Month: October 2011

This post is from Dr Ali Daws and originally appeared on his most excellent blog, Writing on Writing. Ali is quite extraordinary, not the least for the fact that he is the only person I know to go and do a Masters degree AFTER he got his PhD ( just for interest – like you …continue reading.

This post is by our regular library correspondent, Dr Karen McAulay. In this post Karen asks: where and when do you do your best thinking? Are libraries the answer? Recently I read a blog post by Richard Watson, in which he reported that he had once asked a thousand people when and where they did …continue reading.

Do you ever have conversations with your partner like this?
(While relaxing over a nice meal and glass of wine)
Mr Krystle “Shouldn’t you be studying right now? How are you ever going to finish your PhD if you keep boozing up”
Krystle: “Arrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh!”
If the answer is yes, print this post out and put it on your fridge 🙂

Should you write papers while you are doing your PhD? Yes. Here’s some ways to include them in your thesis.

Ted Vickey writes: While at the Greek conference in June (yes the same conference at the time of the riots), people were sharing how they have structured their research and what technologies they use to keep organized – from iPads to websites. I pulled out my laptop and soon had a dozen people watching over my shoulder too see how I have set things up. This system might not be perfect and might not work for everyone, but it has worked great for me.

This guest post is by Lucy McAndrew, a second-year PhD research student in the field of Environmental Ethics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Lucy is a three-time VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) volunteer, environmental representative at local and council level (in a voluntary capacity) and particularly keen on investigating respect for marginalised interests. In …continue reading.

ow is the right time for a Research Student Association. I guess your first question is going to be: Why? Well, simply put: Money. A more complex answer revolves around the need for a student run organization that supports research students and has a budget to do so.

“But treating the thesis like a job didn’t minimise my anxiety very much, if at all. While I was going through these ‘job like’ motions at no time did doing the thesis really feel like a job – at least not a job as I understood it. For one thing I thought about my thesis all the time, even in my off hours – and the thinking made me either excited to get an idea on paper Right Now, or anxious. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the two feelings, but towards the end the anxiety took over and didn’t lift until the day I got my examiner reports back.”