[Closed] Starting to write my Thesis

Your introduction e.t.c should be the last thing you write. Makes it much easier!

Use black as the font colour. That usually stops things looking rediculous.

Introduction yes,

completely agree.

However the aim defines the feeling or story of the thesis and the objectives define what will come in the subsequent chapters so defining them earlier on will give me a nice clear direction.

Obviously they will change if I find that what I am writing is veering away from what is written!

When is it due in?

Write your results, discussion, aims, introduction. In that order. You won't know what you need to introduce or what your aims were until you have your results down! Are you a scientist or arts? If arts then I have no idea........

Sounds cynical but it is the only way to do it and stay sane / maximize bike time.

Whats the thesis for? 2nd PhD going by your user name 😉 (unless you are really an MD trying to get a real "Dr")

Is "DrDomRob" A bit premature then? 😉

I feel your pain though, I'm a couple of chapters in but every time I re-read it I think it's a big bunch of cr@p.

don - final submission March '11, first draught Jan/Feb '11

Shackleton - Still in the process of getting results (Stupid hardware letting me down) not enough to do any meaningful post processing yet.... It's getting a bit tight!

Edit: "premature"!!! It's normally only my missus that uses that word..... But yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I admit I liked the user name so figured I'd get there one day!

And remember that you are the world expert on your minute topic. You also know where the bodies are buried and where the holes are. Either make sure they are well covered in your discussion or make them appear not to be holes! Chances are your external won't pick up on most of them as they lack the necessary knowledge or insight into your set up. Again, if you are doing arts then I have no idea how true this would be.

As a serious aside, write when you can. If you have a block, go for a ride. If you feel the urge to write at 2am do it. I found routine helped. I wrote from 8am until 12 and then went for a ride. After lunch I went into the lab for a couple of hours to get papers together. Usually home by 5 for a relaxing evening. Stressing out will only hinder you.

Don't, whatever you do, tot up the words you've written over the course of a PhD. It is a scary number when you compare it to the final thesis word count.

Cheers Shackleton,

I am doing Engineering Doctorate, (a PhD with some other bits). I shall try and sort myself a routine though, at the moment I seem to be just going around and around in circles with this tiny little bit!!

thesis .. piece of cake i've written three , orthapedic surgery for diabetics, managing discipline in a large multi site business and 20th century hungarian history.. I'm a plumber and i left skool with 5 o levels ( 2 at grade U) a couple of hundred quid ought to cover it..

MrSalmon, good luck with yours, what area are you studying in?

clearly totalshell you are a man mountain amongst academics!

Computer Science, although I'm at the slightly wishy-washy end of the spectrum.

. I'm a plumber and i left skool with 5 o levels ( 2 at grade U) a couple of hundred quid ought to cover it..

You're still in a better position than many people with a PhD. I've finished mine, had no end of problems with the examiner, no support from the department and despite not going straight from uni to PhD and so having good work experience, being a better programmer than most of peers, I am having massive problem finding a job. Pissed off dose not even begin to describe how I feel.

Whatever you do, don't end it with "And then I woke up and realised it was all a dream". I got marked down a couple of times for that.

Haha...

Currently listening to the best of the hollies to try and give me some inspiration...

I fear I have entered the world of procrastination again....

Mr Salmon - hardware or software?

The Brick - Sounds rubbish 🙁

I am not gonna lie, I kinda hope I am going to be able to pick up a post with my sponsoring company for at least a 5 year term.... But that is little more than hopeful at the moment.

I kinda hope I am going to be able to pick up a post with my sponsoring company

Should be a good chance of a nice reference at least!

learn to use THE FEAR to your advantage

I agree with use the fear! Wrote my thesis up in seven weeks! One week per chapter with a last week to edit! Minor corrections then bound never to be opened again!
Aim...what is the question you are answering in your thesis
Objectives...how are going to answer the question

Good luck

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGHH

Set yourself a daily word target (1000 words a day was mine) and then just write. Even if it isn't on the section you need to do, just write something, anything that gets you to the target. You'll get into a routine and find it easier to start.

Crikey ... Are you guys really going for Permanent Head Damage (PhD)? 😯

Just finished the post viva corrections on mine - there's some good advice from other people above. I'd second the 'if you want to work do, if you have a block get away from the computer' sentiment.
I was lucky as I had a big transfer report where I had written the intro; the methods I wrote as I went so all that was left was results and discussion. I also had defined experiments for each chapter so I treated them as individual components.
I think the difficulty in writing a Phud is not what you write but how it's ordered to create a reasoned argument that is has a common thread through out.
Oh and if you haven't had the viva yet (it says you'll submit in March '11 in the above post?????)unless you are amazing the viva will last at least a couple of hours. Afterwards all the academics you know will ask you 'how long was your viva?' and then tell you all about how they/someone they know/one of their students only had twenty minute vivas. Please don't do what I did and say gosh they must be very good and feel a bit inadequate - DO turn around and say the external must have found them really boring if they wanted out after only twenty minutes....
Good luck, it's a bitch to write but the piss up is well worth it.

Your introduction e.t.c should be the

last thing you write. Makes it much easier!

I agree with use the fear! Wrote my thesis up in seven weeks! One week per chapter with a last week to edit! Minor corrections then bound never to be opened again!

SEVEN WEEKS!? I must have spent the best part of seven weeks drawing the diagrams for mine, let alone anything else. What subject was it in?

I agree with use the fear! Wrote my thesis up in seven weeks! One week per chapter with a last week to edit! Minor corrections then bound never to be opened again!

Each night 'park' your thesis at the top of a hill - it's easier to get going the next day. By this I mean don't come to a natural end the previous day - stop writing even tho you may want to write a little more - make a few bullet points. That way the next day you actually start writing again and avoid that staring into the computer screen nightmare. Also turn your router off. It also helps if your subject is the physiology and bioenergetics of ultraendurance mountain bike racing 😉

I wrote my aims last - conveniently they were things I had already done 😀

If you can come up with a 'story' that flows through the thesis it helps a lot. Remember to step back every so often and see how the thing hangs together - it is very easy to get bogged down in details.

Do you have any papers you can adapt?

The Brick what type of jobs have you been applying for? what languages are your strongest?

Did you do well on the PHD itself?

I've sometimes though about doing a PHD one day.. but finding myself in the situation you describe is what would put me off

Finbar and Don Simon...yep i passed! And even have a related job! I built a sensor using Surface Plasmon Resonance to monitor multiple microbes in buildings. Didnt sleep much over the seven weeks but I did have a good transfer report and papers that I could use which helped. I was also ubber organised when it came to writing up.

Dr Mema!

writing my thesis was easy, starting writing it however was a nightmare. Just sit down and force yourself to write for an hour and see what you come up with and go from there.

I started with my introduction, then did chapters of individual experiemnts, then discussion then summary...

I'm just starting to write my end of year 1 report. I cannot even begin to imagine being in your position! Hopefully this is a normal feeling.

Best of luck to you.

My aims were last as the work i ended up doing was waiting for some crucial results to be interpreted and confirmed, Was actually very easy that way. Introduction then all the experimental stuff then results (the ones i had) then conclusions then aims. That way my conclusions fulfilled my aims nicely.

ref above. it took about 7 weeks just to do the referencing and spell checks.

hardware or software?

I suppose you'd say software, but it's not really software development as such. It's more about interesting* applications of computational intelligence approaches than the software itself.

*May not be very interesting at all.

(Mr MC posting)
I started with experimental techniques, results, then discussion then the rest of it. A long road starts with a first step blah blah, so if you can make the start easy its less daunting, and youll also reassure yourself by getting a lot written quickly which makes the mountain look smaller (or road shorter, I was a scientist not arts!).

Once youve got some direction on the structure from the middle section youll know what literature is relevant for your review, and be able to tune your aims and objectives so that youve met them in your conclusions as others have said 😀

Mine was in electron microscopy of catalysts, and the cat I spent the first year looking at was completely dropped in the second year, and then I started looking at another cat system in my third year and ended up writing up on the latter two. All I carried from my 1st year was the actual techniques learned.

I did two postdocs, a year in industry, then joined the police 🙄

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the input.

jcromton - I remember that feeling, what felt like 20 minutes later but was actually 2yrs 9 months later I was thinking AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH - how has it taken this long to do so little!!!! Once you start writing though you realise you have done a lot, and still have loads more to do/holes to fill.

I am now writing up the "Milestones" I need to hit to hand in on time.

I have had some really big problems with my testing, I am trying to build up a load history for a big orange and blue boat, so have covered one with strain gauges, that was 11 months ago.... I am still having issues with the data collection processes.

The data logging hardware wasn't as capable as the manufacturer said it was but it took 7 months to discover despite having one of their most senior software engineers looking over my shoulder and helping me!

And now the boat is a 6hr drive away!!!

Still it wouldn't be fun if it wasn't a challenge 😀

Keep the write up stories coming, it'll make me feel better!!!!!

Mr MC - Awesome, I bet you confound a few people who assume you are a bit daft!!!

I know a lecturer at a big uni who also works part time as a Lifeguard on the South Coast over the summer... He's had some amusing arguments!

My advice would be to put in rough headings for all of your thesis right at the start if possible, accepting that they'll change around a bit later. Add subheadings under these and so on until you have a rough structure. Then starting adding in rough ideas for paragraphs etc. Keep building on this structure, putting notes into the different sections as you think of stuff. Keep doing this for the chapters you're not working on as you think of relevant bits. I made all my figures for each chapter first, and then went through and built on the notes I made afterwards. By having the structure in place early, I've found the whole process not too daunting as by the time you start a chapter, you've already got plenty of notes to type up. This is particularly relevant for the discussion, make lots of notes of discussion points as you write your results and methodology. Good luck!

@brakeswithface - really good advice!

The figures are often the most time consuming too, but they tend to show the 'story'. Cliched, but a picture really does tell a 1000 words (and then you can claim to have written 1000 words that day 8) )

The iterative paragraphs thing works well. It lets you break work down into small achievable segments - the feeling of having finished a section no matter how small really makes a difference.

AAAAAAAAAAARRRGGH

IT JUST WON'T WRITE ITSELF!

Just man up and get it done. Really, it's the only way.

This can help tho: set a timer, 20mins say, with an alarm to go off (on a mac there's various for the dashboard).

If it goes off and you've nothing done since the last buzzer, set it again, get up go away from the computer. Read a book, watch some telly, fettle your bike, come back when it goes again. Hopefully refreshed.

Also good: pint of chocolate milk and fire in three espressos.

(Dr IA, multi-agent systems)

Username change in the offing then Dom? 🙂
What conditions are you writing up in? Like are you working full-time - that is never easy. If you've got a free run at it though - just have to pull yourself together I am afraid.

If there's some conceptual problem you're having with pulling the material together then you should speak to your advisor - it's their job to help with things like that.

my problem after doing my PhD is I now just can't do a 'normal' job. Have no interest in 9-5 or 8-6 or whatever hours in the same place day in day out. It's not the hours as I'll do 60hrs a week no problem but something else.

Looking into getting in medical engineering/materials and nano-3D printing (self employed now) and failing that might just go back to Uni and do medicine!

Actually I think my problem is I want to do too much! Had the same problem with my PhD. I still put in quite a bit of time each week helping students at my old Uni as I love helping them with their work and giving them new ideas and explaining things to them. I've got no interest in their work directly (that is their work and nothing to do with me and I switch off from it) but I do benefit in return as when I get stuck into suggesting things for them to try it keeps my creativity buzzing.

Just noticed that this thread was started at the time when I was finishing writing up. My 2p is as follows:

Cut and paste any old crap from papers etc into a rough outline of the 'meat' of the thesis. Then you have a good idea of how the overall flow of the results will be. This 'story' then informs what you need or can ignore from the literature in your intro/review sections. Next come conclusions and future work (future work is v. important) which should be clear from the content. Lastly, abstract and intro.

I found the best way to work was to fire out a rubbish draft quickly (6 wks) and then spend a significant amount of time refining and reworking it (another 6 wks). This way, you avoid 'blank page' problems. Also, don't be frightened of keeping it short and sweet: 150 pages max IMO (no examiner wants to read 400 pages when 130 would do).

I think of it as taking a truly massive dump: painful and feels like it will go on for ever, but eventually you'll be left satisfied and a little sore.

Dr Choron (EE)

[u]Cut and paste[/u] any old crap from papers etc into a rough outline of the 'meat' of the thesis.

WTF?!?

Best advice I can give is don't EVER, EVER, copy and paste in academia, especially your thesis. The rush can easily get all too much, and before you know it, your pride and joy, complete with the copied text (you were going to reword it, but forgot about it, right...) is going through turnitin, and you're definitely never, ever going to be Dr....

Is PhD by publication an option? This was the route I chose. Advantages:

1) Too many people have PhDs these days, you'll need the papers to distinguish yourself from the others
2) Keeps it succinct and focussed (papers usually 5-8000 words max)
3) Makes it very hard to fail your viva if all your research has already been peer reviewed
4) You'll actually write the papers you may be kidding yourself that you'll do once the thesis is submitted

Dr Zokes (Env. Sci.)

The wife, who is the academic in this house but useless with a spanner, had her viva last week. The fact that she had 3 papers published before the viva meant that it was pretty much a done deal. She has a bit of tidying up to do, 80,000 words gives you plenty of chances to make the odd grammatical slip, but the external examiner has signed her off. It was self financed, part time and has taken 6 years of her life but a great achievement.
As said above do not be tempted to cut and paste as your work is subject to peer revue and then published. A major element of the viva is to check that it is all your work. You will get found out. I know of some one who was asked to view another film makers show reel for a job interview and asked where some of the footage was shot. The interviewee started to come up with a story but was stopped mid waffle by the interviewer as it was his footage that had been copied!

He meant cut and paste your own papers (obviously) to get a structure of the thesis, then enlarge on them. Not someone else's papers! All theses are built around your published work so this is good advice - and the main reason why theses without published papers are so much harder to write.

If you do as half arsed a job as I did with my dissertation you won't know the aims until you've got halfway through the rest of it...

He meant cut and paste your own papers (obviously) to get a structure of the thesis, then enlarge on them. Not someone else's papers!

Sorry, that's not how I read it... It does beg the question as to why the OP needs to write a thesis if he's already published it all. Just stick them together with an intro at the front and overall discussion at the end tying it all together. Bob's your uncle!

A colleague and I have done a bit of work with undergrads found guilty of plagiarism and poor academic practice. Turns out that in most cases they haven't deliberately sought to deceive it is the way they write their essays. They start taking notes from online articles in word, and cut and paste quotes. The problem is they don't label them well enough. When returning to their document a few days later they can't distinguish their words and the quotes. If they don't check their own work carefully enough in TurnItIn they get found out.

I'd be very concerned if one of my PhD students took that approach when writing up.

I'd be very concerned if one of my PhD students took that approach when writing up.

Agreed!

I'm still amazed by this suggestion of copy and paste. There's quite a useful skill for academia known as reading...

If most established academics have the time to do it this way, I'm pretty sure a PhD student does...

Cant be bothered to read all this but my experience was that starting to write my thesis was a bloody nightmare, actually writing it was fairly easy. Plan the chapters with a rough idea of the content and just sit down and write for an hour, dont stop just write, dont worry if its crap, just start. You'll be fine.

'Thesis' isn't capitalised, except at the start of a sentence.

The best advice I was given was to park your thesis at the top of a hill at the end of each day because it's easier to get started the next day. By this I mean don't completely finish the idea that you're writing at the end of the day - do the bulk of it but make a few notes of where you're going with it so that you start the next day with something to write. Otherwise you'll start the next day with a blank page and no ideas. Worked really well for me.

Johnny has it actually - I do this with just about every paper or report I write now. Two or three bullet points in red at the bottom highlighting what you're about to do next makes starting the next day much easier..

Oh, and add STW and facebook to your hosts file. I know it's just as easy to un-block them, the the fact you have to do that is often enough to kill the urge to take a breather for 5 minutes that turns into an hour arguing with TJ....

just to annoy you i wrote me PhD up in 12 weeks and passed with no corrections.

granted I already had 3 publications a well

best thing i ever did - eventually, after i left academia and moved in to industry

[s]Dr[/s]DomRob - Premature Capitulation. MTFU and get it done or accept that karma is playing a role.

The problem with a PhD is that once you got it you will earn peanuts, I mean how many years have you studied only to earn less then London underground tube driver eh ...

A friend of mine who got his Permanent Head Damage (in engineering) many years ago could only end up with a hourly part-time teaching contract because of his very minimum publication. I think he only published about 3 papers in decades (because previously he was a research associate) but the point is that he has all the qualifications yet none of them matters because many of the industries (engineering whatever) do not need them. Teaching is his only route but the amount he is earning now will be a major problem once he retires from teaching and may need to choose between either heating his house or putting meal on the table.

Yes, yes, being academic means freedom etc but the old skool approach is already gone. According to my friend if one does not publish enough or bring in funds (research funding apparently, on top of publication, teaching, administration etc) then s/he is not going to last very long. 6 - 10 years max. Also if you are single entering the academic field you WILL remain single for a very long time and perhaps never have a family forever. Yes, look around to check how many of them are single. There is something wrong about the system ... the higher the qualifications you have the shite you will earn.

He is very concerned about this retirement fund at the moment as every time I mentioned pension he went into rage (he has minimum i.e. not enough and may need to sell his kidney) but I kept mentioning it because he just kept going into rage. Rather fun for me as he is like a robot with an On/Off button ... yes, he is very proud about his PhD ... hmmmm ...

So the moral of the story be prepared to be permanently damaged if your pride and joy is to gain a PhD only.

Err, amazed that I need to clarify this, but...

[b]Cut and paste from your own publications (and other unpublished but written up research) only[/b]: this way you can put in the results that you want/need and remove the unnecessary and or unneeded ones.

Publication based thesis would have been fantastic, but for me wasn't an option (edit: depending on Uni regulations, this kind of thesis may or may not be permitted. The OP might have 10 papers in Science and Nature, but that in and of itself doesn't get you a PhD: you still need to write a thesis.). I was writing from more or less a blank page (in thesis terms) but with ~20 peer reviewed publications.

@chewkw - You have a good point, but my feeling is that if you spend a massive amount of time and effort getting a PhD in order to get rich, you will almost certainly be disappointed. Depending on the field (and to a lesser degree the quality of the research) there are well paid jobs for PhDs out there, but for most people I don't think that this is a primary motivation.

chewkw - Member
The problem with a PhD is that once you got it you will earn peanuts, I mean how many years have you studied only to earn less then London underground tube driver eh ...

...

Yes, yes, being academic means freedom etc but the old skool approach is already gone. According to my friend if one does not publish enough or bring in funds (research funding apparently, on top of publication, teaching, administration etc) then s/he is not going to last very long. 6 - 10 years max. Also if you are single entering the academic field you WILL remain single for a very long time and perhaps never have a family forever. Yes, look around to check how many of them are single. There is something wrong about the system ... the higher the qualifications you have the shite you will earn.

Sorry to hear about your friend, but what you describe is a long way from my experience. I got my PhD, had a year as a dogsbody doing all the teaching available and any research assistance anyone needed, but i got a good job with only two publications. It is hard, but it is worth it because the money ain't bad (£35k two years in), and there is far more freedom than most other jobs. Publishing is important, it is part of the job description, so if you don't do it then why should/would you stay? In reality one article a year is plenty in lots of places.

But anyone doing a PhD to enhance their earning is naive imho.

PhDs use can be very subject specific in their career advantages. In biology/genetics (my area) if you want to get just about anywhere in academia then they are essential. Otherwise you career options/ chances of directing really intersting science/ earning potenital are severely limited. In industrial biology/genetics it's not quite as black and white but it is similar to academia.

Wow!

Wasn't expecting this! Thanks to everyone for your input, especially the input that came in the form of MTFU!! I have been telling myself this for a while now, but it's amazing how much more effective it is when someone else says it!

I am currently writing a research proposal, which has somewhat got in the way of my doctorate, which is what my initial comment was about. However I am still struggling with the writing. I find it frustrating because I seem to have all the answers in my head, but when I come to write it down I find holes which then need filling and before long I am at the bottom of a heap of work I didn't realise I need to do!!!!!! I think I need to allow myself to make assumptions more.

My doctorate will get me to where I want to be financially, I am sure of that, but then my expectations are fairly modest so...

Choron: I got what you meant!

Darrell: If there was some way of barring you from this thread I would use it 😛

Zokes: Publication route isn't an option I am afraid.

Additionally I am doing an EngD, the program has morphed from a broad engineering based qualification which focused on putting people into industrial R and D roles, where I wasn't expecting to drive as deep into the theory as PhD would, to all of that plus the requirement to have the PhD level of theoretical backup.

As a result, my project which had covered a huge base including pure engineering, economic and political influences has had to be squished and molded to meet the new expectations. Combined with the almost never ending problems associated with long term data logging has put me a long way off where I expected to be.

Still my industrial sponsor seems happy, and my supervisor is backing my application for more research monies so I can't be doing too bad.

I do however need to do more publications... Many many many more!!!

Cheers again guys!

I find it frustrating because I seem to have all the answers in my head, but when I come to write it down I find holes which then need filling and before long I am at the bottom of a heap of work I didn't realise I need to do!!!!!! I think I need to allow myself to make assumptions more.

There are two types of academics when it comes to writing:

1 - those you have it all in their head in a pretty coherent form and can just put it down on paper.

2 - those who have most of it in their head, but the writing process reveals more and shapes the final form.

You, like me, sound like the latter. It is just how it is. I can't stand people who are no.1s.

I find it frustrating because I seem to have all the answers in my head, but when I come to write it down I find holes which then need filling and before long I am at the bottom of a heap of work I didn't realise I need to do!!!!!!

That sounds like the draft of my first chapter- it had about 50 TODO notes for bits which I wasn't happy with. When my supervisor saw it she told me off for being too negative!

You need to think of ways to word it creatively and postively. E.g. Instead of "X was bodged together, after which Y was done, and I need to go back to do X properly" say "X had to be done before Y. Since the focus of this project was on Y an empirically verified method of completing X was used. In future the effects of changing X will be investigated". Or "This method does not perform as well as hoped on our data" should be "Despite our dataset being extremely noisy and challenging I/we successfully developed an analysis method for extracting relevant parameters. Although this is not yet reliable/accurate enough for use in practical applications it is a significantly advances the field, and provides a foundation for future work."

And another thing- use your supervisor! Don't do extra experiments/research because you think there's a gap, just write your thesis and let your supervisor decide whether it's necessary or not (they'll probably say don't bother).

Don't be tempted to write in comic sans.

Though it is good to visit 'PhD comics' from time to time. And the odd mountain bike forum.

I know. I've been there.

Dr SR

I have a colleague who won't use anything put comic sans. She went to a presentation where someone said CS is useful for people with dyslexia, and now uses it for everything, no matter the audience.

Garamond is your friend for the final text, but more importantly your examiners will like you for it.

You, like me, sound like the latter. It is just how it is. [u]I can't stand people who are no.1s.[/u]

Smug mode ON! 😀

But then I tend to have to be, given the constant bombardment of funding calls etc. But on the bright side, at least there is decent research funding available.

Not too sure about most of chewkw's points. My job as a Research Scientist is to formulate research ideas into funded projects, carry out said projects, and publish their results, whilst being part of a collaborative research team and taking on line management and general admin. I suspect if i didn't do that, I'd rightly be out of a job, just as anyone in any other field of work would be if they consistently under-performed. Sure, the workload is high, but it is in most high-paying professional jobs. Plus, if you don't publish, what's the point? The purpose of research is to further knowledge - not much point in doing it if you don't write about it so noone can read it!

As for the pay, well, I'm on about double what the next-highest earner out of my friend circle from my school/uni year is on. So either they don't get paid much (not really true), or I get paid too much (probably true).... All I do is research mud!

zokes - Member
Not too sure about most of chewkw's points. My job as a Research Scientist is to formulate research ideas into funded projects, carry out said projects, and publish their results, whilst being part of a collaborative research team and taking on line management and general admin.

Lucky you for being a Research Scientist while my friend is just an engineer with a PhD holding on hourly PT teaching job.

He can't survive if he does not cover all those hours and can't publish because he has no time too due to hourly teaching duties. He is near mid 50s so can't compete with younger people for a full time job. Also, when the students say "jump" my friend has to response "how high" as any complains from them will result in my friend's contract being withdrawn or not extended in future (yearly). The students are "customers" now apparently.

Do you teach? i.e. students ... opps ... customers.

Should I advice him to get out and simply claim benefits?

All I do is research mud!

I'd guess mud with the sweet sweet oil within/nearby?

Do you teach? i.e. students ... opps ... customers.

Nope, I'm at a research institute rather than a uni. But most days I'd rather teach undergrads than deal with the bizarre time-wasting antics that seem to eat most of my time here. I seriously spend more time reporting on work than I do actually doing it, which is galling to say the least!

I'd guess mud with the sweet sweet oil within/nearby?

More important than that - agriculture. I guess Australia values food more than other countries...