Make sure your partner is aware of the time commitment, and what doing a PhD means. Don't try to do a PhD in a completely different city to where your spose is living. It will require dedication and persistence to balance your time commitments, and you will probably burn out eventually, so try to ration yourself and not go too hard to early.

Because lacking the first two points will end up tears which are none to fun to be in.

Just wanted to say my wife and I are getting a divorce. My suspicions were confirmed she was seeing someone else, and no longer wants to be married to me (though the outside source is not the cause of this). And strangely enough, I actually feel better about everything now, despite the overlying sadness of being unwanted. On the positive side, my career has a no compromises direction now, and I am really looking forward to getting back out there to see what the world has to offer. Onwards and upwards is where I am looking now (like going to a conference in Spain in October :), and taking a couple of months off to go travelling in the states in May, June with a friend ).

Personally I would have declined the request. Part of the peer-review system is that it is anon., so I am guessing that he might not have known that you were reviewing, even if he was the editor (if he submits a paper to said journal he has no power over its review to allow the peer-review to stand up to scrutiny). The reason you were likely selected is your expertise in the area, and its probably coincidental the timing. I'm suspecting he still has no idea you were a reviewer as long as you didn't disclose your identity.

My reasons for declining would be that of conflict of interest. You have a professional relationship to the individual, and given that he held a position of effectively power in relation to you there was always the danger of an accidental exposure which would compromise you. Sometimes its better not to take that risk, even though the notion of peer-review is meant to be biased or impartial.

Sounds like you have got everything you need to take action, especially if there is material which has been submitted formally to the uni, and if she has copy and paste (and make sure this is word for word...if its 75% like this she is stuffed). Thats plenty enough for plagirism, even given she has mentioned you as an acknowledgement....thats not right or honest behaviour. As a person with a masters I am suprised she is allowed to act as a supervisor for you at all....normally the PhD process relies on a Prof or Dr supervising...as you are being considered for admission to the position of Dr of Philosphy...you probably need to see your dean to get a temporary supervisor who is appropriately trained for such a position. I would make sure you have printed copies of absolutely everything. Make a list of your concerns and gather your information and go to the dean, or take it and speak to the outside person you spoke to before (telling him the reaction of the 2nd supervisor), and get advice from there of the best person to next go to. I hope it all goes well.

Cheers
Xebadir

Mostly enjoy it, I did it real tough early on even though I loved my project (passion and getting to do it for my PhD was great) and it pushed me to breaking point. I made it past that hurdle, and have worked hard since despite other things in my life, and I mostly enjoy the project, even though its just hard work sometimes and grinds me down.

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Well its not plagiarism if you can prove you wrote the material first...just bare in mind that in doing this you may have a fair bit of pain to experience in dealing with it, and it will effectively destroy this dirtbag of a second supervisors career and reputation, and may have a bearing on your reputation in the field (if this person has friends who support unconditionally). In saying that I wouldn't be letting stuff like this wash. People in academia are not all like this, and im sorry that you have had to experience that side of it. If printed copies with dates exist, viewed by other people (print all your emails of correspondence over this material, especially good with attached drafts as it provides reference dates), and evidence of drafts of your work creation dates would be very important. Additionally people you talked to about with this material prior to the publishing of the article. Provided you can bring to bear this proof, I would be seeking to lodge a formal academic complaint against this individual, and provided you have the evidence sufficient to prove your case then lodge a formal request for retraction to the journal citing the plagirism issue.

The big question here, was this material formally submitted to the university in your form 6/literature? If so you are going to have powerful mechanisms for recourse.

It alls come down to as much evidence you can get together. I would first speak to the Dean of your department of Faculty. If they are unwilling to act then go to the vice-chancellor research level. If necessary the university may choose to provide legal representation against the individual, but I would suggest getting legal advice from a patent attorney/university legal aid if you aren't sure what is required during the burden of proof of intellectual property (what this boils down to). If you can prove academic misconduct this person will be lucky to escape with their job.

Don't give up, don't get disheartened because of this slimeball individual. The reaction of the other person should give you a clue as to how this sort of thing is treated in academia. Keep us updated and don't be nervous about asking for help, people here have been in similar situations and can offer great advice and just someone to vent or talk to. :-)

Realising my talents and potentials. I am fortunate to be blessed with more than my fair share of talent...and I wish that I could make the most of every aspect I have.

On a second point, I wish that my photography business was really going places...got the photographic talent and am applying it, but the first steps of business are tough. (If anyone is looking for a landscape/stormscape for their wall to avert depression drop me a line and ill send you my link lol)

Hmm, I can see your point, I will be in the awkward position where in some ways my partner doesnt need thanking, and others she does. She has supported me doing a PhD on the other side of the country (Australia), and has always been keen that I finish it. But on a day to day level when I need to vent she just doesn't understand or offer the support I need. Doesn't mean I wouldn't in your position not put a short sentence acknowledging my partner...remember any stress you get they are exposed to...even if it is "putting up with me throughout the project" .

In my field I find myself really looking at the more local conferences as a waste of time, and the international ones being more of relevance and interest. Recently got sent to NZ on a conference (which was technically a local) had a presentation which all went swell, and ended up with a top-up funding/part time position out of it...so it can be worthwhile getting yourself out there, you never know what will come of networking. Naturally I will still go to much more relevant conferences, but it goes to show that it can be worth your time to get yourself out there. (My work was a presentation of a paper that was just about to be submitted, so it gets attention there as well).

I wouldn't get so hung up on not attending/shunning confs either, it is really good to get critical ideas out there and make you actually explain your work to people who arent as close as you and your supervisor. Too many academics can't communicate for toffee...and when it comes to your job interview after the little world of the PhD they look favourably upon examples that you are able to communicate (not to mention talking about your topic at the interview if asked). Too much of something can be bad though, so just keep it in reason.

Scholarship will be offered seperately (though you should have had to fill out a scholarship application when you applied for the PhD, for an APA or a local scholarship.) RTS/CTS is Research/Commonwealth Training Scheme which basically means you dont pay tuition fees for your PhD. If you have filled out a scholarship application and haven't recieved a reply you may well get this soon as it would be seperate (awarded by federal funding but administered by the scholarships section of the university).

You can basically bounce the comments if you feel there is sufficient merit or argument to do so. My first papers first round of reviewer comments were a nightmare...one of the reviewers suggested doing an impractically massive manual analysis, to which we properly shut him down. Either way, give points where you know it wont take a huge amount of work, or agree with the reviewer, and bounce anything that is particularly difficult or leads away from what you want the paper to do. I made a few larger concessions as I tended to agree, and ended up with a much stronger paper for my trouble which sailed through after major revisions, so don't just dismiss everything they say off hand.

Cheers.

As someone who reads pretty quick and retains info I would say I have read the totality of probably half my Bibliography (around 100 papers), and the other hundred I have at least read an abstract and conclusion to. Its not that I would use all these papers in my thesis referencing (some are article specific), but its useful to be broadly read in your field (science PhD in a field with plenty of different techniques and concepts). I would definitely not include any reference I had not read, as it leads to bad info...I found one example where clearly people in a number of formal articles had misquoted the same articles dozens of times, and even got the reference wrong in their list...its that not paying attention and reading for yourself that generates problems here. By generating notes of each of my references (I generally like to pick out what theyd be useful for), and leaving info in the filenames (plus having a physical copy with scribblings) it generally allows me to go back when I am unsure or unhappy with my interpretation.

Hope these ideas help.

I am a bit lax in this regard to some extent, I make random notes (heres a tip, always have a book next to your bed, just incase you wake up with an idea...trust me it happens). But for when I was doing a vast amount of programming I used it to write down techniques which worked, how I came up with my program and the ideas behind it, clever tricks to get around issues, ideas I had about direction and what I could expand things to. I sort of keep 3 different books. 1 is my technical/data/processing info book, which covers how I go about things and the best ways to deal with problems, a second which is my random ideas notes and flavours book (which goes to presentations and is always with me...every day), and a third which is purely for writing and things related to papers, where I write down ideas, good explanations, ideas for papers (I keep these for after the PhD mostly). It might vary from day to day, but it is definitely useful to keep notes in some form of context, as it can be a good way to remember how your progress went (especially if asked by someone like your sup) and to give yourself a sense of progress.

Hi all,
Have been mainly lurking for some time. So I am into the third year of my PhD (Australia) and believe I am progressing well (Meteorology), I have a paper published already and a second probably to be submitted in a week and for the first time since I started feel on top of the situation and somewhat confident that I am going to finish this thing. Unfortunately, while the PhD is finally on the way up, the marriage is spiralling into the depths of despair and taking me with it. Its a long and complex story, but basically a girl I went to university with has been my partner for nearly 6 years, I proposed to her after 3 and we got married in Sept 2009. Where it got complicated is about 6 months after I proposed she got a job in another state (geologist), over 3000 km away, and I try to visit for 1-2 weeks a month to our house where she lives (cannot do more due to scholarship requirements). I sensed her changing at the time and offered her the oppourtunity to step away from the marriage without loosing face but i believe her indecisive nature counted against this. Anyway, fast track to now and things are just falling apart, she is completely cold to me, I have a sneaking suspicion that there is someone else on the scene and she isn't making any effort towards communication or anything. Now, why post this here? I am wondering if anyone has undergone a seperation or divorce during their PhD and their experiences with this. I personally didn't want it to come to this (ive tried to save things by talking to her, offering the option of a marriage counsellor) but it seems to be the way it is going and I want to be sure this isn't going to hurt my PhD (which is going well enough I have already been offered a part time employment for three months based on my work). I should note that I would prefer to deal with it after the PhD is finished, but it has been distracting me from work and keeping me awake at night plus making me feel depressed.

Thanks
J