You strange person! I'd have done a Qualitative PhD had it been my choice but I needed the bread and so took the crumbs that everyone else left on the table. Best of luck with the publication and for next week(up)

maybe I can wheel you in Delta for the qual questions.


..."to answer those on my behalf is Delta, my qual expert who is representing me in this viva today"

8-)

Hi Sneaks,

how are you? Do you feel a bit more confident now? Well done regarding the article.

Well I feel after having the q&a session yesterday, a bit more confident that I can easily talk about my topic and my findings and what they mean.

I'm a bit concerned I might talk myself into corrections, so will have to watch out for that (I did an extra piece of analysis which is relevant, but was left out of the thesis in the editing process - I want to say that it would be a useful topic for future research and not admit it was done!)

Its these broad questions I'm concerned by. I can't sum up my thesis in 1-2 sentences, well I can but I don't think I'm saying the right stuff!

This all stems from a piece of paper sup made me write - a summary of my PhD to send to the prospective (at the time) examiners. SHe must have made me write the damn thing 200 times, before she said it was 'ok' because I just wasn't putting the info across well. In my eyes, version 1 was pretty much identicle to version 30+ but apparently not. So I'm concerned that she'll pull my asnwers apart like this the day before and then I'll be a wreck going into it!

ok, so when you say 'methodology' what am I supposed to know?

What it was?
Why I used it?
What I could have used/done differently with the method?
Epistemological stance?

Anything else?

Its relative strengths and weaknesses and how it fits against other methodologies.

Although I would love to experience another viva I don't think your examiners would welcome my presence.

I wish they could say you've passed, subject to the viva. That would mean that you went into the viva thinking, ok, its not all rubbish, I just have to hold it together for 2 hours and it will be fine. Rather than guessing "do they think its rubbish" the whole time.

The whole PhD process doesn't impress me as there are too many varibles that can determine success or failure. I would never pass judgement on someone who has 'failed' because they could be a good student worthy of a pass. The whole thing is just too subjective for my liking.

It does seem ridiculous that you have to produce a thesis. I think they should all be PhD by publication now and have a viva to discuss 3-4 publications. Then you have been peer reviewed throughout the process (by different people!) and have proof to say that your work is good quality. Then you should get a result based on the ranking of the journals you got published in. E.g. a 4* PhD (in our field we have * journals)

Actually that's not a bad idea Sneaks, it strikes me as being fairer.

Put it this way, based on my experience, throughout the PhD I received no criticism of my work, no rewriting, no significant revisions but as you may know I don't feel my thesis was read and I said that before viva. My impression is, although I can't be sure as I haven't seen the examiners reports, the examiners did read the thesis but perhaps not in full, certainly they gave much more feedback than my two supervisors combined over three years and had issues with it. Not enough to constitute major corrections but it was not the great work my supervisors made it out to be while talking to me (I don't know what my supervisors wrote in their reports). I would lean much more towards the examiners view of it but strongly feel a lot of the feedback would not have been given had my supervisors read the thesis. I feel very uncomfortable with how the whole thing went and will not rest easy until my corrections are approved.

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Yeah, I think it defo depends on which examiners you have too. There have been several people I know who have passed very easily with minimal corrections, but they've had examiners they know VERY well i.e. go for drinks with regularly, or are very well known for being easy-going. My examiners were picked for me based on their prestige. So if I pass, I guess I can say "x was my examiner donchya know" but I'd rather pass easily! Plus I'll defo get corrections from my examiners (if their reputation has anything to go by) whereas I probably wouldn't with other examiners.

ETA sorry that sounds completely up myself! I probably would get corrections with other examiners, its just I *know* I will with the ones I have IYSWIM?

Hi Sneaks! I've just seen this now so apologies for weighing in late, but you will be absolutely fine. I was freaking out before my viva, I wouldn't even remember the simplest of things I did and was convinced I'd forget it all. The prep I did was to just read the thesis (I only did this once as I was soooo sick of looking at it I couldn't face doing it all again...) and highlighted some areas where I felt for myself I needed clarification. Then I just went through and marked some notes down in pencil, stuck in a postnote if I needed it, and had a flick through some key papers.
I would say definitely try to take a day off before it though, do something nice, and no work. It will help your head calm down a bit and allow all the thought-process you had for the £+years to come back. You did the work, so you'll remember why you chose methods you did, what you thought about them and the results so don't worry about that bit. For originality - I though of this as the new stuff I did, my experiments to answer a knowledge gap, quite specific stuff. Then for contribution to knowledge, I thought of that as what was the impact of my work then, how did this improve the info out there for my topic, and what did it do to close the knowledge gap and move the field on a bit. So it was a bit more general. Hope that helps a bit!
And for summarising my thesis/Phd - I basically thought of how I would describe it to my family in as short and consise a paragraph as I could get - if I said too much to them it would confuse them, so this helped me figure out the absolute key bits of info and what wasn't vital to understand it.

But above all, don't stress too much, it will all come back to you and, as others have said, your examiners aren't there to break you, they will most likely put you at ease, and it will be a nice productive discussion of your work! As odd as it might seem, I came out of my viva actually motivated to get stuck back in and get going on corrections and papers that we had discussed! Never in a million years did I think that would happen!! :) (up)

Thanks Algae! I have gone through "the Bilbo 5" today and added a 6th (future research). Its made me think about my methodology more for sure. I'm still a bit confused about originality/contribution, but I think that is possibly because my thesis is v original as there is no research in this field really, so it is also my contribution!

I am now re-reading again and marking down all the typos etc on a sheet for them.

The butterflies have well and truly settled in now though!

Good luck with it all Sneaks(up). It should be over soon and I am sure you will do well.

Just wondering whether your 'contribution' (mentioned in your most recent comment below) part is not only your research (which, as you say, is original) but also a suggstion as to specific or practical outcomes or products that might result from your new research angle? As in- say your research is on 'depressed wood elves who have migrated to suburbia'. Not only is research on depressed wood elves in suburbia unique (an unmined research gold field) but it also may have the following benefits-provide more information on how suburban councils can support wood elves in a sustainable manner, or help improve migration packages for wood elves so that the depression is mitigated, etc, etc. Anyway, all the best:-)

I happen to be a depressed, dislocated wood elf and can confirm that this area is indeed under-researched.