I would strongly recommend that you get a historian on board as a second supervisor, as Pink_numbers suggested. An ancient historian might be best of all, but failing that any historian would be better than nothing :p

Keenbean is quite right. You basically need to get it right at the first go. If need be you can rectify small errors (with corrections), or be given a chance to resubmit. But you cannot keep trying and trying and trying. Aim to get it right from the start.

There are plenty of really good books that advise on the PhD process. I would recommend reading one of those. For example "How to get a PhD" by Phillips and Pugh.

I've never been able to delete my posts in normal threads. I don't think it's a facility on this board.

Personally I think that's a good thing. You can edit your post, if you really want to remove what you said. But it stops people deleting willy-nilly, and leading to incomplete/confusing threads as a result.

I think there are non career benefits as well. Both of my supervisors have said how much they enjoy working with PhD students, seeing exciting new research being done, and helping nurture them along the way on the research process. It's one of the most exciting parts of the job for them.

Financial incentives shouldn't be a factor. And it really shoudn't make a difference whether the student is funded or self-funded when it comes down to the supervisor's attitude.

I finished my corrections within a week of my viva. I emailed them to my viva convenor, but he needed the hard bound copies to sign off. And he was about to go out of the country for a couple of weeks. So that added a delay in my case. As soon as he was back he signed off the corrections immediately, notified Registry that they had been done, and I was contacted re graduation.

Mmm. Difficult to recommend a book, because I was a historical researcher from the age of about 12 onwards, even if I did initially do a science degree. So I took to it like a duck to water.

However checking Amazon finds a few relevant titles. Maybe your uni library would have these on their shelves:

Studying History (Palgrave Study Skills), by Jeremy Black and Donald M. MacRaild, ISBN 1403987343

The Pursuit of History, by John Tosh, ISBN 0582894123

Historical Research: A Guide, by Dr W. H. McDowell, ISBN 0582294592

From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods, by Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, ISBN 0801485606

The only one of those I've looked at myself (quite a few years ago) is the book by Tosh.

Historical research is rarely going to save lives, so it doesn't have the same sort of value as a life sciences PhD. However it should extend knowledge, so it is extremely valuable from that point of view. And you need to start seeing the value in it yourself!

The research will almost certainly involve researching in historical documents or records or newspapers or something like that. Sometimes this phase can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, and can be very hard work. It can also be quite difficult to predict in advance how you will get on. But the search in itself should lead to a good result that you can write up.

A humanities thesis *is* rather like a long essay! But a very advanced and substantial essay. There is always a chance at the end that it would be graded as MPhil standard, but you work very hard to avoid this. The key thing is to have a substantial contribution to knowledge, a large body of research material (trawling through the primary sources), and a high level of analysis.

Hope this helps. I completed my part-time history PhD (focusing on the 18th century) last year with viva last March.

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I only thanked people who really deserved it in my thesis. But I was very lucky to have an incredibly supportive husband. It helped he has a PhD, so knows what's involved. But he's also been wonderful, given how seriously ill I am, caring for me selflessly and supporting me all the way. I had to leave a full-time PhD when the illness struck, and that was devastating. He knows how much getting through a second time meant to me. So he truly deserved the greatest thanks.

My research questions were in the combined intro/lit review.

My contribution to knowledge was stressed at the end of each chapter, throughout the very final conclusions chapter, and in my abstract. Writing the abstract in this way is vital: write it as if it depends completely on stressing what you have contributed to knowledge. It is to sell your thesis, and why you deserve a PhD. It's also likely to be the first thing the examiner reads. Get them on side!

Honestly you should take time out. You're not going to break the impasse when you're in that sort of mood. And keeping going isn't going to get you anywhere at all: you'll just get more miserable.

So have a break tomorrow. You'll be surprised just how much your brain is working through ideas without you being aware of it, and you'll come back to the writing refreshed and eager to go.

Well that's how it always worked for me :p

As far as I know supervisors don't have access to the report, but they are commonly told the result shortly before the viva itself. For example if the viva is held after lunch the supervisor may be invited to lunch with the examiners, and told the result then. My supervisor was. So have others I have known.

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