Hey DanB. I hope you're well...

I was talking about minor post-viva corrections. Because I am not familiar with the process myself, I wanted to give you the info about externals too (just in case they get involved). Both friends are at UK universities. But since your friend heard the same day, you might hear soon too. It sounds like there isn't a real rule to this.

Good luck with all (and congratulations again for minor corrections. That's fab! (up) )

I still haven't 'experienced' the amazing life of post-submission let alone viva, but one friend waited 6 weeks (international externals), other 3 months (UK externals).

Has anyone ever come across this one:

"Methods such as fictional interviews, which can accompany literal ones in a research project, might also offer the most universally accessible forms of art-based research."

It is from a book chapter, "Art-Based Research" by Shaun McNiff

Any thoughts, ideas, opinions, examples, arguments would be appreciated. Thanx :-)

Angelofthenorth, a couple of weeks ago you gave great support and encouragement to me on this forum. I am sorry to hear you have found yourself at this crossroads. Being on a similar boat (not submitted yet, but been struggling in a very similar way, for far too long) I understand the stress and the hopeless feeling very well. Whatever decision you make, it should be the one that you are at peace with. Giving something up takes a lot of courage, but it sounds like you want to (and can) give this a one last shot, at least to look back and know that you've done everything you could. It's great that the supervisors are on your side whatever is the decision. If they didn't see the light at the end of this, they wouldn't be supporting the first option at all. It's only six months. Maybe even less... You can do it.

Not liking the subject anymore is a great bonus. When you don't care that much, it's even easier to see this as a piece of research work that needs to be done (that's how I am trying to do). Look at what's missing, see how you can turn your data into something to cover that, do more experiments if necessary but be very ruthless about time. I don't know your subject, but you are the master of your thesis. It might not say anything to fulfill one certain thing yet, but I'm sure you can make that happen.

Again, it's only six months. You've done most of the work. Now you need to turn it into a piece of academic writing that does the job, even if it means to compromise. Don't worry about where you're heading (there's no time for that); it will come to you very soon. Just keep on writing.

best wishes to you (up)

I thought this particular one would suit this thread :-) Good luck by the way...

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1047

Thank you again Rubyw & Angelofthenorth. Yeah, I understand now, so I think I've now worked out who that person is. I'll wait to hear from my supervisor first and contact them (don't want to do anything without my supervisor's knowledge as he's been great so far... unfortunately, because I couldn't show him too much progress in the recent months, he can't find a way to argue my case to others anymore).

Everything seems to be so money-oriented in academia. :-( But hopefully it'll work out fine. I've just seen some threads on this forum about other people taking so long to finish due to funding. It's comforting to hear it's not so uncommon and I'm not the only one. Since I never go on and on about the funding side of the things to people I know apart from closest friends, I have been getting so many jokes about my thesis becoming an eternal-loop. I was ok with seeing the funny side but such humor upsets me these days. Oh well... things always get better in the end don't they... (up)

great thread.... (up)

sorry to hear about the paper rejection Walminskipeas, but I'm sure it'll get published somewhere if you don't give up and just continue submitting.

Good luck with your work too Angelofthenorth, I hope you'll finish by your deadline. Thanks for the encouraging words. This might sound a bit silly but is a Dean of Postgrad Studies different than Dean of the school/faculty? I think we have a Head of Research but can't work out if he or the Dean of our school would be more in charge of fees and budget. Hmmmm.... maybe I should contact both?

Thank you ever so much for all your replies. Very encouraging and informative too. I will contact my department first thing again tomorrow. Contacting Student Union also sounds like a good idea. I have checked my registration status online and I was able to sign in to see that I still appear to be registered as student of Research write-up period. I think what you all said make so much sense. I spent this weekend working on my thesis. I think it is realistic that I can finish by June. I can't thank you enough for your comments, really....

To cut the long story short, things haven't been going my way for such a long time, and after my funding ended 2 years ago my PhD suffered a lot (no need to dwell on reasons but I didn't get to do much work on my thesis). Now I am making time again for my PhD but only have until the end of June to submit my thesis (final-final deadline, no more extensions). But because I owe fees to my University I am now told that I might not be allowed to submit at all even if I finished on time. I still believe that if I try really hard one last time, I can finish by that deadline, but worried that it will be for nothing if they don't let me submit. If this happens, would it possible for me to take the finished thesis to another institution? My supervisor is a really good and positive person and he always supported my work even though he came on board very late at my research. I believe he would help me more if he could. The 'fees' situation seems to be beyond him anyway. It looks like unless I pay these fees (which is impossible for me right now) there doesn't seem to be any option but give up... Shame, because my work is almost complete, just needs another couple of months' effort. What would you do? Any advice would be appreciated.

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this thread is like the picture of my never-ending PhD. And its subject-line with the wrong spelling... Accepting things with their faults eh?

what chair? :p

oh how very nice :-)