Folks, I could do with some advice please! I'm having a horrible experience with my Revise and Resubmit, but my current problem is this: the examiners' notes are not clear in places and I cannot get the internal to clarify what's required (her best answer so far has been, "Well, the only way to know if that works is to try it. Good luck.") The external is not responding to my emails. My supervisors are rubbish - one is apathetic and the other is openly hostile (where that came from I have no idea). Besides the lack of clarity, some of the notes are actually asking me to do things that are already in the thesis. Any advice? I'm seven months in and about halfway through the rewrites as far as I can tell, but with absolutely no dialogue whatsoever I don't know if I'm doing what they want. Any advice greatly appreciated. (For reference: I escalated it to the Head of Faculty three months ago. He was initially helpful but hasn't followed up and he's no longer responding to my emails.)

Hey Pineapple29, just wanted to say I know exactly what you mean about feeling unmotivated with major corrections and resubmission! In my case it's been a huge challenge to my mindset - I was given to understand that I'd have minor corrections only and it was a massive blow to my confidence. The temptation is always strong to just throw the hands up and go, "To hell with this!" So just wanted to say good luck and I hear you! This process SUCKS and it's fine to know in theory that there's nothing else for it but to get the head down, do the work, and move on, but in practice it's very difficult to summon up the enthusiasm for something that you thought would be done and dusted by now. Eyes on the prize, I guess, and keep slogging on! I'm also going for PhD or bust by the end of this year :-)

Okay, here's a question: has anyone ever heard of a PhD student changing their supervisor during revise and resubmit? Would it be just the worst idea ever? My problem is that the crushing antipathy of both my first and second has taken a turn for the sinister now as I've done some research on an instruction that the second issued recently (very insistently, but it didn't ring true for me and he refused to acknowledge my follow-up questions via email) and discovered that not only is it completely counter to university policy, but it would quite likely have resulted in my thesis FAILING the resubmission. I'm kind of stunned here. The first is not a whole heap better and I've completely lost all faith and trust in the pair of them. To reiterate: he INSISTED that I follow this course of action, and I'm just glad I followed my instincts and sought clarification elsewhere. I'm waiting for the Head of Faculty to get back to me for a meeting (he's pretty worried about the situation) but I'd love to know - what would you guys do? I feel kind of sick every time I think about this...

So there is toing and froing still? Oh thank God. I have asked and asked if I'll have any opportunity to revise again once it's been to the internal and if the revisions weren't what was required and every time I've asked the question, it's been ignored. I guess by default I just assumed that it must be the 'official' submission once it went to the internal examiner and if it wasn't what they wanted then it was going to fail. My sups are apathetic at best and I was starting to think I couldn't possibly pass. But there's a dialogue with the internal then? It's not just one shot at it and that's that? You would not believe how difficult it us to get a straight answer from anyone at my uni! Thanks so much :-)

Hi everyone... Had my viva in march, got a revise and resubmit (fairly extensive but could be worse - theory and evidence is sound). Have completed first chapter revisions and asked my supervisor for feedback. Got hums and haws and was getting increasingly frustrated with half answes and evasions, then this afternoon my second supervisor emailed to say that the procedure was that I had to send all revisions to my internal examiner and there would be no supervision or feedback from either supervisor. What the hell??? Can this be right - that you revise and resubmit in a vacuum and hope the damn thing holds together? I am in a blind PANIC now - what if I only think I'm doing what's being asked and I'm way off the mark? Has anyone else been in this position? Is this normal procedure during revise and resubmit? All help greatly appreciated. I hate this whole thing now...

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Hi everyone... Had my viva in march, got a revise and resubmit (fairly extensive but could be worse - theory and evidence is sound). Have completed first chapter revisions and asked my supervisor for feedback. Got hums and haws and was getting increasingly frustrated with half answes and evasions, then this afternoon my second supervisor emailed to say that the procedure was that I had to send all revisions to my internal examiner and there would be no supervision or feedback from either supervisor. What the hell??? Can this be right - that you revise and resubmit in a vacuum and hope the damn thing holds together? I am in a blind PANIC now - what if I only think I'm doing what's being asked and I'm way off the mark? Has anyone else been in this position? Is this normal procedure during revise and resubmit? All help greatly appreciated. I hate this whole thing now...

Hi folks, really just looking for a bit of a pep-talk from anyone who's been here before... My viva was a little over two months ago, at which point I was given a Revise and Resubmit, which was a HUGE blow. I was working at the time (although, fortunately, my contract came to an end on 31st March) but have now had a month and a half to - theoretically - work full-time on the revisions. Financially, I need to just get this done. Emotionally, I need to just GET THIS DONE. But it's been such an enormous blow to my self-confidence that I find myself just staring at a computer screen all day long. Today, I got as far as opening up the current chapter (chapter 1. Yay. Negative progress...) and procrastinating the day away. I have zero confidence in my ability to deliver what's asked and I'm afraid to even try. Supervisor 1 is uninterested at best, supervisor 2 claims interest but has about 8,000 other PhD students to look after. I think the problem is that I just can't get past the fact that I didn't deliver last time, despite pouring heart and soul into the project, and I can't manage to believe that what I'm doing this time will be any different. Supervisor 1 is the only one who read my thesis last time and she told me it was up to scratch so how the hell am I supposed to believe what she says this time around? I genuinely don't think she cares one way or another at this point, I was a late addition to her workload after my original supervisor left the university between year 2 and year 3, and she has no interest in my project at all. It's not even her area of expertise. Sorry this is such a Debbie Downer of a post but I'm really in the depths here and I could do with a bit of perspective...

Thanks.

Oh wow.... you have no idea what a relief it is to hear that! I mean, that's entirely sensible but when was JSA eligibility ever actually sensible? :p

Hi folks...

I wonder if someone could point me in the right direction to get some advice (or, even better, if someone's been in this situation and knows the answer themselves!)? I've been given a year to revise and resubmit my thesis after my viva earlier this month, and the timescale was decided on the grounds that it needed to take into account that I am working full time these days. I've got to pay some fees to cover the fact that I'll be effectively re-registering but they're not horrendous (as far as I can tell, without having yet been able to speak to my university's Research Office).

But - here's the rub... My job is ending at the end of this month, and, in this delightful economic climate there is virtually no chance I'm going to get another one any time soon. It took me a year of applying for everything under the sun to just get this 10 week contract for which I'm massively over-qualified. So I'll be signing back on JSA at the end of the month, just to survive. My problem is, if I'm re-registering as a student, I'm not entitled to claim JSA. Or Income Support, or Housing Benefit. There is literally nowhere I can turn to for money - Student Loans won't touch PG finance, my university's Finance Office won't touch PG finance, and I'm already all borrowed out just to get the damn thing submitted in the first place.

My question is, since I'm being given this time on the understanding that I'll be working FT, surely that means that I can't be counted as a FT student again, no matter what I'll be doing in my spare time? So shouldn't I be able to claim JSA while I'm job-hunting, even if I'm working on my thesis PT? I'm terrified of asking the JSA people in case they get the wrong end of the stick and tick the box marked 'FT student' thus cutting me off from the money I need to buy food and electricity and, from experience, my Research Office tends to not know anything about anything not directly concerned with research. I'm panicking a bit here and it looks like I'll have to make a move before I leave my job, as the Research Office are looking for money from me, like, yesterday. I'm afraid that I'll be becoming a FT student, effectively, while I'm still working FT and then be ineligible for JSA when I'm made redundant. Sorry for the long, rambling post, but I thought it best to be specific. If anyone knows what my official circumstances will be, I'd really like to know. Or, alternatively, if anyone has any ideas or 'this is what I did' anecdotes, they will also be gratefully received.

For clarity: I'm in Northern Ireland, and I live alone, so mine is the only income financing my household.

Thanks!

I've posted elsewhere about my slightly shaky viva, where the outcome was that I was given six months to complete some structural revisions to my thesis. I'd been feeling really positive about getting back down to work, and had asked if it was possible to get an 'advance copy' of the examiners' notes, which the chairperson was happy to send me. So it's not the formal, Research-Office-Approved version, but it arrived with me (via email from my supervisor) today, and it's horrifying. They're basically looking for brand new pieces of research in places and potentially one research trip to London (I live in Northern Ireland - this will involve a flight, and I can barely afford rent at the moment). I have no earthly idea how I'm supposed to get this work done in the scheduled time, which was supposedly allotted to allow for the fact that I'd have to be working full time also. I don't see how I could do work of this scale in 6 months of FULL TIME study. Has anyone else had this experience? Am I maybe freaking out a bit here - maybe the first glance at the examiner's notes always looks worse than the reality? Help! I'm starting to feel like I'm going to fail this PhD....

Thanks, everyone! I LOVE this site: it's such a safe, supportive forum and I've recommended it to all my PG friends in the hope that they'll start using it *before* their vivas! Having now caught up on the sleep I lost Friday night, I'm feeling much more positive about the way forward and concentrating on the good feedback I got (so easy to only hear that there's extensive revision required and forget - which I did until this morning - that they also said there was no problem with the argument or my writing style). I'm also extremely fortunate that, while I'm working FT at the moment, it's a short term contract that ends this month, so I'm planning to use my final paycheck to fund a full month of work on my thesis in April. My supervisor is also confident that, if I get my head down and do what I'm asked, I'll be able to graduate this summer. So it's really not as black and horrible as it seemed on Friday! Plus, I absolutely love my topic and I sort of feel like I've craftily managed to wangle an extra month with it :p I think if I'm 100% honest, I knew that the thesis wasn't ready when I submitted it. I can't blame my supervisor for that; it was a difficult situation and she got me pretty much by default when my original supervisor left, so she really had very little knowledge of my field. Plus I was determined to submit when I did, mostly because I couldn't afford to carry on studying (I was funded for three years, but I was two months late submitting). Given the chance to do it again, I suspect I'd still submit when I did because I'm the only person in my household and I needed to have money coming in from somewhere - I couldn't get a job despite months and months of trying, and I couldn't get Housing Benefit or JSA while I was still a student (which I was until I submitted). So there's a moral in here somewhere, but I'm not sure what it is.... Submit in good time, or keep your fingers crossed that your early-draft thesis is good enough that they at least give you a second go at it, rather than decide to give you an MPhil (or even a fail)? I'm lucky in a lot of ways, and now I'm looking forward to getting the examiners' report, meeting with my supervisor and my internal, and making this thesis the thesis that I *should* have submitted!

Hi everyone

I'm brand new to this site and wish I'd found it earlier - I actually found it while googling 'viva outcomes' at 3am, 20 hours post-viva and not knowing quite how to feel about the result. I'd really appreciate any comments/suggestions/anecdotes from anyone in a similar situation.

So, I *think* I passed with six months to complete major revisions, but I'm not sure whether that counts as 'Major Revisions' or 'Revise and Resubmit'. I thought I'd share my experience anyway, for those who are waiting for their vivas, and for my own sanity!

My supervisor was present at my viva, but I had a period of waiting (alone) in the corridor outside before the exam started, and I could hear the internal and external discussing my thesis, even though the door was closed. What they were saying was not particularly positive, and it knocked me a bit before I even started. Once the viva itself kicked off, though, they threw some really good questions at me and I was happy with my answers. They'd left a bottle of water and a cup on the table in front of me, so I used that as a prop when I needed to gather my thoughts. About halfway through, the chair seemed to be winding up and I thought, Phew! I just survived my viva! - only to have him say, "so, that's the general questions. Let's get down to specifics." I thought, those were *general* questions?!? But the specifics were actually easier in some ways, and, what I thought was the beginning of a HUGE section of questions was actually relatively brief. Afterwards, I was asked to leave the room and come back at midday (it was then 11:40) for the decision. My supervisor said how pleased she was with my answers and how she thought I was a natural scholar and I'd aced the viva.

So, I came back in and the chair spoke the following words: "Well. These are NOT minor revisions that we're going to give you." Imagine a tone of impending doom. I actually felt the blood drain from my face, but I held it together until the examiners had finished talking, thanked them, and only burst into tears when I was safely out of earshot. My supervisor insisted that it was a pass, but the words I'd heard were "NOT minor" and "we'll discuss the need for a second viva after the examiners have read your resubmission". I spent the rest of the day crying my eyes out, but on a phone call with my supervisor (and my original first supervisor, who left the university after my second year but with whom I've remained in close contact) that evening, both assured me that the chair had specifically stated that there would be no re-viva and that everyone had said how impressed they were with my work and my viva and me in general, and that the external says there's definitely a book in my thesis. I'm feeling a lot better consequently, but I don't really know whether to think of this as a pass "subject to", or a resubmission that could still technically fail, or even how to feel about the thesis and/or viva. Can anyone relate?

Wow - my viva was today, and this sounds like EXACTLY the result I got, right down to my own reaction to it! Thank you for posting this - from another not-quite-sure-if-I-passed-or-not, emotionally overwrought viva survivor! :-)