Oh good luck with it. In Olivia's thread I've just said that I plan to use Rowena Murray's "How to Survive Your Viva" book in my preparation. Maybe that would help you too? Could you get hold of a copy?

Good luck again.

Thanks for the good wishes Olivia. Poor you re the traumatic printing and binding! Hope that doesn't happen to me.

As for the viva I'm planning on using Rowena Murray's "How to Survive Your Viva" book in my preparation. Maybe that could help you too? It gets good reviews from people who've been through the process.

Nice to hear from you Olivia. Good luck with the viva when it comes. Nice to hear from someone who's submitted, as I'm finally polishing off my thesis at the moment! Hoping to be where you are in about another 5 months time.

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If it was me I'd focus on the writing up and pass the article. It sounds as though you have plenty already, and you don't plan to stay in academia anyway.

You need to be aiming for complete chapters, but an overall argument that might need a lot more work, and potentially much rewriting. I had mostly complete footnotes, but some were still to be written. I sketched out in bold and italic text what I was planning to put into them. Actually there were even a few main text sections of my chapters like that!

My overall argument certainly didn't flow well in the first draft. I'm currently in the process of final rewriting to sort that out. And all of my chapters needed rewriting and developing. And my supervisors gave me very critical feedback.

Basically view it as a work in progress. The complete first draft is a really important step, but it's not the end point, but rather a pausing point on an ongoing journey.

Good luck!

I think it's totally about determination about perseverance too. It's a very long slog doing a PhD, particularly if like me you're doing it part-time over 6 years. It's incredibly tempting to give up, oh so many times. The hard thing is to keep going, on and on and on. That doesn't require masses of intelligence, but it sure requires sticking power.

My supervisors read through my chapters and were very willing to point out repetition and also point out unnecessary words that could and should be trimmed.

Wish I was struggling with too many words - mine is the opposite problem! But apparently mine will be enough.

Congratulations! Good luck with the rest of the PhD.

I'm really pleased because for the first time in years I'm optimistic about reaching the end. My official registration deadline is the end of March 2010, so it's looming. But up until a month or two ago I was incredibly pessimistic. But I've been pushing ahead with chapter finishing, and plugging gaps. And, amazingly, I think I'm going to get there. Still would have a viva to get through of course, and I'm less optimistic about that (!), but - overall - yes I'm in a positive mood.

I self-funded my first year, and applied during it for AHRC funding and won that. So it's doable. It does help when applying for funding to have a Masters though - it's one of the criteria used when deciding between different candidates.

If she's applying internally and self-funding then the initial proposal isn't so crucial. Any proposal/application for funding needs to be more carefully worded though. Your sister has time to hone that proposal.

There's some overlap between the two research councils, but AHRC (arts and humanities research council) also cover social history research, so that widens the options. Plus there can be other funding opportunities. I'm a Scottish history student and in my department at least 2 PhD students have Carnegie funding, which is Scotland-specific.

If it was me I'd be stressing experience working with primary source material, so anything she has done over and above the core course work for her undergrad degree. All to make her look good as an independent researcher, eager to go into archives etc. If she will be doing interviews for her degree (if she is researching the living period for example) then stressing experience of that as well wouldn't hurt.

And she should twist her undergrad course work/experience to fit with her planned PhD topic. Just like someone applying for a job would make their CV fit well with the planned position.

Good luck to her!