Good luck Chris. View it as an experience you can learn from, to better the final viva. Don't stress too much.

I wouldn't have a problem with it if it's a theology paper. Otherwise big big no-no for me.

Also I've known other students at my uni be taken on by other supervisors near the end of their PhDs, even though the supervisors were not close to the student's research area. That isn't always essential when you're quite far through a PhD, and so you should be able to find (or rather your department should be able to find) someone who can take over for you.

My own supervisor moved 500 miles away halfway through my part-time PhD and we were going to have a long-distance supervision arrangement. I wouldn't have had to pay any fees at his new university. But it didn't work so well, and in the end another member of staff at my department stepped in to help me, very well.

Huge congrats! :)

Getting straight to the point is good. Even if the panel don't understand what you're doing (I'm an ex CS person, so can readily appreciate your point!) they should get the impression that you mean business, and can write succinctly.

I would reference a few relevant prior researchers, if only by name, to show that your work will be building on existing knowledge and expanding it. You don't need to give full references to them though, since your word count is so tight.

And I was told time and again that it's quality not quantity that counts, and that supervisors much prefer too short theses to too long ones.

I sought a lot of advice about this, from my supervisors and other academics. I was given advice on how to make my thesis look more weighty. But ultimately it was still well short, but ok.

There can be rough guidelines in different departments, but even those can be ignored. My department expected 80-100,000 words. I came in at 70,000. I passed.

Word counts include footnotes but not the bibliography at the end.

Don't worry, this is normal. I was like that too.

But if you have a to-do list make sure you manually tick things off as you go along (either crossing out lines on the computer, or by pen on a bit of paper). That way you see the progress you're making, and aren't just stuck in the horrible situation all the time.

I remember that feeling. The best thing I think you can do is break down what needs to be done into a list, and start slowly working through it. Don't worry about the big picture all the time (ok that's easier said than done!), just worry about the task in hand at any given moment.

I'm a bit concerned about a very long thesis, but you should be able to cut it down. My thesis was the opposite problem, 10K words too short, but my supervisors said they always prefer a short one to a far-too-long one. So make sure you trim it.

But other than that, just keep going. Though it is ok to take days off. What about tomorrow? :)

My university has a thesis monitoring committee scheme, where full-timers meet other members of staff twice a year, and part-timers once a year, to discuss their progress. I found this the most useful way of gaining experience in defending my work, because the questions from academics in these meetings were often very unpredictable, and perceptive, and important to deal with.

Do you have anything like that at your university? If so you may already have gained useful experience.

Have a good day Dan :) My graduation was a few weeks ago. I actually graduated in absentia because due to the neurological disease it would have been too much for me to manage the ceremony. But it was still a very special day for me, which I will cherish. Enjoy yours too.

Sounds as though you're well set up then.

Other obvious things, if working from home, include suitable study space (preferably a desk or a table, and a dedicated book case and a filing cabinet if you need printed paper copies) and suitable reference management software (either freeware, or pay like EndNote which I used).

Also make sure you can access university library online things like electronic journals off-campus. Usually that's possible. At my uni I go through the library's website and login with my uni ID to access things.

And just keep plugging away, week after week after week. That's the way to get there. Steady and sure gets there in the end ;)

One caveat that occurs to me is that in my experience university support for PhD students is largely based around full-timers who are on campus all week long. You will have supervisor support, and things like library access etc. But more informal support mechanisms may be lacking and doing a part-time PhD can be a very lonely and often difficult experience.

Having said that, I think that tackling a part-time PhD as a mature student is a really good time of life to do it. You have confidence in yourself that you may not have had so much as a youngster, and will be well able to deal with academics, not perhaps so shy as you might have been when younger, and life experience counts for a lot.

Will you be fitting in your PhD alongside full-time work, or will you cut that back a little to allow for PhD time? I was long-term ill throughout my PhD (permanent progressive neurological thing) and managed on just 5 hours total PhD a week over the last few years, in 1 hour chunks spread throughout the week (typically 8-9pm in the evenings). A good friend of mine has struggled to do her PhD part-time though, because she had to go back to 5-days-a week full-time work, and wasn't able to fit in time in evenings or at weekends instead.

What time scale are you looking to study over? Mine was over a 6 year period and I came in just inside that, submitting 7 weeks before the university's registration deadline :) I viewed it as a marathon though, not a sprint, and worked at my own pace. Also I was based at home, so less scope for comparing my progress with others.

Good luck!