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What timescale are the other researchers working on? In other words would you complete before they do?

I ask this because I had a similar situation during my part-time PhD. My topic has been virtually unresearched for 40 years (!). But I found that another student at a neighbouring university had started a full-time PhD around the same time as I started my part-time one, researching an extremely close topic. We both panicked. But we met up, discussed our approaches, and thrashed out our differences. So we could then go ahead safe in the knowledge that we were ok.

My supervisor told me not to worry though. He said even if we were doing exactly the same question then to have two people (or three, or whatever) independently researching it is perfectly valid, and it needn't jeopardise my PhD.

In the end the other student, being full-time, submitted 3 years ahead of me. I had to take into account his research in my thesis, but I could still argue for the originality of my approach. And I passed my viva very easily, with just typo corrections.

I think convention varies by discipline. You may need to look at some theses from your department, or discipline in generally.

Anyway I did my own thing. I don't like indenting. I also prefer to have a gap between paragraphs, for clarity's sake. I think that's probably going totally against the norm! But it's what I did, and it made it through past supervisors, and to my final corrected hard-bound thesis.

So you can do what you are more comfortable with, irrespective of the "norms".

Leave the quote as is.

Just catching up with this thread now (been away at Edinburgh Book Festival all day - yay!). You're aiming to complete by Christmas. So that gives you lots of time. So don't worry if you don't make rapid progress. It's a marathon, not a sprint. So, yes, just keep chipping away at your changes. And if it gets too much at times have a break for a few days. You can easily afford it time-wise, and it would also help you have the distance needed to edit your thesis ruthlessly.

Good luck!

What are your conclusions like? By that I mean how much do you push your own opinions there? This applies to both individual chapters throughout your thesis, and the very final discussions/conclusions. I found that these sections were where I was most comfortable about asserting my opinion, grabbing the research and context, and explaining it most authoritatively to the reader. Changing ends of chapters and final conclusions chapters is also something that could be done in a very short time, which you have, so might be a way to satisfy your supervisor.

Ok ask other staff in your department. There should be other people you can ask, like the head of PG studies, or even the head of department.

And even if your supervisors are away they may be reading email, so you could ask that way.

There is no standard rule.

It varies by discipline and department. You should ask your supervisor for advice.

In my field (humanities) it is not usual to give a presentation. I did not give one, nor was I invited to. I just had a Q&A discussion with my examiners.

I had a chair in my viva. He was responsible for organising the viva and liaising with examiners. In the viva itself he explained the procedure to me at the start, then let the examiners take over. He was allowed to ask me questions, but did not take part in the decision over my PhD result.

And he was the person I liaised with over my corrections. I emailed the corrected version of the PDF to him, and then the signed hard bound versions were delivered to him to sign off and send on to Registry.

But the procedure may vary by university.

I'd echo Keenbean's advice in every respect. If I was in your position Tim I wouldn't even dream of self-funding a full-time PhD. Not only might you not get an academic job, but you might find that having a PhD makes it harder for you to get any job. People often write on here that hiding their PhDs on their CVs gets them further in the job hunt stakes!

Now a part-time PhD might be a different option. If you could fit that alongside a nearly full-time job then the outlay would be much less. And it is very common in some fields (such as humanities - my area) to self-fund a part-time PhD. But even then you have to weigh up the benefits. And I wouldn't recommend thinking in terms of how much a completed PhD would earn you. Quite possibly nothing. Quite possibly even in negative terms.

It is very common in my field (humanities) for students to self-fund part-time. They fit the PhD alongside full-time jobs, sometimes having to work a day less at work each week to manage the PhD. But this way it's more financially feasible, and less of an outlay.

I'd be very concerned personally about self-funding full-time. You have the additional cost of maintenance to take into account, as well as a higher rate of fees over a shorter period. And what happens at the end of the PhD if you have difficulty finding a job? Academic jobs are as rare as hens teeth now. And often having a completed PhD can make it harder to find other jobs, so much so that people on this forum often end up hiding their PhDs in their CVs when applying for other jobs.

But it can be done. Natassia on this forum is currently doing it. So you could get advice from her. I'd expect she'll chip into this thread sooner or later.