TChem @ 127 Having a job offer was very helpful for me, but YMMV on that one.
But try to ensure you have a break between handing in your thesis and starting a job: I handed mine in on the Friday and started on the Monday - never really got a break, couldn't bear to look at the thesis for months (except for just before the viva, of course), got too busy with work and never wrote up the papers - which I regret.
Jacque @ 106: See #102 (we crossed). Hope some of it is useful.
Thanks for the link to the book review - I may get the book (I'd like to learn better how to write interesting articles etc.).
Pendrift @89, Lee @ 100: I don't think any of this will help you sit down and finish a project, but hey, maybe someone will find some of it useful.
- Double-check the word limit, and whether the appendices count in this. If you are skirting close to the edge and a graph counts as zero words while a table counts as 250, put the graph in the thesis and the table in the appendices.
- Double-check references and TRIPLE-check that you have correctly entered the details of any references from your external supervisor - those are the ones they will check for accuracy. N.B. don't just cut-and-paste from someone else - they may have got it wrong.
- If there are any bits that might be queried (e.g. an experiment not done with as many iterations as would have been preferred), explain the reasons why (constraints) in the thesis: if you explain before you are asked, it is an explanation. If you wait until it has been queried, you are giving an excuse.
- Get someone else to proof read the whole thesis for you, including the reference list if they can bear it. It is EXTREMELY difficult to proofread your own work, since you know exactly what you intended to write… N.B. proofreading takes time - don't ask for this the day before the thesis is due in.
- Note that the smallest mistakes can be the most important. I've read a review article in which a reputable scientist got someone else's paper 100% wrong (I noticed because I'd read it just the day before) - I think the word "not" must have got missed out in the reviewer's summary of the findings... In a very good reference book, there's a table in which codes "a" and "b" were used to represent "virus isolated" and "antibody demonstrated" - but (as I know from checking the references) had been reversed.
- Before handing in the thesis to be bound (if it has to be bound before being sent off to the examiners), or before it is sent to the examiners:
a) Check that, in every copy, every page is present, once and once only, in the correct order. It is extremely easy to put a “spare†old page in as a placeholder, for example for a page which you are printing out on a colour printer, then forget to remove the placeholder when you add the page in. Similarly it is easy to have to make a change in the Table of Contents, or the List of Figures, or List of Tables, then end up with both the old and the new version (or neither!) in one copy of the thesis.
b) Check that all figures and all tables are present in each copy.
(I know this sounds boring, but it saves the embarrassment of writing to the examiners to say "please find enclosed figure 6a, to be included after page 254")
- If you have a deadline for handing in your thesis, and it needs hard binding first, don’t forget that binding may take a few days or cost extra for a rush job.
Caroline and others getting bored with writing papers/theses: a great paper I came across recently: "How to write consistently boring scientific literature" available at: http://www.indiana.edu/~halllab/GradRes/BoringWriting.pdf
Enjoy
Velma,
I don't know either of you personally, but sympathies, best wishes and good luck for a speedy recovery from this latest.
And what Davis Harmon said @ 125: get some rest when you can.
Caroline @ 56
When I'm bored with something that has to be completed, I often find putting music on helps - I actually have a note by my desk reminding me to to this. Perseverence is key, in my experience (one PhD thesis and several book-sized projects on). Having said that, sometimes yes, doing something else you really want to do can brighten you up (as opposed to not doing the thing you want to do, then sitting brooding over the fact you can't do it, rather than getting on with the *$!^ project you have to finish).
I've read several times that many people, writing up their PhD, end up with a wonderfully clean and tidy house, etc. etc. - anything to avoid actually sitting down and writing the thesis - so you're not alone in this.
I put a relevant quote at the start of each chapter of my thesis - it was fun finding them. You could allow yourself to go hunting for one quote for each chapter, after you've finished the chapter, as a reward?
And, I have a set of notes for how to avoid some potential embarrassments with typos, mising figures etc. in your thesis which I could e-mail to you or post on here if you think you might find them useful - some of them sound really obvious but they all come from my own experience and I'd rather help other people to avoid them than pretend they never happened.
Emma @ 77 'Is that Mrs or Miss?' ... 'Dr, actually'. Very useful at times."
Yes, that's a definite benefit.
SylvieG @7: My sympathies. Ignore anyone who says you shouldn't be grieving for a dog. But don't feel guilty when you find yourself laughing at something, or forgetting your sorrow for moments, minutes or even hours - that's natural and normal. Eventually you'll probably be ready for another dog. In my experience, the joy of sharing life is worth the eventual pain, hard though it is to bear the pain.
Abi @ 800. Kids too old for bicycle seats and still a bit young to make reasonable speed on their own bikes are a problem. How popular are those "trainer" add-ons to fit on the back of the bicycle so the child also pedals?
cycling on the street is nasty, dull, brutish and life-shortening I cycle in central London, but probably only because I got addicted to the cycle during six years in Cambridge. Folding bikes are wonderful - you can take them on the train, even in rush hour. Cycling means I don't have to take the Tube (which I loath) and it takes me between places which are not Tube- or bus-connected (most of the places I need to travel between).
I'm quite pleased how little we use the car - we'll often not use it for two or three weeks at a time. We've considered joining one of the car pool/hire groups (assuming there's one near us). BUT they take away the convenience factor: if we need the car NOW.
abi @ 748
Sadly, what you're saying has a fair amount of truth. On the other hand, some areas of small, non-chain and mainly specialty shops, particularly in touristy areas, are doing better in the recession than chain-laden high streets. Personally, I loath the big malls and we very rarely venture near one.
As for living without a car, there is a half-way house: we have a car, but except on very rare occasions take public transport (or train plus bicycle, for me) to work, and often use the bus to get to the nearest town (or again, if it's just me, bicycle). Having a car is convenient - it takes you door-to-door and sadly rail fares are so high that for travelling, say, from London to Manchester (suburbs in both cases), it's cheaper to pay for petrol - even with the high prices - than buy one, let alone two, return tickets. And of course the rural rail network was gutted decades ago.
Nicole: sympathies; good luck for a rapid and complete recovery for Null.
David Harmon @ 753 The big thing to realize is that "training" an uncooperative creature without having to hurt it, is very dependent on having a strong power imbalance on your side
That's why positive reinforcement training is preferable - it involves training a cooperative creature, which situation does not require a power imbalance. The animal gets to choose whether or not to cooperate. Of course, you encourage it to choose to cooperate by rewarding cooperation, but there is no coercion involved.
I'm with you. I remember watching it on the news, with my parents, not quite believing, not quite daring to believe that the armed forces wouldn't step in.
Yes, I shed a tear at the memory. And I'll lift a glass and drink to hope.
I have a chunk of the wall as well, that I was given. At least, that's what I was told, but I've heard it's a bit like Barrayaran royal wedding groats - the total would add up to more than the full wall.
This article was jaw-dropingly horrifying. The "apology" was, if anything, worse. I was glad to see that the vast majority of commentators had the same reaction.
Just to add my tuppence worth to the points made by Dichroic @ 17 and Anna Feruglio Dal Dan @ 35: training for long-distance running is hard work and time consuming (says she, having trained for and completed her first half-marathon recently). One of the reasons I'm not (yet) intending to try for a full marathon is because I recognise the level of training involved and I don't think I can fit it into my life at the moment - and that's without trying to get to competition level.
Hilary Hertzoff @ 319
You're right; there are a lot of sites out there and it can be difficult to know which ones are providing good information.
A good UK-based one (most of the information is universal, of course) is Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund (http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/). They have a whole load of useful leaflets and advice sheets linked from Advice and resources - Information leaflets and advice. (http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/index.php?section=leaflets.html)
Their .pdf leaflet on flystrike is at:
http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/content/leaflet_pdfs/flystrike_sep_05.pdf
In the US, I think the House Rabbit Society is quite good - http://www.rabbit.org/
Hilary Hertzoff @ 313
Bit expensive idea: UV/electrocution grid: attractor light which electrocutes the flies (as seen in butchers' shops etc.)
Cheap idea but less fly-welfare friendly*: fly strips hung from the ceiling (sticky plus toxic agent; flies get caught and then are killed by the toxin) - it's well out the way of the rabbits.
To protect the rabbits: if they are clean around their back end, and you're checking that daily, and they don't have any wounds or e.g. damp dewlaps that could attract the flies, then they are unlikely to get flystrike. However, if you are concerned, there are products designed for rabbits, such as permethrin spot-on products (but not if they are in close contact with cats). There's also cyromazine, which is an insect growth inhibitor. It doesn't repel flies but it stops larvae developing from L1 to L2.
Remember that high temperatures are stressful to rabbits - don't overheat them while trying to protect them from flies. Screens on the windows?
* I know, most people don't worry about such things but I do. If I have to kill, even an invertebrate, I want it to be a humane death.
Lori Coulson @ 239: Oops - hit post without finishing... You can get medication for osteoarthritis in cats - not so easy as in dogs (use of NSAIDs needs to be balanced against effects on kidneys), but can be used. Makes sense that osteoarthritis might be worse in cold weather.
Paul A. @ 240: Great picture! They have amazingly long, fluffy tails.
Lori Coulson @ 239: Sadly, no I'm not getting to work with real snow leopards, just read all about them and their diseases and health care and put all the information together. They are amazing - described by researchers as unaggressive - and they have fantastic scent-based systems of keeping apart from one another (so not messing up hunting) except for during the mating season. Cubs stay with their mother for ages as well, while they learn to hunt.
However, I have worked with all sorts of other species including cranes and wallabies and lemurs and 16,000 oiled penguins, so I've been lucky, really.
Lead weights: but please don't use them for fishing. A very large number of waterbirds (particularly loons and swans), die each year after ingesting lead fishing weights (sinkers, jigs), lead shot etc. (they take them in as grit to help grind up food in the gizzard). Ingestion of even one 0.5 g piece of lead sinker/jig can be fatal in a loon and 2-3 pieces of lead shot in a swan.
Secondary lead poisoning has been a major problem in reintroducing the Californian condor as well: the condors are feeding on carcasses of animals which were shot with lead bullets.
Recycling stuff rather than dumping it is a great idea - one I use when possible, although I have had some funny looks when "recycling" something out of a skip (including bookcases, insulating foam etc.), and the police once turned up when my mother-in-law and I were scavenging odd pieces of wood from outside a timber merchant's (with the firm's permission) late at night...
It's always a pity when protectionism or personality conflicts get in the way of carrying out good ideas.
Lori Coulson @ 172
Apologies, but I'm not sufficiently up-to-date with domestic cat neurology to make a sensible suggestion (I'm actually better at snow leopard neurological diseases at present).
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