 When I started my PhD I really hadn't got a clue what it was I was going to do. You want to do everything, you start researching, you have an initial question and it just gets so fascinating and you can go up in all sorts of directions. You have to be very targeted because if you can find a niche that very few people are working in, you've got a career. How can I make sure that this is a project of the right size and do I have something original to say? I found it challenging to keep narrowing in and make it kind of smaller and smaller. In order to actually kind of get through that, you need really good resources and you need quick access. Ethos is a really great service because it's a really convenient, efficient way of finding out what's already been done in related research areas. There's one thesis on Ethos by Gillian White. Looking at her thesis and the work that she'd done there saved me a lot of time and helped me get into the supporting material much faster so that I could really focus on the letters and not have to do loads of running around for secondary things. I stumbled on Ethos by accident actually, I was looking for something else in the British Library catalogue and noticed it listed PhD theses and discovered I could download it straight away through Ethos and I've since plundered it and I've had dozens and dozens and dozens of theses from it in the last year. It's absolutely fantastic. You can find a keyword through the text, find out if it's used in the context you're looking for. So you don't actually have to read the whole document whereas previously you would sit with a hard copy on your lap and flick through 300 pages to find out whether it was useful or not. I do inform our students about the presence of Ethos and the capabilities of Ethos early in their research careers. I don't think I've ever read someone else's PhD and not been inspired in some way or another. Sometimes it's because actually you do profoundly disagree but that in itself can spur you on to take your own route. What I've found looking through Ethos myself is that there's more things being added all the time. It's constantly evolving and in particular I'm aware that almost every time I revisit it that there are more resources on there. I'm really pleased that my thesis will also be part of the Ethos collection and will be available to others as well. It's quite appealing to think that wow I've actually produced a piece of work that's you know in a British Library collection that's kind of amazing.