I had my research questions defined before I started, in the form I filled in for the university to apply. I was self-funded initially (later won AHRC funding), and defined my own project.

However ... and this is a big but! My research questions changed over time, as my research project evolved, and I was looking at different things, and discovering different things which could be further explored.

In fact my final overall question wasn't defined until a few months before I submitted!

It's rather an organic process :-)

Why don't you ask the university who rejected you how you could have improved your application? It's the sort of question universities are asked, and it would be better than speculating.

Other people will disagree but personally I don't think it is that essential for there to be overlap. I chose a Masters topic of interest to me. My PhD topic was radically different (different thing being researched, 100 years gap in history terms, different methodology etc.).

Also the advantage of having studied other things in your Masters is that it may make you more employable post-PhD, rather than focusing too narrowly on the same thing all the way through.

Glad you won your appeal. Good luck for the future, whatever you decide to do.

It sounds as though you were very unlucky though. Not all part-time PhDs are so bad. But your experience was tough.

Rick's advice is really good. Take some time off for yourself and your family, away from the thesis.

And don't worry about the typos. I found lots, and from as soon as your point! And I'm still finding them post hard bound corrected version :)

When you do start to pick up the thesis again just make a note of the typos as you go through rereading the thesis. And take that into the viva for the examiners. They will be easy corrections to make, and don't worry abiout them.

But take some time out before that stage. Well done!

Ah monthly publication. Wow. Well the higher impact journal I'm going for makes a decision within 3 months and publishes within 12, which is really fast for history journals. Neither journal is delaying things BTW. They're just going through the normal peer-review process at the mo.

I'm not going for a book publication. I took the chance to take my examiners' advice in the viva, and the external thought I'd need to do quite a lot of rewriting to turn my thesis into a book, and also I knew that would be rather impractical for me due to the neurological illness.

So I'm taking the easier option of journal papers, which I've done before anyway. It's fun, though I'm taking it baby steps. Well apart from aiming at ambitious journals :p

I think they do spell it analyze. And have lots more words ending in z to boot. Can you temporarily change your spell-checker to US English?

Good luck! I was up against my uni's 6 year deadline for part-timers (I didn't have any extension), so I know how you feel. If I was you I'd email your sup to ask when they're likely to send you the feedback, so you can plan when you can do the revisions. Well it's what I'd ask my sup anyway.

Do whatever else you can before then, for example working the bibliography, acknowledgements, title pages, etc. And think positive. It is amazing what you can do in a short time. I was a ridiculously part-time student, managing no more than 5 hours total a week in my final few years. But I got there and you can too.

My university has a similar 3 months time-scale for intention to submit forms. They are intended to be submitted about 3 months before you submit the thesis. This allows time for examiners and the viva to be arranged. If the form is handed in later than that it could delay the viva, but that's not a huge thing to worry about. So don't worry about that.

My intention to submit form was submitted in early January 2010. I submitted on February 10th. My viva was on 31st March. We'd worked out my external examiner quickly, but there was a bit of a delay while an internal was appointed, then it was changed, and a new one found etc.

Good luck!

Of course you can cite it. It's part of a completed postgraduate degree, so has been verified to an extent. And it's relevant research that has been completed and should be mentioned.

I cited lots of Masters dissertations and PhD theses in both my Masters dissertation and PhD thesis. Showed I'd been thorough, especially because there was a lack of published material.

In between my first full draft and the final draft that my sup read I didn't send in anything, chapters or full. I just got on with all the changes. And then once the changes had been done I sent the full thing to my sup again just before Christmas 2009. He read it through, had final comments/revisions, focusing in particular on pulling the whole thing together into a big picture/thesis/argument, then I made my changes before submitting in February 2010.

And I didn't meet him regularly throughout this process. I was a part-time student too. There was no need to meet up. I just got on with the changes.

But my chapters had been previously read and commented on before this, and we'd discussed a lot of issues. Before I had a full thesis I was sending in pairs of chapters as I finished them. And then once I had a whole thesis worth I re-sent in the whole thing, as at the start of this post.

Great news! Really pleased for you Jojo :)

Ouch! Good luck. Hope it's resolved for you soon.