Hey Corinne you will be fine! As long as you have re-read your thesis to remind yourself of those fun-filled few years working on it followed by a few practice viva Qs, you can do this. Just keep your nerves in check and try to stay calm (no point suggesting you relax, lol). We are all behind you and looking forward to hearing how it goes (up)

I use:

MS office so Excel for graphs and data handling, Word for documents (inc thesis), Powerpoint for posters
Paint for diagrams
SPSS for statistics
Refworks for referencing
Dropbox for 'sending' larger files to others

When you add the text box you should be able to specify which way the text reads. I did this for a graph and had to change the text orientation. When you put the text box onto the page, there should be an option on the top left called 'text direction' and keep clicking on this until the curser is in the right place.

It would seem as though the forum has helped you think things through and maybe see the direction you'd like to take. From an outside perspective is it possible for you to work and study part-time? I did my PhD part-time as I was employed in a clinical role. It would appear that your latest 'job' opportunity may actually be helping to focus/shape your PhD so is it possible to combine the two, thus giving you more passion for the PhD topic? It is very early in your PhD (4 months) to be worried about significant progress so it would be a shame to quit before giving it a real chance to evolve. Hope you make your decision soon.

I found that I really pushed the study hours when I was writing up the draft thesis but relaxed the hours and slept more when I was fiddling around with the final thesis.  You need the sleep to rest your brain for it to process the thesis. I found that new ideas or changes would come to light during this more restful time of 'mulling it over'.  The same happened prior to my viva, a lot of viva prep increased my working hours, decreasing my sleep. But I was getting tired and unable to process or take in info a few days prior to the viva so I had to rest and scale down the work (recommended by the forumees!). By doing this my thoughts where much clearer on my arguments and justifications.  If you work too hard and are sleep deprived (expert at this with three babies lol) you cannot focus, process or remember info. So respect your body and mind, sleep if you need as you are still being efficient in the waking hours!

Good luck KB, not long to go (up)

My thesis was science based so slightly different but I had:
1. Intro/lit review with final page setting out the aims
2. Data handling and Statistics
3. System development and validation experiments
4. study 1
5. study 2
6. study 3
7. Discussion
8. Conclusion
Chapters 4, 5 and 6 had specific discussions of what I found. Chapter 7 was an overriding discussion bringing all of the individual studies together and relating to the literature review. I set the discussion out as; aim/what I concluded, 3 subsections on the individual aspects related to literature, limitations and future work. The conclusion section for my thesis was about 4 pointers of the findings, a brief list really.

Hi all, I have been offered an interview for a job relating to my previous (pre-PhD) career which falls on a really bad date for getting childcare. We don't have much childcare arranged where we currently live due to me staying at home while studying. We are relocating to the potential employers area so will have to sort childcare out there if I get the job. Hubby is working his last day on the date offered for interview so cannot look after the children and I cannot arrange random odd days of childcare for three children (establishments like to have a settling in period followed by a formal contract etc). My family are abroad until September and hubby doesn't have family (deceased). The following week hubby is on relocation leave as we move the week after so the following week would be so much better for me! So can I ask for a different day? Is this acceptable practice?

Hi Corinne, I also got to the point that my head was just not taking anything in and I was sick of seeing my thesis.  I posted about this problem on the Saturday with the viva on the Wednesday, so similar issues/emotions at about the same time. The advice I was given by the fabulous forum members was to rest, relax and scale down the prep.  Eat well, get some fresh air, have some decent sleep. If you keep working hard on the prep without a break (v, hard to do), your brain isn't getting the time to process what you are exposing it too.  You need to reduce the prep a little and then you will find that your mind will start processing through the thesis and viva prep Qs. I just did some reading through of my viva prep notes rather than the thesis.  It sounds like you have it all tagged with post-its, mine were for chapter starts, appendices, references, subsections of interest and then additional notes for my own clarity stuck on the relevant pages. I made a corrections/errors document which detailed the errors I had noted ie typos etc to give to the examiners.

The day before (or two) - Obviously your mind will be on the viva day and everything associated with it. We all worry or get nervous about such things!  Try to get their early if pos to check out the allocated room so that you are 'familiar' with the exam environment. Then go for a break somewhere quiet with a newspaper or some other distracting pastime (ipod music, non related book).  Try not to focus specifically on the anxieties around the viva itself, rather focus on leaving the exam post viva. I found that if I was getting worried about the viva prior to going in, I turned my thoughts to what I was going to do when I left, ie pop to the Disney shop, get some lunch, my drive home etc so essentially I was shifting the focus and desensitizing myself to the nerves surrounding the 'viva' .  It sounds a bit weird but it really worked for me (normally a nervous wreck!!!).

Above all, you can do this as you know your subject area having lived it for some years. You can never predict the viva Qs but you can give yourself confidence by being prepared, which you obviously are! Good luck  (up)

I think in the first instance you have to speak with your supervisory team and your uni international office about how best to proceed with this.  It may be that the video-link viva is the way to go but you need to be sure that they will do this in your particular circumstances (although I don't see why not!). At least by emailing your dad you have the means to go home but you also need to check what affect this may have on your visa application ie extending it as you are in the country vs leaving the country and having to re-apply.  I assume that if you just fly back for the exam it can be classed as a 'holiday' type visa? BTW, video-link is how I conduct my tutorials and it isn't that bad, in fact if you do this approach it would be good to arrange a tutorial with your supervisory team when you get home just to try it out.  Good luck Slowmo, nearly there!

My thesis was temporary bound in a 'glue' binding process as it was unsuitable for spiral binding. This process involved placing a glue strip on the spine and adding fabric over the spine attached to the paper front and rear covers. The spine was heated I believe to get a good seal on the pages. It was not too expensive and has worked well for my theses.

It is always such a 'shocking' moment to realise there is a mistake in your submitted thesis, I was so disappointed when I was compiling my typos/errors list. It really won't be a major issue, the content is there but just not in the format you were hoping for. As recommended, I did create a list of typo/error changes to hand out at viva but to be honest we didn't really touch on those. The external had a small list for me to complete as minor corrections and I have also dealt with my longer list aswell. We all have mistakes in our theses and I am told you probably still find one or two years later when flicking through it :$

Glad you have a a potential viva date to work towards now.

Have you checked with your uni as they often have latest version software available for free download for students. My uni does SPSS v17 free for its students along with some basic user guides and workshops too. There are some 'dummies' guides to SPSS but you need to check that they are for the right version as some minor things change between them. SPSS itself has some 'help' sections for different tests with examples for you to try.

Fm - good news on your sups comments, hopefully you will be on schedule for your submission too.

The last weeks of revisions, amendments and completion of the draft thesis for submission is a really difficult time of wills, wanting it submitted but finding motivation to complete it!!!  Keep going everyone, you are all doing so well (up)

Slowmo - I hope you are enjoying a well deserved break (up)

I think I have completed my final corrections but now have to wait and see if the internal examiner agrees with the changes. I would like to get them done asap so that I can fully relax before we move house in 6 weeks time.  If all is well then I need to get my thesis fully bound and distributed. Then finally I can think about graduation (maybe, don't want to get too excited just yet).

Ady, a thesis is never a finished piece of work. At some point there can be no more procrastination on the students part as you will be sick of seeing the darn thing! It is difficult to work on something that has lost momentum and to me this is the time to look at submitting (unless you have loads of time on your side and can take a leisurely few weeks off and come back with fresh eager eyes, unrealistic?). So it is fair to put a deadline in place ahead of schedule, I did by submitting 7 weeks early. Your examiners need to be addressed though, preferably prior to submission so that you can adjust your thesis if necessary. Shame the external seems to have retired, do you have any potentials in mind? You must be very close to finishing now?

I didn't know either of my examiners but felt more worried about my external who was an unknown in my eyes but an expert in a closely related field. I felt the externals questioning would be tougher as they know the subject area and could be quite critical. This is exactly how it was with my internal being really nice and complimentary. They were complete opposites really!

No time to worry about the viva yet, although having an idea of your examiners means you can see what research they have done, how it relates to yours and if there are any areas that they may pick up on (that you could fix in your thesis prior to submission :p).

Looking forward to hearing some submission news soon!