I am in the final year of my PhD. I suffered from many months of depression and an inability to get my writing done in a timely fashion. I am now playing catch-up. I have a telephone appointment with my supervisor next week, and wonder if and how I should disclose the difficulty I faced, and am still facing. I don't want to burden her with my personal issues. How do I, or should I, discuss this? How do I regain her faith in me?
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posted by anonymous
on Apr 28, 2013 -
11 answers
There seems to be huge number of online work/project tracking/logging programs out there, but they are mostly designed for small businesses and freelancers (e.g. focussed on invoicing) and charge by the month. I've seen a few that look OK like Toggl and Slimtimer but none that seems ideal for my needs yet. Can anyone recommend ones (ideally free and with the ability to track different tasks & share that tracking/logging) that are easy to use, have decent functionality, and would be good for 2 friends working on writing their PhD theses and would like to try and help each other keep track of how much work they're doing?
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posted by zresearch
on Mar 10, 2013 -
6 answers
Defending and depositing my engineering dissertation by end of April. Strained relations with advisor and distant relations with committee. What next, and how? Please advise.
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posted by anonymous
on Jan 22, 2013 -
10 answers
Help me to make a great leap forward in my PhD in the next six weeks. I am in the last year of my PhD (philosophy) so the thesis has to be finished by December, however, I am also full time university lecturer, so when the term starts my ability to write every day is drastically compromised. By selling part of my soul I negotiated almost complete freedom for the next six weeks and I want to use them to make massive progress with writing the thesis. I already have about 40,000 words written and I am hoping to write another 40,000 over the next 6 weeks. The challenge is to stick to the daily quota of 1,000 words, as some days it is possible, even fun, other days it is very very hard.
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posted by slimeline
on Jul 31, 2012 -
23 answers
The way I research (academic or otherwise) is increasingly incompatible with the tools I have. Reams of handwritten notebooks, and hundreds of word docs vs a highly tagged website only add to my self-created confusion.
I'm drawn to Tinderbox software as a possible solution, but as an adamant PC user I'm locked out.
How do you order your research? / How to write-up my PhD now my brain is fried?
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posted by 0bvious
on Mar 16, 2012 -
10 answers
A couple of years ago I was an undergrad looking for part-time research work, and a friend-of-a-friend connected me to a PhD candidate who needed help with her thesis. I spoke to her and her request set off plagiarism alarm bells for me, so I declined the project. I always doubted whether I handled it correctly, though, and I just found out that the friend-of-a-friend who referred me is still a little ticked at me for asking the PhD student these questions and then declining the work. Did I handle this alright, or was I being a jerk?
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posted by anonymous
on Apr 20, 2010 -
30 answers
I am taking January off work to finish as much of my PhD writing up as I can. I know that I will be totally unproductive if I try and work at home, so am thinking of escaping somewhere (library, hotel, cottage, writing retreat?) for up to four weeks. I’d welcome suggestions, both generic ones about types of locations that have worked for you and also specific suggestions (I live in the UK). I’m thinking that working somewhere with busy but quiet people around would work better for me than total isolation, but am open to any ideas. I don’t need to bring lots of stuff with me and am probably better off without wifi (although internet access requiring a bit of hassle could be useful to check references etc). Money not a particular object as I’m going to have to pay another year’s fees (£3k) if I don’t finish soon, anyway...
posted by janecr
on Nov 11, 2009 -
20 answers
Was a Ph.D. thesis actually written on Hillary Clinton's hairdos? If so how do I get a copy?
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posted by fishtree
on Aug 5, 2009 -
6 answers
Ph.D. Advice: I'm going to be starting grad school in the fall and I wanted some suggestions on how to plan out my thesis. What should I be doing from day one to stay organized and what kind of system should I set up to keep myself productive?
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posted by Aanidaani
on Mar 28, 2009 -
13 answers
I have a 50,000 word medical thesis to write. I don't want it to end up looking like a big ugly Word document, just printed out on A4 and bound. I would like some graphic design inspiration/tips for making it look more like a real book, which would actually be a pleasure to pick up and read.
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posted by roofus
on Jul 23, 2008 -
23 answers
New York Creative Writing/Critical Theory PHD: I am currently undertaking an MA in Creative Writing and Critical Theory in London, and plan to go on to PHD after I finish. I would ideally like to go to an East coast USA/New York university to do this (for several reasons). I'd like some help with finding a good list of possible institutions...
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posted by 0bvious
on Oct 16, 2007 -
26 answers
