Dear Bilbo,

I am really sorry to hear about your condition but at the same time congratulate you on your resilience and determination. A PhD is not easy, let alone having alongside an illness or disease or condition to battle. You seem to have gone through a difficult time with a first PhD that you had to abandon. Yet you still went for another one, which is inspiring indeed.

To be honest, I always thought that my Introduction was sufficient to lay out the details of my PhD and why it is PhD worthy. My supervisor never asked me for a conclusion except once. And I had assumed it was not that detrimental to the outcome.

You and Ian seem to be of the opinion that a viva might not happen, am I getting your flow correctly? Is that even an option that the examiners can cancel the viva even if the university regulations do not make room for that?

I would love to have the option to resubmit. I don't have any other expectations. I just hope it's not an MPhil or a fail, both would be a shame because truly my thesis is PhD worthy (just needs more time) and is a contribution to a specific field of historiography. I am currently working on a my conclusion and editing my 4th chapter.

I would like to add that English is not my first language and that too was another burdensome shortcoming because sometimes it's hard to write down one's thought and ideas and analyses without having to sit there and think of a good way. Sometimes I would have to rewrite a sentence so many times and this is all time consuming.

I would be grateful if you could explain to me why you think there is a chance in my case for it to be cancelled. And if so, would that be the end? How devastating. This cost me money and time and effort and it upsets me to no end knowing that this is a possible outcome.

Thank you for your time.

Hi Hopeless,

Thanks for posting your message - it is a difficult issue -
to be honest (as you asked for us to be so in your opening post) - I think you should tell your graduate school that you submitted in error, retrieve your thesis - write your concluding chapter and then ask for a viva date to be reorganised. It is likely that your grad school have not yet (hopefully!) sent your thesis out to the examiners as yet. If there is literally no concluding chapter in your thesis, it is as you say incomplete - and I am sure not that the examiners will be able to proceed with the examination process.

It worries me that you do not seem to understand the significance of a concluding chapter - mine was around 7,000 words and it took me quite some time to write and complete (and I also added to it following getting minor corrections). It is no trivial matter... as I say to the students I support now, your final discussion chapter/concluding chapter is the MOST important part of your dissertation/thesis - where you discuss the significance of your findings, how they relate to previous research/theories/approaches, and make your contribution to knowledge really really clear. You would also outline methodological issues, directions for future research here also.

It just sounds like you need more time - and you should request this ASAP, and get your thesis in better shape before it is submitted for examination. I would also suggest you speak to your supervisor ASAP ... I was chatting to my friends earlier about students who fail their PhD's and it unfortunately always seems to happen to be the students who submit work without the approval of their supervisor. You potentially have the opportunity to turn this around - but you need to act now to try and rectify this situation. Good luck!!

Hopeless,

"Psychresearcher" offers some good advice, from the point of view of a supervisor.

Way before PhD I submitted my Masters dissertation missing an appendix. In my case, the omission was completely accidental and unintended - this was back at a time when we were still using floppy disks to transfer data. I mislaid the floppy with the appendix in question and genuinely forgot about it. I found the floppy disk a few hours after I submitted and on realising my mistake, managed to retrieve the dissertation, add this appendix and resubmit one and a half weeks later. I was then told the dissertation was good enough to obtain the Masters, even without the missing appendix!!! At least I gave my supervisor a laugh. :-)

The point is provided your thesis has not gone to the examiners, there may still be a chance to rectify the situation. However, you need your supervisor on board also. Whether you present this as just forgetting to insert the conclusions section in the thesis or you are completely honest about what you have done is up to you.

But you need to act quickly.

I actually forgot about my faux pas until "Psychresearcher" posted to this thread!!!

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Dear psychresearcher,

Thank you for your response.

I don't think I have the privilege to get my thesis retrieved and submit one with a conclusion. Once I submit my thesis to the Registry, I think that is it and there is not much that can be done.

With regards to the conclusion, I am under this impression maybe because my supervisor hardly ever brought it up with me and with lack of sufficient communication I failed to appreciate the importance of a conclusion. Now I realize its importance. Although I have gotten conflicting advice that the missing conclusion may not possibly fail me.

Ah, I know that I asked for honest responses/advice. But I must admit they have been very difficult to take and I am starting to feel really low.... Because reality hurts and this is my very sad reality.

Thank you for your time :-)

Thanks Ian.

I am currently out of the UK but it is no problem. I will ring them on the phone tomorrow and ask them.

Trying to keep fighting :-)

To everyone.

I wanted to say a BIG thanks for each person so far who has taken time to sit and read through my comments and advise me - regardless of whether I find the advice easy on the eyes and heart.

But really thanks so much!

No problem ! :) please give it a try, and if it's not possible then you could still clarify with the graduate school your options. It sounds like your supervisor could have been a lot more helpful, which obviously has partly lead to this situation. Fingers crossed for a good outcome :) good luck

Dear all,

Just wanted to update you guys. I was not failed nor offered an MPhil. GUESS WHAT? My examiners were great and appreciated my work and I have basically been given a PASS subject to major corrections.

I guess it all turned out well after all.

And the better news is that I have a teaching job as a part-time lecturer and also another job as a part-time researcher. So I feel really blessed.

Thank you all for supporting me when I needed your help and advice and kind words.

Well done, that's great news! Such a relief. :) And congratulations on the jobs!

This is great news Hopeless!

I think you need to change your name now ;)

Congratulations! And it's brilliant that you have research and teaching jobs, so well done!!

Congratulations ! A great outcome and well done on the jobs too :) good luck with getting the corrections done:)

Wow, that's great news !

You should change your name to Hopeful now :D

If you have the time, please share with us how you survived your PhD Journey.

Wow, that's good news. Def a change of name needed. X