Isn't it pretty much common sense that energy is measured in joules?

You would have thought so, I do try to point out that checking units is a helpful way to consider whether your answer might be reasonable, eg: If you're expecting an answer in metres per second and you get an answer in kilogrammes then you've probably done something wrong.

Evidently I need to add to that by saying that if the units indicate you've done something wrong then you should find out what that something is and correct it.

Have you got a viva date yet, Flossie?

If it was me I'd be keeping quiet and surprise you all when I pass

Vivas take ages to come through. My internal examiner has been on mat leave and I'm not sure if she's back yet.

How incosiderate of her to have a child just when you're submitting

Except that the general public's misguided affection for imperial measures means that most people have only heard of calories.
http://ukma.org.uk/Why/powerofmetric.aspx

Well, yes, but using mm is way off

Not PhD level but I remember once invigilating a maths exam where the pupils had to work out how many roses of each colour there were in a bunch. ("A bunch of 24 roses, 1/6 are red, 3/12 are white" etc.) One girl put up her hand to ask if the answer should be given as a fraction or a percentage. She couldn't see why there would be a problem with having "2 1/4 yellow roses" (or whatever she had found).

I would be quite happy (and impressed) for them to provide right answers in calories. At school if our teacher didn't specify the units he might get energy in newtonparsecs or something.

When I was at school (top set science, year 9) someone labelled the oesophagus as a fallopian tube.

Said person is now a nurse....

I'm getting really, really sick of everyone I meet asking me when my viva is. I a) don't have confirmation yet and b) wouldn't want the extra pressure of the whole world knowing anyway. Yes, some people are asking because they care, but there's also plenty who do it deliberately to unsettle people and make themselves look good.

*rant over*

I'm sorry that I asked at some point, it just seems a natural thing to ask. It must be annoying though, like everyone asking when I'm going to submit

Don't worry - it's not you asking. You're in the 'asking because you care and are supportive' camp anyways.

It's the people who ask so that they can get a kick out of telling everyone that X's viva is on such and such and "oh it will be interesting to see if she passes" and continually ask if you're ready and make comments about X, Y and Z having been told this and that about their theses and "you're work isn't as good as their's" etc and take great pleasure in trying to make themselves look good and intelligent and clever by rubbishing everyone else.

I can't decide whether this thread is a good advert for doing PhDs or not! In any case it's very interesting and has whet my appetite.

At least we're honest

This thread probably wasn't intended for this type of information but...



.....I'm off to examine a PhD in Manchester tomorrow!!



All you folks writting up can think of the poor victim!

Be nice to them

I hope she never nurses me.

If it's whet your appetite then we can't have done that badly. The thread was never intended to advertise PhDs though - we started it because we kept taking other threads off-topic with Phd discussions, rants and crises.





Be kind to them.

It's funny how people in earlier stages of their PhDs are usually really enthusiastic and excited... and the ones writing up are really disgruntled and irritated

I feel much better for having had my rant earlier.

Hehe, good. That's what this thread is for

I sent my supervisor my chapter the other day. I just feel nervous now

I'm not looking foward to results chapter no. 2. Where chapter 1 is quite specialised, this one feels like I'm opening a can of worms. It's about diabetes and heart disease so you can imagine that there's a fair bit of research out there

That's good to hear. Each little bit is getting you nearer, and a chapter is a huge achievement - especially with the structure you're using to write up. Your chapters are a lot meatier than mine were.

The thing is that my results chapters aren't meaty on writing. They're meaty on graphs. Very annoying graphs

I actually don't think I wrote enough in my other one, at all. It all suddenly looked rubbish when I had it all in one document but I couldn't think of anything to add to it

I know even less on this one as I've focused so much on the other stuff over the years. This is like a side project that I didn't do very well

Well that's what supervisors are for. You've done the donkey work for it now, and s/he'll help you to add the little bits if they're needed and tweak it to make it better and then you'll have a really good chapter.

I hope so. I'm really worried that he's going to tear it pieces or something. Eek I'm hoping that one's going to be halfway ok because this one is going to be worse He said it would be the harder one for him too because it's quite a different area and stuff.

I think once you've got this next one done you'll be on the home run. It might not feel like it until afterwards - but I think that once you get this next chapter going the whole thesis will start to slot into place more clearly.

Well after that it's just a 40 page introduction

But I don't mind introductions... not that I've ever written one that long.

And your conclusion - I hope.

I think you'll find the introduction easier than the other chapters. It's more straighforward in temrs of knowing what to include.

Oh yeah, the conclusion the ones in my department tend to be short - this one here is not even 4 pages long. Shouldn't be that bad compared to 40 pages

Mine was 14, but it isn't solid text.

To be honest, I don't really know what to write in it. There''ll be about 5 pages discussion at the end of each results chapter. I don't know what more I can conclude!

Well, just summarise what you've said in your other chapters and link back to your research questions or hypotheses and re-state what the contribution of your thesis is (don't be too modest here - you usually under sell yourself ). My conclusion didn't say anything that hasn't been said earlier in the thesis.

Ah, thanks I think I can do that

I should have planned this better, shouldn't I

I always tell my students that the general discussion should link themes from more that one chapter.





"The data in chapter 3 sugessted......however, different picture emerged from the experiments undertaken in chapte 5.....".



That sort of thing.

But what if they're sort of..... seperate?

I hate this entire chapter because the experiment is rubbish

Just had an e-mail from the sup to discuss the chapter I sent him last week. I actually had to e-mail him asking if it was really bad because I'm that nervous

You're as bad as me.

He said "It's not really bad but there's room for improvement"

I take it's not good either

There will always be 'room for improvement', however good something is. It doesn't sound that bad to me.

I think it has taken the edge off the nerves I guess

I need to read my thesis.

Read it and pretend you didn't write it

What I've written sounds really lame and pathetic.

If it sounds lame and pathetic I'm sure your supervisor wouldn't have let you submit

My supervisors say that they think it's fine, but I don't think I believe them. They can't really say anything else because it's too late to change it now. One of my supervisors hasn't even read the full thing properly before I handed it in - she'd had some bits for 4 months without having time to read them.

I'm sure it really is fine. We all doubt ourselves and our work far too much

Everyone else always seems so much better.