Maybe you were subconsciously thinking that when you chose it

the other colours they had weren't very nice. There was a really pale blue, a bright green, a pukey green, a lemon, a bright yellow, a funny beige, cream, white, very pale pink or bright red.

The colour I chose goes with the maps and graphs I did.

Sounds like a good option

I'm tempted to say that ours only do green soft bound ones. I've never seen another colour

I'm not looking forward to all the costs for getting stuff bound...

soft bound is okay - mine were £2 per copy.

It's the hard bound ones I'm not looking forward to...

Did you have to get it printed aswell? Mine has lots of colour graphs and stuff

Yes, but the department pay for that. I had to get my supervisor to email out IT people with the number of pages and how many were black + white and colour and then they added the credits for 2 copies to my account. They didn't cover the third copy which I did for myself.

I had 41 colour pages (maps and graphs) and 250 black and white.

Make sure you allow plenty of time for printing. I thought it would take me a couple of hours, but I started at 3:30pm and finished at 1am (with two breaks).

Unfortunately I think I have to pay for it myself

So, 40p per page colour, 5p black and white. Soft binding appears to be around £10 (seriously!), hard bound around £20.

Argh.

I've just looked at the charges for our local binders. The soft copies of my thesis would have cost £9 each if I'd got them done there - the department charged me £2 for each one. The hard bound copies are £25 - shame my department doesn't do these.

I need to write some papers. Writing papers requires me to look at my thesis. I don't want to ever look at my thesis again...

I guess you'll have to look at your thesis before your viva anyway, so you might as well look at it now

I don't want to. I'd rather not find all the mistakes yet.

How are you getting on?

Slowly, as always

I sympathise on the not wanting to look at your thesis - I hate reading stuff that I've written. Even proofreading is a struggle..

I find proofreading my own work really difficult unless I've had a long gap from it. I always know what I've 'written' and read that - eventhough it is sometimes rather different to what's actually on the page.

I see what you mean - when you read something that you've written you always know what you intended to say, but someone else might not

I hate reading stuff I've written as I always tell myself that's it's total rubbish so it makes me cringe...

The best bit is that my preferred way of writing is by hand, and then typing it up later. I hate the typing up bit

Why is everything more fun than writing?

Writing is the boring bit.

How far have you got?

Done my methods (and one supervisor as read them), and most of one results chapter. But I think that all I've written is complete and utter nonsense

I've also done lots of housework instead

I don't believe it is nonsense.

Do the last bit of the results chapter and send it off to your supervisors even if you think it is nonsense. That way it's done and, yes, you'll need to change things but that will be easier to do later on once you've done some other chapters and can see how things link together. Once you get to the point where you're totally bogged down with something (like you are with this chapter) then it's best to just send off what you have and move on. Come back to it later when you have fresh eyes and feedback on what you've written.

Thanks

I guess the good thing is that I only have two results chapters. After that it's just the introduction and conclusion to go

So once this chapter's been emailed off to your supervisors you will be half-way through your draft. The introduction and conclusion will be shorter than the substantive chapters

Well, my intro needs to be about 40 pages long

*wonders how long her introduction was*

Not looked at your thesis since submitting?

Well you've just manged to trick me into looking at it.

My 'introduction' (i.e. the chapter of this name) was 11 pages, 3 of which were maps. But I also had two other introductory-type chapters. Having done a count, I have the following:
1) Introduction - 11 pages
2) Context chapter - 19 pages
3) Conceptual and theoretical chapter - 31 pages
4) Methodology - 41 pages
5) Results - 36 pages (only around half of this is text, if that)
6) Discussion 1 - 40 pages
7) Discussion 2 - 40 pages
8) Conclusion - 13 pages

The two discussion chapters were a mixture of results, evaluation and discussion. Not sure how I managed to make them the same length as each other.

Remember that I'm in a discipline which tends to have longer theses.

Interesting

Mine will be somewhat different...

Introduction - around 40 pages
Methods - 26 pages
Results 1 - 55-60ish (including brief into, lots of graphs and a few pages discussion at then end)
Results 2 - 40ish (as above)
Conclusions - not many.

At least I think it'll be a lots like this. I've got my friend's thesis to look at but she has something like 5 results chapters, so it's a bit different

I've just had a proper read of the first 3 sections of the 2nd discussion chapter. Bits of it are good but a lot is really cringe-worthy. Have found two typos already.

I wouldn't worry too much I've got my friend's thesis here (pre-viva) and within 5 minutes of reading it I found several referencing errors. She passed with minor corrections

Have you got any idea yet when your viva might be?

It's not for a while.

I see. Most people that I know had theirs 2-3 months after submitting. Other had theirs sooner...

They are 'supposed' to be around 3 months after submission but I know quite a few people who have waited over 6 months. It depends of the availability of the chosen examiners. One of mine is currently on maternity leave (although I think she's near the end of this).

6 months would be dreadful.

It really does depend on examiners. Some people like to have the leading names to go on their CV and they have to be booked a long way in advance - I can't say it's the approach I favour though and isn't what I've gone for.

We had one lass who waited nearly a year because she thought this was better than having a different examiner. .

Do people put their examiners on their CV?

They do in the area I work in.

I know it's a completely different system but in France the examiners write a report which follows you around for life Every time you apply for a university job you have to provide a copy of it.

Also under the French system, you fix a provisional date for a viva (at least six weeks but more usually two or three months) and submit your thesis to two external examiners. They have to write a pre-report authorising the viva to take place and this must be sent to the candidate and the supervisor at least two weeks before the viva date. Mine turned up exactly two weeks before and was delivered literally as I was walking out of the door to go to work. I tore the enveloppe open and just read the last sentence saying the viva was being authorised. I was so relieved that I didn't bother to read the rest and was pleasantly surprised when my supervisor phoned me up that evening to congratulate me on such excellent pre-reports.

I think the time between the end of the thesis and the viva is one of the worst. It's too late to change anything and all you can do is wait.

That's really interesting, kerioboe. I don't like the bit about the report following you around for life though

Hm, I've just finished my first batch of undergrad marking following starting lab demonstrating. Essentially an O-level physics experiment of hanging weights off beams and a few calculations following their bending.

Some of the answers are rather frustrating. Although one at least did amuse - in a list of potential problems he said there might have been some very strong magnets hidden under the desk lifting the weights up, thus throwing the calculations off.

You'll find this a lot. It sometimes feels like you're just banging your head against a brick wall.


Well, he was perfectly correct - it's just unlikely to occur in reality.

If he thought that was a problem he could have looked under the desk, and waved the steel rod about to see if he could feel any magnetic effect.

You might as well go:
For the purposes of this experiment it will be assumed that Newton's laws are a good approximation for day to day usage and will hold during the period of the experiment. It will also further be assumed that universal constants will remain constant during the period of the experiment and there will be no significant masses will be introduced near enough to the experiment to measurably affect the local gravtiy field.

I wish I had the confidence and self-belief to actually think that I could do this

I've been writing up for 6 months. I have one chapter, which might not even be complete as only one supervisor has seen it

I'm sure you can Claudia

I was talking to a friend yesterday who started her (science) PhD at the same time as you. She's still doing experiments and hasn't started writing up at all yet.....

Remember me thinking that it was impossible? It seemed it, but I got it done in the end (assumming I can get through the viva). You can do the same.

I thought I'd bump this up a bit before it gets too lost, and at the same time moan about the quality of some of the work from undergrads I'm getting to mark this term.

Sounds like I did well to stay away from undergrads during my PhD

I've enjoyed today's teaching. Some of them are now starting to grasp the concept of thinking for themselves.

I agree that marking can be very, very tedious and I do sometimes wonder how some of the students managed to get their 4 or 5 A grades at A-level. I've had to just learn to accept that the A-level system is totally different now and try to steer them towards what's actually expected of them at university including the study skills and critical thinking skills. In line with departmental policy, I do not change the standards I mark to though just because the students are now starting from a different point.

I found A levels harder than my degree

Believe me, that quality of some of the demonstrators (when you're an undergrad) leaves a lot to be desired. It works both ways...

I think I gave up around the time I had to explain to a Chemistry graduate (now running Chem Eng labs) about how y = mx + c means you can get the gradient of a straight line from its slope, and got an essay back with marks knocked off for using subtitles.

(Report = use subtitles. Essay = no subtitles. So says the guidance we were explicitly instructed to follow.)

Lots of our lab reports during the first year of undergrad were peer-marked.

We once got a mark for stapling a report together

Yes it does. Language skills and differences in the education system in other countries (which have not always been fully understood by some postgrads, who have had problems understanding the UK system and what is expected/required from the undergrads) have sometimes proved to be particularly difficult in my current department. The department is now quite careful about who it allows to undertake tutoring duties and those postgrads who are unfamiliar with the UK education system and expectations are only given demonstrating duties to start with (and these are always done with a lecturer and 1 or more postgrads) - and the same applies if the department has any doubt about their language skills or subject knowledge. That said problems do still crop up from time to time...

The ones I have (first year surveying undergrads) are doing a simple physics experiment (hanging weights off bars of different materials). IF they read the instructions and follow them they should be getting a B at least, but judging from their homework a sizeable number seem to have a very limited understanding of what they've spent three hours doing. In marking their work and being told that the energy stored is so many square millimetres doesn't inspire confidence, especially when they're provided with a table that clearly says the energy is measured in joules.