Some great formatting

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

With an OK thesis attached.

Does anyone else feel that their PhD is being reduced to this?

[BrexitSucks]

Don't think mine was formatted all that well. Oh dear. Fail at the first hurdle?!

[LadyPenelopeCreightonWard]

I only started this year and I'm teaching myself LaTeX in preparation!

Tbf once you get the hang of it you can just type and the formatting is done for you especially if you have older friends you can swipe templates from.

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

I submitted today. I did a training course and used a style sheet and everything but the fucking software still removed all my italics the moment my back was turned.
Spent the weekend in a frenzy of indecision over ellipses in quotations.
Realised at the 11th hour that page number citations in the bibliography were inconsistent.
By the time I'd sorted it all I really didn't give a shit whether the thesis was any good.

[tatohead]

I remember mendeley utterly fucking my thesis formatting as it crashed word for the 200th time. I ended up doing my references manually.

[Guitargirl]

I did all my references and bibliography manually. I didn't even use headings in Word. Old school, me.

[Guitargirl]

And well done on submitting OP.

[BrexitSucks]

omg... manual.. shudder.
I Luffs Endnote.

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

I have a glass of champagne at my elbow. Celebrations organised for tomorrow and Thursday!

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

Just couldn't get Endnote to behave for me. Random bits of punctuation and so on.

[Guitargirl]

🎉🍾

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

Thank you! That is so lovely.

[Guitargirl]

Do you have a viva date yet?

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

Not yet. Late June is most likely I think.

[Guitargirl]

Good luck! Come back and let us know you get on and in the meantime bask in the warm glow of having got the bloody thing in!

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

Thank you so much! As I said, I have been so preoccupied with the spaces around my ellipses and before and after obliques that I have completely lost sight of what the thesis is actually about or whether any of it matters.
But it is finished! I have submitted! Life resumes!

[LadyPenelopeCreightonWard]

Oh congratulations OP! Enjoy your champagne 🍾

[anonymice]

I am like you guitar girl. All manual. And they still awarded my doctorate. Congratulations on submitting Aspasia !!!

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

Thank you! Feeling the cloud lift is beyond amazing.

[Guitargirl]

I found it took a while for the adrenalin to wear off. And then because I hadn't read any 'normal' books for ages, I panic bought a load on Amazon and then read those obsessively. Basically I had forgotten what normal life was like .

[anonymice]

I read drivelsome children's books for about 6 months afterwards. It was like my brain had turned to mush....

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

Drivelsone children's books sound most appealing!
I have to make a wedding cake which will be an excellent way of decompressing I think.

[MilesHuntsWig]

Good luck! LaTeX was deffo the way fwd...

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

Am so enjoying the virtual party in our little corner of Mumsnet.

[anonymice]

and all round. Although possibly not at 11am....

[AspasiaFitzgibbon]

Thank you!
(I don't see why not ... )
It really is only people who have been through the process themselves who can fully appreciate what it means to be free of the thing at last, so I am very very grateful to everyone here.
People in RL only get it up to a point.
But God it is wonderful sitting here pissing about with my phone and thinking hmm, maybe I should go and paint my nails.