I read through my thesis about 3 weeks before the viva, summarising it in the way Tinkler & Jackson recommend, so I engaged with it a bit more actively. I'm a *very* slow reader BTW (due to brain damage and serious illness) so had to take ages to work through this stage!

I didn't bother with long lists of potential viva questions. Instead I focused on 5 things:
- originality
- contribution to knowledge
- methodology
- weaknesses, gaps and mistakes
- what would do differently if starting again

I figured by sorting out those in my head I'd be ready for most general questions.

Oh good luck!

Have you looked at any viva preparation books? I was pretty scared until I opened up Tinkler & Jackson's book, which demystified the whole process for me, and made me feel a lot calmer.

Try this link:
http://tortoiseshell.net/coffeebreak/blog/index.php/62/word-2007-practice-how-to-make-one-page-out-of-many-landscape.html

I think you need to get professional help. This sounds quite serious. You need to face up to your supervisor as well, and be honest about the stumbling block. There's nothing wrong with saying you're stuck and could do with some more pointers. But if you're being paralysed to staying in the house etc. you should probably speak to your GP and/or a counsellor to find a way forward.

Yes I'm all finished Peljam. My viva was on the last day of March and I graduated 2 weeks ago today :)

Yes, the big problem is supervisor turnaround time. I speak from experience here, even though generally my supervisor was great. And then there's also the problem that the final revisions always take longer than you think they will, as does sorting out all the last-minute details.

So that's where my scepticism comes from, bitter experience really! I do hope to be proved wrong though.

If you don't have a full draft by now I'd be very sceptical about the chances of your submitting in August. Sorry about that.

Personally I'd recommend option 2, with option 3 as a backup if that doesn't work out. I just think that going for 1 with all the other things you have going on is very unlikely to work out.

I'd break it into chunks as well. Sometimes (most of the time?!) I'd find the whole chapter too much to hold in my head, so I'd break it down into sub-sections, and sub-sub-sections, and then start with those that appealed to me most. Above all you don't have to start at the beginning, to help get over the blank page syndrome. Just start with whatever bit is easiest to write.

I also found it helpful to work on two chapters simultaneously, to give me things to switch between. I get very bored doing the same thing over and over, and this provided some relief.

My uni specified where everything in the intro was to go. So everything was spelled out for me. My order was the title page, table of contents, the tables of figures and tables, acknowledgements, declaration & statement page that I and my sup had to sign, abstract, then the very first page of my chapter 1.

I'm still finding typos after final hard bound corrected theses went in months ago! It's just an inevitable fact of life.

Yes that's why my husband used LaTex for his computer science PhD thesis. It was absolutely stuffed full of equations and formulae, that Word could barely cope with.

I found that working on two chapters at a time helped both me and my supervisors to get through things efficiently. It also stopped me getting very bored with one chapter at a time.

Well done Chris. Excellent news. Now have a rest!

Ok you have children. Do you need to take on the additional debt of self-funding? I'd be very concerned about doing this in your position.