Thanks everyone! And congrats cherub! My corrections will likely take me a while as I work full time and they said the new analyses would mean rewriting a fair amount to fit in with that. Are you allowed to call yourself Dr before corrections are submitted? I wasn't going to haha.

That was a tough viva! Pass with major corrections. Both examiners are very good at stats and i am not so they want some different analyses done which may take a few months which makes it major. Just glad it is over!

Thanks Chickpea and Eska! I'm ok with defending the Typos, but I have found some inexcusable figure labelling issues and one point in a discussion where I go on about a result for about half a page but mentioning the complete wrong thing so it makes no sense at all! Wah, I just hope my examiners are full of Christmas spirit (or just full of spirits from their work do's) and aren't too brutal!

Hey guys! I have my viva tomorrow! It's over three months since I submitted and I've been working crazy hours at my new job so this weekend has been my only time to prepare. Starting to panic a bit now! I've found a bunch of typos, nothing major just silly little mistakes but just a lot of them! My supervisor freaked me out a bit last time I spoke to him as he pretty much told me to prepare for a battle as my examiners are known to be picky and my thesis was pretty rushed at the end. Eek! Any words of wisdom from those that have been through their viva's already?

It really does just sound like these are academics which have never had any kind of management or people skills training! Anyone who has had training gets taught to give praise along with the criticism to make sure the person getting feedback isn't scarred! But a lot of academics are not trained and were probably given the same treatment in their viva so want to pass on the terrible experience to others believing it's the way it should be. They can't have thought too badly of your thesis or you would have had a lot more corrections to do. My second supervisor is like that, he actually sent me drafts back with things like 'needs a lot of work to go into a thesis' or 'too many mistakes so gave up reading after the results' and then when you read the comments on the drafts they were usually tiny things but he made out like it was the end of the world!

I had a similar situation AOE26 but with tenses, when I'm writing I just flit between past and present tense without even realising. I knew I had to write in past tense, and I thought I had, but I clearly hadn't, it drove my supervisor mad. I ended up just finding and replacing all the 'is' to 'was' etc..

Oh dear TOF, sounds like he might just be one of those people who can't interact with humans very well as you passed with minors which is amazing! Well done! My main supervisor told me a similar story about his viva, they basically ripped all of his work apart and he spent the whole time having to defend every little thing, I think that's why he is telling me to be prepared for that in mine. Although most of my PhD friends have more positive tales to tell so it totally comes down to the examiner I guess! But again, well done! Don't let the examiners negative attitude belittle your amazing achievement :)

I haven't started re-reading mine yet but I know I'll find a fair few typos despite myself and several other people finding plenty in earlier drafts which were then corrected! I'm probably a victim of that intellectual sloppiness haha. Almost everyone I've known has gone to their viva with a list of typos they have found so that if the examiners point it out you can say you have found it already. I also know plenty of people who found lots and their examiners didn't notice them (or at least didn't mention them) so I wouldn't worry too much.

Ah yes that does make sense! The most senior of my supervisors was that third one that did a lot more than my second supervisor in the end. I heard all sorts of reasons why that second supervisor hadn't looked at my work but I guess it comes down to how good people are at multi-tasking!

Oh and what does DOS mean? Hah I can only think of the operating system =)

I have three supervisors, one has worked very closely with me throughout and is the expert in data collection and analysis, the second is terrible with that part but was meant to be my academic writing help and the third was more of a token supervisor (although he went on to do more to help me than the second supervisor). The second one really avoided putting much effort or time into helping me, I reckon he probably spent about a day and a half's time on my the whole 4 years, he looked over two of my chapters and that is it. He didn't even read the whole of those two chapters. My main supervisor is now worried because he said he had relied on that second supervisor to get it up to 'academic standards' as he was more worried about the data being correct etc and that I should be ready for them to basically tear my writing apart as it's not at the right quality. Whereas I had thought that after 3 drafts from him even though the other supervisor hadn't seen it, it would at least be acceptable standard!

I'm not sure how to prepare for them to say my writing isn't good enough, or how I can stand my ground when I'm clearly not a natural academic writer. I'm confident with my methods, data and data analysis, but does that matter if the writing isn't good enough?

It might be that he is just trying to get me ready just in case they are brutal, but I'm now just disappointed in myself that my writing wasn't as good as I had thought!

Hello everyone,

I handed in back in September but I've been incredibly busy in my new job since. I've now got a week off and came back to my PhD office to do the sorting of data etc and chat to my supervisor about the viva. He's basically said that getting a PhD is down to my viva performance and I need to be exceptional in the viva because he things the thesis has a lot of flaws. Lovely! I typically do really well talking about things and not so great writing about them so I see where he has come from, but I was feeling fine about the viva (which is still 7 weeks away) but now I'm terrified! Both my examiners are known to be picky and I've been told my thesis has lots of faults and my viva is basically damage control. Eek!

I won't have much time to prepare as I work really long hours! I have a terrible memory for names and dates so I'm worried they will ask about papers and think I'm inadequate if I don't remember which paper is which.

Maybe if I heard some viva stories it would help to put me at ease again?

I'm in a similar position and have ran out of time to make it 'polished'. One of my supervisors was trying to freak me out by saying 'a thesis should have no more than two typos I can see dozens' I think he was just making stuff up though as he is an odd man, everyone I know has gone to their viva with a list of typos they have found after submission! I think as long as your methods are clear, your stats are appropriate and your argument is sensible it's all fine!

Thanks everyone, I'm narrowing my search! Companies which can post quickly are winning as I am almost an hour away from central London and collecting during office hours would be really difficult =)

Hi Eds, thanks, I had seen that one, have you used them before? They are one of the more expensive for printing but if I knew that they did a good job them I'll put them on the list of top contenders =)