Just one last up-date. I got it all re-printed to a much better standard and have just submitted. Yupeee!
Obviously there is still the viva and other things may go wrong, but at least I have something positive for the next wee while!
:-)

Thanks Prettypollicy, my hubby even tried to print it in his office - they have a laser printer there - but again the resolution and colour balance is not very good.

What can I say, I know that it sound like a tantrum, and indeed it is. At the end of the day, there is only this much that I can do, and I am usually very careful. I will see how the second re-print looks, and then I will decide, but I wonder what I would have done if I was time-constrained.

I realise only now all the spelling mistakes that I have in my previous messages - hopefully it is stress-related and I will be back to normal soon.
:$

Thanks Bilbo, having the advise of the external would have been very useful, and I feel that asking for the permission form now just undermines the students' right to dispose of their research in the most appropriate way.

As I said I think that restricting the access for a year is wise, and it will probably be what I will do. I am also aware that in my area is very difficult to publish in a good magazine, as there is a lot of competition. If I had the back-up of my sup it would have been different, but as it is now, I think that it is pretty unlikely that I can manage to publish something on a major publication without any support. In my experience, also the most senior academics have their papers read by someone else before they submit it for peer-review.

Again, I am fully aware of the risks of granting full access, but it is a fine balance between getting your work known, at least in thesis form, and ending with a pile of papers getting dust on a shelf. The latter is an equally concerning thought.

Obviously you have a very successful story on many fronts, while I still have a few mile-stones to complete!

 

Thank you both. I think that you are right. It is unlikely that I am going to print the thesis straight as it is anyway. I have already published a paper and other two are in the pipeline, so there will be a record of my work anyway. Also, if it is available it is more difficult for anyone to plagiarise and claim that they didn't see it.
I was thinking perhaps to give open access after 1 year may grant me sufficient time to publish another paper, but we shall see.
In the meantime other and more pressing issues need to be sorted (see my other thread).

Thanks a lot once again,

Just an up-date on the situation. This morning I went back to the copy-shop and they re-printed a copy for me to check. Pictures were technically fine now, except for the fact that they used a different printer and the colours were far to strong. They said they will reprint the most affected images with a different machine, but they definitely cannot use the same printer that they used before for there are other docs lined up for printing there.

At the edge of a crisis I bumped into my internal and explained the situation. She advised me to wait an see the final quality of the re-print, and if I am not happy cut off the 5 bad pictures from the first print and attach the correct copy with glue. My sup will then inform the external of the PDF problem.

So, it's not as straightforward as I would have hoped, especially after all the work and effort that I put into it. However, I will talk with my sup shortly and we will see what the best option a this point is...:-(

Hi all, it is usually after you sustained your thesis that you are asked to give your consent to the access of your thesis for inter-library loans, inclusion in ETHOS, etc. but at my Uni they want the form to be completed and submitted to Registry when I submit the soft-bound copies (I suppose just in case I think to relocate to the Caribbean islands once completed).

Now I am in two minds on whether to give access immediately after completion, or after 1-5 years. On the one hand you may want to publish your research before it is made public, but on the other you risk that someone else finds the same documents etc and publish them without acknowledging your work. I already had the experience in the course of the PhD.

I don't know if anyone has some advice to offer on this? My supervisor said that he is not able to do it (for a change!), as there wasn't anything like this when he completed his PhD.

Many thanks in advance!
:-)

Hi Rick, yes, ideally you could ask someone else to read it. The reality is that my sup took over a month to read it and he didn't spot even one of the issues that I have just found. My husband read it too and didn't pick these up either. So, in the end you are the best person to spot your own mistakes.

Also, it is difficult to find someone that is available to read a document of that length at short notice and in a few days time, when you are so close to submission. However, I managed to sort out all the most apparent at least. Surely there will be other minor issues, such as spelling or punctuation, but with the kind of supervision that I had it would be a miracle if I could get away just with these minor corrections.

Anyway, I will get it re-printed tomorrow, aiming to submit by next weekend. Trying to stay positive...Thanks to all of you. This forum has been a valuable help throughout.

Thank you Chuff! You are absolutely right, and I'd prefer not to insert something that is not good enough rather than to risk spoiling everything. It's just a pity that I cannot get it re-printed before Tuesday, but at least the file is sorted now, and my own re-print of these pages look fine.

So the tip of the day is: leave some contingency time for last minute issues, and cross check everything as many times as you can, however boring it can be, before you get it printed!

:p

Thank you very much all of you. Rick indeed I decided to go for option 2 and get it reprinted (at least the copies that I have to submit).
As I couldn't sleep I re-worked the incriminated pictures and they now look fine also in PDF. Just as well that I have a week left before the deadline, or I would have had a heart attack!
I will probably spend this long weekend worrying anyway!

I will keep you posted! :$

I thought I took extra care and checked everything before I took the thesis to the copy- shop to be printed. I asked to print the 3 copies together so that i could have this 4 holiday days to check for any problem before they got bound.

Then when I arrived there they had printed only one copy and they ask me to check things there, which of course I could do only in a very quick and superficial manner. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I picked up the 3 bound copies today, and everything appears fine except for three pictures (I have a volume of figures as I am in art history) that are reconstructions that I made using my own drawings and power-point elements, which appear to have some missing parts.

Clearly when I converted the word file into PDF it registered the image in a different way, something that could be easily sorted if I had the chance to check it properly before they were bound.

However, now the thesis is bound and I am very fed-up because I thought I took all the care possible to avoid this. I spent a lot of money to get it professionally printed, and now I face two possibilities:

1) I get it stripped again and ask to insert the amended images (but I am not sure that this is possible, without having to reprint the whole thing), or 2) I submitted as it is and: a) I hope that they are blind and don't notice them, b) I print the incriminated pictures properly myself and take them to the viva, and explain what happen with the idea to get the matter sorted in the final version.

Obviously I will probably get lots of corrections, or perhaps I won't even pass the viva at all and I am just being maniac over a stupid thing, but on the other hand I could also get minor corrections just for these three pictures, and I don't feel happy about it.

Is there anyone who feels like saying something nice and supportive? thanks in advance!

This is great news Pineapple29! And your new date for the viva looks very reasonable.
You definitely have a lot of positive stuff to think about. Thank you for letting us know and keep us posted.

I should have my viva in summer too, and I am getting slightly concerned...but reading other people's experiences in the forum is very good, as I feel less lonley.

Good luck!
(up)

Hi Barbara, in my Uni there is a Student Learning Service for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, with dedicated academic staff in both fields science and humanities. They help students with issues such as academic writing, critical thinking and thesis writing, etc. Is there anything like this in your uni? It worth looking for it.

Also, is your internal examiner available to discuss in detail what you should do, and above all, how you should do it? Ideally supervisors should do that, but that's very theoretical (I know for personal experience!), and some of them just take any opportunity to do as less as possible.

  :p

Dear Sheyna,

You have been going through a very hard time indeed. You have all my sympathy. Caring for a person with a serious illness is a very difficult job, especially at a time i which you probably need to be supported.
You have done incredibly well, and my concern is that if you quit now you will regret it. On the other hand you need a break. Have you considered taking a suspension of study for a year? That would give you time to focus on your mother and your baby (!), and go back to your studies (or reconsider the situation in a year time) according to what happens in the meantime. I would suggest to wait and see what the doctors say about your mother, and then speak to your supervisor.
I wish you, your baby, and your mum all the very best.

Well you re both doing fantastically well! I have only one child and I find it difficult, I cannot even imagine how I would cope with 2 or 3 and a PhD!
I think that at the end of the day you must learn to be kind to yourself and accept that you are just human - you cannot be the best at "everything". Obviously we love our children and I don't' regret having had mine in the middle of my PhD, but things can be very hard at times. I have always been very good at time management and never missed a deadline...but that was before I lost the ownership of my time!

I did try to work while looking after her, but it just wasn't possible - you need to have time to think properly, as you are not just shelving boxes. So if you have any chance to have even just a few hours when you can concentrate on your thesis it is much better than working all day but without concentrating on what you are doing. There are other tasks, like indexing, up-dating your bibliography, etc. that require a bit less attention, and you may be doing while your children are at home with you. Are they going to nursery/ school? Is there anyone that can look after them for a few hours ? (e.g. a friend you can return the favour to). Having my daughter at nursery for a few hours some days of the week made a huge difference for me.


Don't surrender! :-)

Yep, I am on the same boat! I made careful plans on how I would work early in morning (no way, my daughter wakes up at dawn!), and late in the evening (nope, she doesn't fall asleep before 9!). I think that it was pretty impossible to do any serious work until she started going to nursery 4 mornings a week a few months ago. I found very hard to concentrate at the beginning, and I sometimes wonder how I managed to put together anything at all! My husband helps a lot at weekends, so that I can work a bit. Me time = 0. Luckily, this is not going to last forever!