A resubmission isn't a pass I'm afraid. It's a second chance. You are given usually up to a year to fix problems, then resubmit, and try again.

Surely the question is about employed earnings, not unemployment benefit levels?

Yay! Well done. Now celebrate! 8-)

I think you have to either do all numbers or not numbers. Otherwise it looks really arbitrary.

Also if you need to refer to other bits of your thesis you can use page numbers as an alternative, though you'd have to make sure those were up to date at the end.

I didn't need to do that myself, though I did refer to other chapters e.g. "This topic is discussed more fully in Chapter 3."

I merged all my chapters together about 4 months before submitting (I was part-time). I expected Word to throw a complete hissy fit, but it was actually surprisingly compliant! So don't be too scared about doing that. My thesis was about 250 pages long.

I agree you need section breaks. Hope they're solving the problem for you.

I've had enough of Word though, post PhD. I'm now switching to Pages on my Mac (Apple's own Word-compatible word processor), which is playing much more nicely.

I didn't. I was a humanities (history) student though, which might make a difference. Is it normal in your field to number sub-sections?

I'd ask the people who're rejecting you. It's ok to do that, and only they can really answer it.

But at a hunch I'd worry about the 10 year gap since your degree. Yes you have industry experience, but that study gap could alarm potential supervisors.

And your degree was a 2.1, so you are competing with people who got firsts. And you don't mention having a Masters, and some of the people you are competing with will have that too.

But keep trying. Then again only looking since March is maybe a bit short notice for starting this year. I'd have personally started looking earlier. And keep looking until you are successful.

Good luck!

Good luck!

The cost varies by university. You should look at the Registry website sections of the universities you are considering. At my (Scottish) university the total fee alone for such a humanities PhD would be about 11,000 pounds. That's either paid over 3 years if a full-time student, or pro-rata'd over a longer period if part-time. This cost is fees only, and doesn't cover additional expenses, such as buying books, out-of-pocket research costs (e.g. photocopying, microfilming, travelling to archives etc.) and - if studying full-time - living/maintenance costs.

Are you funded by a research council? If so it is likely that if you reapply a second time your funding would be reduced to take into account the prior funding you have received.

I left a full-time EPSRC-funded computer science PhD in 1996. I left due to a progressive neurological disease developing.

I started a part-time history PhD in 2003, and won funding from AHRC from 2004 onwards. But I had to declare my prior research council funding on the form, and was expecting my funding to be reduced. Luckily it wasn't, but that might be because it was such a different field / different funding council.

You mentioned disability issues which have affected your PhD. Might those not be a problem at a second PhD too? If so you might be better to try to resolve the problems in your current PhD. You should get disability support from your university, including help to work flexibly if need be, and adjustments to be made. It is also possible - funding permitting - to change supervisor if that would help. I would definitely recommend trying to resolve your current problems.

You also have to bear in mind that if you apply for a second PhD you would have to overcome having left a first one, and persuade your new funders/supervisor that that wouldn't happen again.

I agree this sounds perfectly normal, and healthy to be honest. Although it's very common for PhD students to have real problems mid-way through (the 2nd year - or part-time equivalent - blues or doldrums), some of the worst patches come at the very end of the PhD. Then you may be facing an imminent registration deadline, and have all the natural self-doubts to go along with it.

Good luck with the last push towards the end. It does get easier - honest!

I think you're being too hard on yourself too. And points 1, 2 and 3 on your list are unimportant TBH, and could easily be corrected post viva. Points 4 and 5 are more serious, but can still be corrected.

And I agree that looking at an article like that right now is not helpful. Stop it!

I felt quite numb after submission. The submission actually happened when I was in hospital seeing a consultant, and my Dad took the soft-bound theses in to my supervisor to be signed, and then on to Registry. So I felt very disconnected, and very numb about the whole process.

But I found the fact that my fate was pretty much out of my hands to be quite liberating. Soon after submission I adopted a 'que sera sera' attitude. Apart from preparing well for the viva there was little that I could do to change things now. And there was no point getting worked up about it. It wouldn't do me any good, and might lessen my chances of success in the viva. Adopting that attitude took the pressure off me immensely and made me much happier about things.

I proofed it on my final go-through of corrections. So as I read through. Just a couple of days really.

I honestly don't think it's worth it personally. You should be able to pick up most things yourself. Anything small that sneaks through isn't going to be a problem at the viva - at most an easy minor correction.