myResearchSpace

It all started with me first being able to squeeze out a hundred words or so yesterday. I'm starting a new chapter so it's all weird and scary at the moment and I have no real structure to work with yet. As I agonised with the lack of existing structure, Sandra imparted some of her wisdom on me. Just write for an hour and a half in the morning - ...

My family headed over to the US to meet relatives a few months ago, and a local newspaper published this article about their travels (the image quality isn't fantastic): The Great Michigan Tour of '08 On my thesis front: not much going on at the moment, I've been tinkering on an article on the Eurovision Song Contest that I want to submit ...

Behold, some advice on staying motivated on past/long term projects. The bit about writing-down-your-ideas has, in admittedly a different format and context, kickstarted me in my thesis work after four consecutive semesters of teaching/procrastinating. My greatest recent moment in terms of thesis productivity occurred one night a week or ...

After briefly flirting with the idea of setting up at blogger, I've decided to revive my trusty Procrastinatrix. Perhaps if one day I really desperately want more people to read my insights and insipidity (is that a real word? it should be) I'll migrate, but for now I'll stay. Research So far all my excellent gimmicks at becoming more ...

...but not yet in this time zone. I've been out of town for three months, of which six weeks were dedicated to sitting in libraries reading. I might get back into blogging soon. As soon as I figure out how to sleep during the nights.

Yamin Ma submitted her PhD thesis today. She doesn't run a blog, so I'm making sure that recognition for her achievement reaches as many in the UWA community as possible. Yamin's thesis ended up with the title ''Vegetation as a biotic driver for the formation of soil geochemical anomalies for mineral exploration of ...

I'm on a judging panel at the moment to decide on the best computing thesis in Australia or New Zealand for 2007. So I have a box of theses to read, and no instructions on how to decide. Firstly, the good news is that this competition, like so many others that I find myself judging, is by nomination, and you'd be surprised how few people nominate ...

I love it when an examiner talks about ''the PhD'' in general, rather than simply the particulars of the one under consideration. When this happens, we get an insight into what examiners are looking for. Usually, such reflection occurs when the examiner is trying to explain to the candidate how a thesis might be improved - this is the formative ...

Any diagrams, figures, or images in your thesis must be treated in the same way as your text: they must be your own, or they must be appropriately cited. However, unlike text, when an image is copyrighted (and it is safe to assume that all are unless it is explicitly stated that they can be used with a citation only), then you must obtain ...

 (Bear with me, it might take a while for me to reach my point.)  *A while back there was some talk here on MRS about the viva/oral defence of theses and why it wasn't necessarily the best or easiest thing for Australian students (not least because we're all terrified of the concept) - although we all recognise it would be a valuable ...