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======= Date Modified 11 Jun 2010 10:55:18 =======
Oh and I had to get my thesis signed by my supervisor as well of course. He had to sign it before submission, and I had to sign it too. This is part of the regulations at my uni. Pinning him down to a signing date was a bit of a hassle, but we got there. My Dad ended up having to take it in to be signed, because I'd been called into hospital at short notice for a rearranged consultation! Dad was sent in with the bound copies for signing, a map and very clear instructions to find my sup's office, and then where to go to take it to Registry. It helped he knows my sup (has attended evening classes).

======= Date Modified 11 Jun 2010 11:05:24 =======
I drew up a to-do list of things near the end, and some extra ones on there (many wrapped up in your proofing to-do item) were

- check for any double spaces
- check for any wrongly bold things
- check for double question marks
- spell check
- go through and check no tables/figures are split over pages
- insert page numbers for figures and tables
- edit page numbers for chapters
- type up submission date ["February 2010"]

I wasn't doing automatic caption numbering or table-of-contents production, so some of those items were relevant to me, but maybe not to you.

And I had to write my abstract of course. Is that what you refer to as your intro? I wrote that very close to the end. Just a 1-page double-spaced summary of my thesis. I left it to the end because I was still figuring out what my big conclusions were at that stage.

I didn't print my thesis myself. My university's printing service offered that service, so everything was printed in the right colour, and saved me quite a lot of hassle. They actually printed and soft bound 5 copies of my thesis in under 90 minutes which was rather impressive! I just emailed them the PDF of my thesis, overnight, and they dealt with it the next morning. Saved me an awful lot of hassle with a printer and collating a mix of colour and b&w pages. And carrying lots of papers in to be bound.

Good luck.

Avoiding it like the plague. I'm not a fan of football, and I don't live in England, so I've no great incentive to watch it. I'd like England to do well, but it's really not my thing, and I wouldn't watch it for anything. I'll be exploring all the other channels when football matches are on!

Forget to mention that I also write very vaguely at times with lots of gaps to fill in: I'll write "Such and such wrote about thingymajig, arguing that ****" and I include things like the **** in my text, to fill in the details later. That way I can get ideas down quickly, as they occur to me, without worrying about stopping the flow to fill in all the details. On a similar track I sometimes find writing by recording me speaking out what I want to say works very well: I can record it and type up later, but if I try to type it as I think I often forget the good ideas before I've got to type them!

My biggest concern with starting the PhD was whether I could handle the writing. It was on such a scale-up in terms of volume from my Masters, so I was intimidated. And my supervisor and other students just said "You'll be fine". Yeah right :p

But you need to start somewhere, so I would recommend that you brain-storm by writing a spider diagram. And do as another poster said, and start with what looks the most appealing section of what you need to write. You don't have to write in a linear sequence. And getting something down on paper - even something part way through a paper/chapter - can be a good way of breaking the ice.

I also find lists really helpful of sections to be getting on with. Then I look through them and decide which item is the most appealing, or - more usually - the least unappealing. And I start with that.

You're working on a first draft. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be anywhere near perfect. But it's a start on a journey. So don't be afraid to take the first steps.

Good luck!

Wow congratulations! And I agree with Squiggles. I just had 3 people (2 examiners + 1 convenor) in the room with me, and that was bad enough :p

I had a strategy when doing my PhD that I'd have a general spiel ready to give people about my research, but was very reluctant to go into more detail.

Quite a lot of months into the PhD I found that another student at a nearby university was doing a closely-related topic. We both panicked, then met to discuss what we were doing, and differences etc. Both were rather sketchy about things (!) but we figured out our different overall approaches. Over time he moved closer to me, using more primary sources that I was working on, and moving closer to my area of research, which he had been interested from the start but had rejected on practical grounds. But his questions were still different, the context in which his research fitted somewhat different too, and his conclusions were different too.

So it was ok. But I learned to be very hedgy about things. Especially as a part-timer who was on a long PhD journey, and could easily be overtaken by someone publishing on "my thing" sooner.

Another passer here. Passed viva on last day of March, corrections signed off in April. Was officially awarded the degree by Senate last week, and will graduate (albeit in absentia) in under 2 weeks :)

If it was me I'd make a formal complaint. But maybe that's just me!

Hope you get good news soon. It's appalling that it was supposed to be 3 months but has gone on this long.

What sort of answer are you looking for? What people think should be the case, or what was the case in their own viva? I waited 7 weeks. My university has a policy on viva waits and normally they are to be held within 6 weeks of submission, and at most 3 months. There was a slight delay in my case while the internal examiner was swapped around, hence it going slightly over 6 weeks.

Hope you get a viva date soon. I'd hate to have to wait as long as you have. Doesn't your university have a policy on this sort of thing?

I gave MumPhDStudent lots of advice, as did others, so definitely check her thread as she said (use the search facility in the forum to search for the thread title she gave you).

At this point, though, the best thing you can probably do is to relax, rest and help yourself be prepared that way. Don't do any last-minute revision on the day before, but relax.

Good luck!

We're not watching Britain's Got Talent in my house, but hugely enjoyed Doctor Who earlier.

Now I'm surfing on the Internet, with my laptop on my lap.