PhD paperwork and the last deadlines

It is difficult to believe that my last blog post is already almost five month old now- how time flies! 

Since November, I have used my new research skills working for the Manchester University on the Culture Metrics Research Project and have also picked up various bits and pieces of work at Leeds Beckett University. A colleague and I founded the Holistic Education Organisation UK in January and we are planning our first conference for September- there is much to do!

My PhD viva date has now been set to the 7th October and my external examiner is going to be Dr Rachael Levy. The title of the thesis is now also confirmed: It's going to be called 'Nurturing writing skills in the primary literacy lessons of the 'City of Film': The impact of using moving images on attainment and subject perception'. Fingers crossed the next weeks promise good progress!

I have a couple more deadlines between now and June, when the first full draft is due. The data chapters needs to be reviewed (and has been giving me a great headache because of its statistics), and there are still three chapters to write: the analysis, the conclusion and the introduction. I can't wait for everything to come together soon. It's going to be a very high pile of paper in print!!

Last week, I spoke at the Bradford Film Summit, and have also been accepted for a conference in Sheffield and one in Marseille together with my colleague Abi Gilmore from Manchester Uni. Have a look at the conference page for details. It is my hope that the conferences will also help me to finally get pen to paper and draft at least one more journal article. I about to start applying for work for September and it would be great to have a few more publications under my belt before trying to enter the scary world of professional full-time academia.