Oh and my illness is a progressive neurological illness, so another reason for pushing ahead with the PhD as much as possible at the start. I knew I would be less able to do it by the end (by the very end I was managing on no more than 5 hours total a week, spread throughout the week in 1 hour chunks). So it made sense to push ahead fast at the start, and get things rolling.

======= Date Modified 15 Aug 2011 00:11:37 =======
I was a part-time student, so it's difficult to compare time-wise. My PhD lasted just under 6 years.

After 3 months I had completed my literature review though, and was moving onto research.

By 8 months through I was well into my research.

But 16 months is probably a fairer equivalent time. And I was deep in the research phase.

I got on with my literature review quickly because I had an experience of a full-time science PhD before (which I had to leave due to ill-health developing), where students typically spent the first year doing their literature review. So when I fell ill I hadn't made much progress. I was determined to push ahead quickly in my second go (history this time, part-time).

But I was rather odd I think, in finishing that literature review so quickly. It was perfectly thorough though, and I hadn't started researching it before starting my PhD.

Oh and I don't think performing questions is necessarily a good thing. I'd prefer to be more off the cuff, more instinctive, rather than coming across potentially as rehearsed and delivering my spiel.

I didn't have a mock viva because the experience would probably have terrified me! It was more than enough for me to get through the real thing.

I chatted informally to my supervisor and another academic about how a viva might go. And I prepared myself by reading Tinkler & Jackson, and following their advice.

But I think in my case a mock viva would have been quite counter-productive.

======= Date Modified 14 Aug 2011 18:32:40 =======
I agreed with Keenbean's revision comment, even for people who don't have their viva 8 days after submission! This may just apply to my field (history), but I found there was very little useful revision I could do. Lecturers were also telling me there was little I could do to prepare.

The core thing was to reread my thesis. I did that, thoroughly, and summarised it. And I prepared my answers to the 5 broad questions that I identified from reading Tinkler & Jackson, which between them covered most "general" questions that are asked at vivas.

I could not have predicted the other questions my examiners would ask at my viva. It would also have been a waste of effort to even try. The important thing was that I was able to think on the spot, and give coherent answers to them on the day. That's something you can learn either from a mock viva (I didn't have one - didn't want one), or from presenting your work in the years beforehand.

I know that in some fields revision can help more. But I do feel that in mine very little revision was required, and would have been quite counter-productive. This also worked out well because I had only a handful (5?) of good hours a week to work on my PhD, both pre-submission and pre-viva, and it was vital that any revision had to be manageable.

I'd add voluntary activities, at the very end though. That's what I did in my post-doc CV. My voluntary activities were sort of related to my general PhD area though, so worth mentioning from that point of view.

Mine was 209 pages long, double-spaced.

That includes footnotes, but doesn't include the lengthy bibliography, or the appendices.

Congratulations! Yay! :p

I felt numb. My hospital consultant thought I'd be stressed for the viva. But I said I wasn't, and explained my "que sera sera" attitude to him. I found the submission a bigger hurdle to have overcome, personally. And I was numb as anything for some time afterwards.

======= Date Modified 08 Aug 2011 16:32:40 =======

Have you searched Word's built-in help for clues? Try searching for "continuation".

In my ancient (2001 v.X) Mac version of Word searching the built-in help for "continuation" comes up with a solution. Presumably you can do something similar in your version.

Change or remove a note separator
1. Switch to normal view.
2. On the View menu, click Footnotes.
3. In the note pane, click All Footnotes or All Endnotes.
4. To change the separator that appears between the document text and notes, click Footnote Separator or Endnote Separator.
To change the separator for notes that continue from the previous page, click Footnote Continuation Separator or Endnote Continuation Separator.
5. To edit the separator, make the changes you want.
To remove the separator, select it, and then press DELETE. To restore the default separator, click Reset.

You're not employed because student funding is almost always tax exempt, whereas if you were an employee you would be paying tax.

You are a student. Full-time by the sounds of it.

Postgraduate student. But still a student.