing bringing you back up when you are down.

I find it is often a fear of failure in the absence of the visible assessments (such as module assessments in an Masters) that is daunting, and can do so almost to the point where you freeze. Sometimes you just have to go for it - i'm trying to get clinicians to help me and get things peer reviewed and put off the ethics application - but i know i'll have to do it.

Anyway, off at a tangent there.

but yeah, the consistent self-motiviation is hard. And by the way, if you become an academic researcher this can continue. I know people who have threatened to throw in the towel on such a career, but then they get some more funding and the rollercoaster starts again.

Yeah, look at the 'impact factor' that the journal is assigned. The other way to look at it is, which journals are you citing from most? These are then probably the most pertinent to your area of work (and for others working in your area who may then want to cite you )

Hi, I've had a similar issue but now split my time so as to keep the contact with the outside world. I'm also quite lucky that I have a shared PhD office, but the other students don't get in until later afternoon so if I go in early I have the room to myself but am only 5 mins from the library if I need it.

Am I the only one on a research training programme as part of the PhD (1st year)? I've found that if I have to go in for these courses I tnd to go in for the full day and make the most of it (get all the jobs done like copying, filling in forms). This also helps with some of the isolation issues, although I agree with the coffee benefits of working from home.

Having worked as a research associate, before applying for a PhD, it is possible but depends how high up the ladder you want to go in at. From experience it seems that once you are 'in' it is then easier to move around or up.

I too have had conversations with other academics, and they can be negative but I think this has a lot to do with the chasing of funding as has already been mentioned. Speak to someone who has just won some funding and you might hear a different story.

one other option might be to think about applying for funding whilst still at the end of your PhD, you might be able to ensure your position by holding the funds. The uni would then want to keep hold of you.

Hi,

Having done some focus groups previously I agree with the food point. Also we offered to reimburse travel expenses and make sure we had parking spaces (we lost some participants because they couldn't find a parking space when they got there - we soon learned from that!).

Even with a tight community, with a vested interest in the topic, I wouldn't bank on participation in focus groups. they dynamics and logistics can mean that people just can't all make the same day. We ended up using interviews as well.

One issue on the transcription, i have been advised if you get an outside contractor to do this you need to put contracts in place that take account of data protection (at least in the UK), so it might be worth speaking to your data protection officer about this.

My supervisors are only expecting 2 phases (as am I): Interviews followed by a quantitative stage (probably a questionnaire of some sort) which will be used to do some regression or multi-level modelling. I suppose if you consider the literature review as historical research then this might be an extra phase - I certainly don't think i'll be doing 4 or 5 phases. What ideas have you or your supervisors suggested for the phases??

With regard to writing up we haven't had any set times suggested. I'm a 1st year and we have been advised to start writing now, but this isn't necessarily for publishing (PhD or papers). I am doing shorter papers on topics of interest and relevance and which I then discuss with my supervisor. They will probably fit in the PhD somewhere in some form. I will have to do some formal writing for the upgrade panel at the end of the year though.

My PhD is in Applied Social Statistics, and thanks for the heads up on the conference i'll have a look at it.

Oh, and forgot to say that thus far both my supervisors have accepted the method (ones a sociologist, the other a mathematician). I agree that the biggest issue (apart from the NHS ethics approval process) will be time related in regard to doing what is effectively 2 studies.

Hi SAW,

I'm investigating parental consent to newborn screening using an exploratory sequential mixed methods approach. I'm using interviews in the first phase with an as yet unspecified quantitative second stage (probably questionnaire), but using multi-level statistical analysis. Generally the interviews will be exploring parental experiences, with the second stage looking at general trends and seeing if these are at the individual or hospital level (if any).

Hi, i'm doing a mixed methods research PhD and some opposition appears to be due to arguments around conflicting epistemologies with many arguing, as you seem to indicate, that quantitative research views an objective reality comprised of facts and 'truth' for which there aregeneralisable laws and constructivism which is usually associated with qualitative methods and views multiple realities.

What was the Steinberg book?