What you're doing is absolutely right, at least as far as I'm concerned.  I work in a department where some staff members give poor advice which appears to the students as if they are being tricked. They absolutely hate it and become distrustful of everyone.  I then have a difficult job convincing them that the advice I give is genuine. I don't see the point in wanting students to do badly. 

When they tell you it's too easy, ask them how easy it would have been if you hadn't helped them and hadn't encouraged them to work. I suspect that if they think about it, they will realise that it's not so easy. I've had to point out to many classes that just because a subject appears easy to understand it doesn't follow that it will be easy to get good marks and that hard work will, in general, be rewarded with good marks. 

I presume that your department has various quality processes that coursework and tests go through at some point, so surely someone would have told you if they thought the tests/courseworks were too easy. You'll also have external examiners who will assess the standard of the work being set so I am sure you would have heard if the work you set is too easy.

You are not a poor lecturer. Teaching is hard and sometimes you wonder why you bother but we all go through times like this. I've just set a coursework for final year students and I have been inundated with some really stupid questions.  The coursework is based on a case study and one of the little darlings told me that it was too much reading to do: the case study is two sides of A4! :p

Keep up the good work (up)

Congratulations David, (up)(up) Another success for the Postgraduate Forum-ites :-)

Brilliant news Dr Aloha, congratulations!!! (up)(up)(up) Now you can relaaaaaaxxxxxx :-)

Having just read Tractorgirl's thread about her viva experiences, it occurred to me that it might be useful to have a viva tips/experiences thread that is pinned (I don't know the correct term but you know what I mean) like the general tips thread. What do you think? It is an important part of the process and I knew very little about it before having to go through it. It could also include any tips or experiences for those of us who don't get a pass/minor corrections on the first attempt. For example, I assumed that I'd failed when I was given a re-submit because nobody bothered to explain the process to me and I was too embarrassed to ask questions because I felt like a failure. I found plenty of info here but it would have helped to have this all in one place.

While I'm here I wanted thank you for all the congratulations, it was very much appreciated. :-)

As Stressed said, most of us have felt useless, dumb and embarrassed at least once, or more than once in many cases (pretty much every day in my case!). As far as I'm concerned, writing is a long, slow and painful process. It will get you down because it seems endless, and it is very hard to find the motivation. However, you have been working on it for 3.5 years so you've already done plenty of hard work. Don't give up because every day that goes past is one day closer to the day when you finish. When it gets really tough, come here and moan at us or read other people's moans. It really does help because we know what you're going through. :-)

A ex-colleague of mine used the ibuprofen and Jack Daniels combination to get through the marking season! I did point out that this might not be the most healthy of mixes but it seemed to work for him. Personally, I use displacement activities - I am currently trying to mark 1st year under grad projects and I'm losing the will to live :p I do procrastinate when marking but more about the feedback I give than the marks themselves.

A couple of years ago I got in trouble with one of our external examiners for a commment I wrote on an exam paper. I'd been marking for hours and was so bored that when one of the papers was virtually illegible, I wrote on the paper 'This is so bad I've gone blind'. The external examiner didn't find it funny.

I remember another exam paper where the student had obviously had too much time on their hands because they'd drawn flowers on the paper and coloured them in with highlighter pens! Another one indicated that there was more written over the page by drawing an arrow that was so large it could have been seen from space. One of my favourites though was one who wrote that they couldn't remember what the lectures were about and so couldn't answer the question but wanted me to know that they had enjoyed my lectures and thought I was a good lecturer!!! What can you say to that?

My supervisor still moans about my grammar. What is particularly amusing is that when I worked for him (luckily I don't anymore) I corrected his grammar on more than one occasion because some of his writing was almost unintelligible. Some people do like to criticise and feel superior so bear that in mind. Having said that, my writing is a long, long, long way from perfect but I've switched on all the grammar checking facilities in Word which does help. Even if you are using Latex or similar, you could run the written text through Word just to check it. :-)

Hello everyone,
As a few of you know I had my second viva last week and....... I got minor corrections :-):-):-) The examiners were very nice again and most of the thesis is now fine. The only problem with is the way I have written about my model is too negative largely because it didn't work out as I had planned. So I need to do a bit of work on three of the chapters in order to sound more positive, and then I'm done. Phew!
They've given me six months because the coursework/exam marking season is coming around again but they told me that three months should be enough.

Thanks for the good wishes I received. Since I'm a member of staff at my university, I have had very little contact with other PhD students so the support received on this forum has saved my sanity and finding out that I wasn't the only one suffering was invaluable.

Good luck to everyone on the writing up and re-submit treadmill - there is a light at the end of tunnel!!! (up)

Sarah :-)

As Bonzo said, 'been there, got the T-shirt'. I was in (and still am really) a similar position to you. My second supervisor, who was supposed to be the expert, gave the impression that he was great but I gradually came to realise was not capable of supervising me. He left and went into the private sector. My third supervisor was and is only interested in money - he has never even talked to me about my PhD. My first supervisor who was supposed to be managing my project couldn't actually manage his way out of a paper bag. Of 4 PhD students in the department over the last 10 years, I am the only one to submit - the others left. The way I kept going was to know that I was doing it for me, regardless of the fact that nobody else gave a flying fig whether I completed or not. Your PhD is for you so don't give up.

Try and find other theses in your academic area which should give you a good idea of the standard of work required and the structure and layout that is appropriate. I didn't do this but in hindsight it would have solved many of the issues for which I was given a re-submit. My other tip would be to get yourself an 'ideas' book. I used to take myself off to my favourite coffee shop and spend a quiet half hour writing down things of interest that I'd found from the literature, ideas that I wanted to try or conclusions that I'd come from fiddling with the data and my model. It gets you thinking about all the things you've already found out which is very positive. My other tip is to talk to people outside your academic area. I was lucky to have a close friend who had a PhD but not in my area and if I bribed him with coffee he would sit and listen to me talk about my PhD. Explaining your work to someone who you can't take short cuts with is really useful and if you're lucky they'll ask questions.

By the way, your age doesn't matter. I'm older than you and another friend of mine completed his PhD at the age of 50, so you're just a youngster ;-)

Lara, I completely understand what you meant when you said its like preparing for your execution.  That's exactly how I feel and I was thinking almost those exact words today. I have my second viva on Thursday and this is worse than the first.  I can't 'see' past Thursday at the moment and there is just a background feeling of dread at the moment. My examiners were really very nice last time and I've no reason to think they won't be this time but there is just so much resting on this.  Rationally I know I won't fail because the thesis is much better than it was (and much longer) and they didn't fail me the first time but there is this nasty little pixie sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear that they can fail me if they want to.

Ruby, best of luck with finishing your thesis. It really is an enormous pain at the end but there is life after, just hang in there.

Keep going everyone (up)

You've already got plenty of experience in passing exams etc. so share your experiences with them. I often find that if you explain that what you're telling them is not out of a book but has been learnt by your own experience, they respond much better. Another approach is to give them short essay writing tasks and get them to critique each other. They're often more critical that you would be and in addition you don't have to do much work. Even better, get them to give presentations about essay writing etc.

Seminars aren't lectures so don't feel you have to be the one speaking - make them do some.

5th year? 7th year? You are mere amateurs - try 10 years! It's actually 8 years on paper (1 yr sabatical and 1 year re-submit). It's either dedication or madness but I'm leaning towards the latter ;-) And it doesn't matter how hard you work, you always think you could work harder. I nearly killed myself over the last year but I still look back and think how much time I wasted doing this and that.

Good luck with the biopsy Sleepyhead - fingers crossed for you (up)

liminalplace and Rubyw, I feel your pain!!  I am also in the twilight zone but I'm between re-submit and second viva. The good news is that I am a procrastinator too (Majong Titans anyone?) and I still managed to get the thing in on time (just).  It is painful, and Rubyw I was in the same state as you - I seriously didn't know how I'd get it done. You end up having to be realistic about what you can and can't achieve in the time and what really is important.  I dithered about over sentence structure, punctuation, general grammar etc etc and yet the first time I opened it after it was printed and bound, I found that all the pages after page 192 were still numbered 192! I checked the damn thing so carefully and yet still managed to miss it. But hey ho, that's life.

You will get it done because you have to and you will make sacrifices in terms of what you might like to submit, but as I have been told, the PhD is not the end, it's the beginning and we all start somewhere. Good luck
(up)(up)

Rubyw is right, it's all about finding the balance between having high standards and yet not being too anxious that your work needs to be perfect. I had lunch with an old friend who is a successful researcher and has been for many years. He told me that a PhD is a hurdle that you need to get over, it's a high hurdle but it's certainly not the beginning and end of your life and career. It's easy to lose perspective so don't be too hard on yourself Beave, we've all been there thinking that we're hopeless in comparison to all the fantastically gifted people around us. The truth is that those people you think are so smart probably think the same about you. Good luck (up)

I'm with you all. I submitted for the second time a month ago and talk about leaving things to the last minute - to get it in on time I had to work 2 days straight with one hour of sleep and a 2 hour break! It nearly killed me mind you. I always think I could work harder but unless I have a deadline looming I dither about and take 2 hours to do something that takes me half the time when the pressure is on. At the end of the day, we're all different and what works for one doesn't work for another. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're not working hard. Unless they've done a PhD, they have no idea the effort and the stress involved and I can't imagine that there are many who still enjoy the PhD process by the time they finish. Do whatever suits you. Ignore all those who tell you how hard they work because in my experience they are usually trying too hard to convince themselves and others about how hard working they are.