Just an interim post as milestones have come up in conversation recently, outside and inside of this blog, also I haven’t had that perfect day I talked about. I’ve got my first actual milestone as the university’s research council see it. The registration point in fact is the only milestone until my final year starts when I transfer from the MPhil to the Ph.D. The council are kind enough to provide the following graphic.
I think what’s above kinda simplifies the whole process too much. Doesn’t say anything about induction, presenting internally, publishing or anything before submission but hey, I suppose they’re not trying to intentionally scare anyone! And also every school and discipline is different.
I have to submit this registration document by 2nd April, else my supervisor will have to fill in a form. I hope to have it in by then but it’ll all depend on how well I write, (It contains my research proposal.) and the feedback I receive in the next week or so. My next actual milestone, (as I see it) is trying to get some work published. The submission deadline for that is 10th April and will be for this.
Needless to say I have been working on my registration document today, I also have had to battle with Microsoft Project, (Which is about as intuitive to use as a fart is to catch, still after many many iterations.) in order to Gantt Chart time spent and time to be spent in the coming 30 or so months as part of the document.
Tip-of-the-day: Part of good writing is a good style, especially if you prefer to fumble with MS Word rather than LaTeX. If you are using Word you might find this 1minute video useful when it comes to numbered headings, just remember to right click both the headings and select “Styles” > “Update Heading N to match selection” when you’ve implemented it. It’s so simple yet I thought trying to edit the heading styles via the “Format…” > “Numbering…” options in the modify wizard was the way forward. How wrong I was huh, that wasted 20mins and caused *BEAN SMASH*.