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
Help me rescue my analytical faculties so I can survive the last months of grad school with my dignity intact.
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posted by avocet
on Apr 21, 2013 -
16 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
Hi Mefites!
So I'm wondering if anyone can help me in finding something to argue in a 5-6 page paper regarding 'cultural contact zones' in Orwell's essay ' A Passage to India'.
Specifically, "the concept of a “contact zone” emphasizes how subjects are constituted in and by their relations to each other, usually involving conditions of coercion, inequality, and conflict. It treats the relations among colonizers and colonized not in terms of separateness but in terms of interaction and interlocking understandings and practices, often within radically asymmetrical relations of power." ( this is part of the prompt). Any suggestions? I'm usually a fairly competent writer but am having trouble here.
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posted by marsbar77
on Mar 2, 2013 -
15 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
I will be need to present my thesis (which is a 200 page theoretical book) to an audience in about a week. Some of the audience will have read it, but the majority will have not. The argument of the book is too complex and extended to summarize into a 10 minute presentation, so I am not sure what to present. If I try to condense it or if I select just a part to present, the result will be that the whole book will be judged based on that one part.
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posted by cmp4Meta
on Jan 21, 2013 -
11 answers
I'm writing my MA capstone research paper and feel like I need to step up my game with managing citations and possibly using something other than Word. Help?
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posted by brilliantine
on Sep 6, 2012 -
11 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
Where can I find dissertations with excellent design? I would like to directly copy someone's LaTeX formatting for a hard-science thesis.
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posted by tintexas
on Jun 27, 2012 -
9 answers
I need advice on how to finish this master's thesis that is consuming me with guilt, anxiety and helplessness
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posted by zinful
on Jun 1, 2012 -
25 answers
I graduate in two weeks and my senior thesis is still unwritten due to a myriad of circumstances. Should I just scrap it and take my BA without the honors distinction?
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posted by shesdeadimalive
on May 7, 2012 -
35 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
Google's bots are returning 403 errors on all my pages on a Wordpress-based site running the Thesis theme. I'm out of troubleshooting ideas. Halp?
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posted by bitter-girl.com
on Feb 4, 2012 -
17 answers
Graduate school issues. Starting my thesis this upcoming semester. Just the other day, my tentative advisor suggested that I switch to another advisor. Is it weird to ask a professor to be an advisor for my thesis a week before the semester starts? And what's the best way to ask?
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posted by mcmile
on Jan 8, 2012 -
11 answers
What is the best way to get access to a thesis published in 1966 in L'Universite Nancy Faculte des Sciences, France?
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posted by dhruva
on Jan 6, 2012 -
15 answers
Is there an app that can help me take notes, tag them by topic, then export my notes by tag while retaining information about their source?
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posted by incandescentman
on Nov 7, 2011 -
9 answers
How do you properly reference an online forum post in a masters thesis using APA 6?
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posted by meech
on Oct 11, 2011 -
1 answer
How do you write about religion historically? I'm writing my history honors thesis on evangelical Christians, but all of my drafts sound theological and not historical. When I try to fix the problem, I end up just reciting facts.
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posted by kingfishers catch fire
on Oct 8, 2011 -
15 answers
Can you suggest resources or further ideas for a student starting a master's thesis in philosophy (the topic touches on racism and discrimination)?
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posted by keijo
on Sep 19, 2011 -
12 answers
I'm just starting my undergraduate thesis, and would like a backup method a bit more reliable then my standard 'ThesisV3.tex' + emailing it to myself method. I've never worked with version control before, though I'm sure I can figure that out. I am however worried about *where* to have my offline backup sync too.
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posted by Canageek
on Sep 8, 2011 -
25 answers
I need advice on a professional Wordpress theme for my organization's web site. We will be doing most of the site creation and maintenance in-house; our staff has no specialized knowledge in any web languages but is comfortable using Google and following directions for what to insert into various files. What theme is going to give us the least headaches for our efforts?
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posted by philosophygeek
on Jun 28, 2011 -
7 answers
I am considering writing a senior honors thesis. Please help me work through the various worries I have so I can make a decision.
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posted by pecknpah
on Apr 1, 2011 -
22 answers
I'm looking for feedback from grad students who have used a thesis or dissertation coach. How did it work out for you?
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posted by analog
on Feb 14, 2011 -
9 answers
I'm in the process of looking at graduate schools in philosophy, which is a difficult task when trying to match up my niche specialty with potential professors. I've been able to track down five different professors, but I was wondering if it would be rude to ask if they had any suggestions on where/who to look. I'm located in the United States, but this academic community is 99% located outside of here, and browsing the associated journals and conferences hasn't been too helpful because the names I'm coming across are graduate students and names that aren't popping up on Google.
posted by anonymous
on Jan 19, 2011 -
14 answers
Can I put a manually updated home page in front of what WordPress generates, using the Thesis theme framework?
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posted by aaronetc
on Nov 30, 2010 -
8 answers
Any ideas on where I can find a list or a book detailing corporate corruption of scientific fact for their gain?
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posted by emilyclaire
on Oct 25, 2010 -
13 answers
Is it silly or futile to try and convince my university to copyleft (rather than copyright) my Master's thesis?
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posted by tybeet
on Oct 20, 2010 -
20 answers
Help me choose my thesis topic, which exists somewhere in the confluence of techno-sociology, media studies, developmental psychology, and the study of attention.
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posted by Roach
on Sep 30, 2010 -
5 answers
I'm using Latex to write my Master's thesis. I love how pretty everything looks in PDF, but there has to be an easier way to do the actual writing, right?
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posted by snoogles
on May 13, 2010 -
16 answers
ThesisFilter: What voice should I write my thesis in? First/second/third person? Active? Passive? Passive-agressive?
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posted by ubermuffin
on Apr 25, 2010 -
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
CSS Filter: I've implemented a couple CSS image position properties on my new site design using "position:relative." My problem is that somehow the images I've added, with links, have disabled all links to to the right of the image. Is there any way to fix this? (link to page inside)
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posted by Unsomnambulist
on Apr 4, 2010 -
5 answers
I go to a small Liberal Arts school in Pennsylvania, and part of the graduation requirements involve writing a substantial Senior Composition, basically a baby thesis (Original research requirements, rigorous, etc.) I'm double-majoring in Physics and English, and I'd love to be able to combine both of these subjects into one comprehensive paper, especially because if i can't, I have to write two separate ones.
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posted by Archibald Edmund Binns
on Nov 18, 2009 -
18 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
Looking for a thesis topic related to the internet and society...please help give me some direction!
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posted by metametababe
on Oct 28, 2009 -
8 answers
