PhD submission

[bubbles22]

I am just about to submit my PhD. I have never been to the university throughout my course as I have two small children (one of whom is autistic) and live about 4 hours away.

I have had yearly reviews with my supervisor (who is a leader in the field which is my reason for choosing this uni) and a deputy graduate director.

My supervisor says my PhD is ready. However, he is useless on the practical stuff. He is a Prof and has little interest in teaching etc and seems to be able to offer no practical advice.

So, here's a few questions:

1. Is is usually to get feedback from examiners before the viva?

1. Does a viva have to be held?

1. How much notice do you usually get?

1. Does your uni exclude footnotes from the thesis wordcount? Mine does as long as you are not trying to use the footnotes to improperly increase your wordcount. If in doubt, you are supposed to ask your supervisor. Mine initially agreed - exclude them all. Now (just as I'm about to submit) he suggests I prune them. I have but he still doesn't seem able to confirm that will be ok.

1. What are your experiences of your viva? Prof has just said 'good luck' and that's it!

Any help much appreciated

Thanls for all your messages and the great advice. I am so grateful for the tips and encouragement.

I have finished!

It is, I think, ready. I could look at it a little more and read again but frankly I've had enough of it and I need to think of this as over .....OVER!

Did anyone else get to the point?

My supervisor has okayed it and I would just be looking for typos etc as I think the argument stands up.

I'm quite proud of my abstract!

Hi. I have examined a couple of PhD theses.

Does your university have a Research Degrees Office? It is worth getting in contact with them directly to seek their advice on some of your questions, particularly about footnotes. Ours also produces a very helpful DVD on vivas which is given to all final year research students. I would go to them direct rather than rely on everything your supervisor says, to be frank.

Remember that it is comparatively rare for a viva to end with an unconditional pass. It is more frequent for it to be a pass with minor conditions (which are mainly to do with spelling and referencing in my experience) or a pass with major conditions (which may take up to a year to achieve).

The last viva I examined ended with the latter - the student needed to really rewrite several chapters in order to address the points that we raised.

It is certainly my experience that if you have passed (with or without minor corrections) you will be told as soon as you enter the room.

Good luck!

Thanks Libra that is really helpful.

I have asked the Registry who seem to have little information about the process save for the standard regulations guidance.

They have directed me back to the dept Graduate administrator so I have contacted them.

There isn't a research office as such.

It's been a very poor experience really. I did my undergraduate degree and Masters at two leading unis and chose this for a PhD because of the supervisor. However, they are ramshackle and unhelpful and my supervisor seems very detached from the whole uni experience - he doesn't live in the town and only goes there to teach occasionally.

He has given me free reign to get on with it which has been helpful given my circumstances, and I do trust that he would not say it is up to standard if he thought it was not (he is way too pedantic for that!) but he is not good at the 'nuts and bolts' or 'hand holidng' stuff.

I would echo those on the thread who have mentioned practice vivas - I found mine very helpful (and much longer and more detailed than the real thing).

Also finding out the names of your examiners before submission and making sure that you cite them (I can't be the only person who checks whether they are cited whenever I examine something or act as a referee for an academic journal ).

There is no chance of a practice viva I don't think. No one is remotely interested and I live an eight hour round trip away from Uni!

I know who the examiners are and one is cited. I can't think of a single way to add the other one to my thesis!

Ok, guys I am about done and I have found a way of slipping in two articles by the internal examiner - yippee!

Congrats dammit. I wouldn't worry too much about not having a practice viva. I don't know anyone who's been offered one, and I have at least 15 friends with PhDs . I can definitely see how it would be a good thing to do if it's available, but not having had one doesn't mean you're underprepared. Put the thesis away after you submit so that when you do reread it nearer the time you have a bit of distance; it's amazing how much more clearly you can see the likely questions and 'weak spots' once you've recovered from the writing experience.

My experiences from earlier this year were:

1. No (zero contact with examiners, not even supposed to know who they are)

1. Yes

1. I got about 3 weeks notice I think.

1. I didn't use footnotes. Not even sure if they would have been allowed, especially lots/long ones. I would prune them as much as you can and they will just ask you to prune more if it's still too long, I would think.

1. My main experience was that the build up was way worse than the actual viva. The viva was not especially formal, I have had question sessions after presentations that have been way more intense