Thank you for your swift replies. It is so nice to have some support and advice, as you can imagine I've had a pretty intense reaction to it today.

The statistic in question shows that there were differences between the two groups but these failed to reach significance at the conventional level. Therefore I think that there is a possibility that I can face the error without undermining the whole of the associated argument, which luckily is confined to one section in my chapter five and a paragraph in my conclusion chapter.

I am pretty terrified, as you can imagine. Just not sure how to manage it if they pick it up. To claim it was an oversight/typo shows lack of attention and consideration. Also I am worried they will think I did not have it checked by my supervisor before submission. Any suggestions on how to face this in the viva would be much appreciated!

Luckily I am exiting academia, so worse case scenario if a fail verdict is given I am not losing a career path, just a a considerable amount of self worth.

It is one of many. I did two studies, one large qualitative and one quantitative. The quantitative analysis is structured around 5 propositions. The fifth one is where the error lies.

I genuinely feel physically sick. My PhD experience has been pretty terrible, with little supervision and what make me so angry is that this chapter was handed in to be reviewed by my supervisor and he didn't pick this considerable error.

I feel like the PhD viva will just be a humiliation and failure a sure thing. I have really tried to be positive but this is the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of morale.

Hi all,

Well my viva is 2pm on Friday. I was all ready pretty terrified and now upon discovering a huge error on my behalf I have reached new levels of petrified.

I have spotted a major mistake - I mean MAJOR mistake in my stats. I have reported something as significant in one of my stats which is clearly, oh very clearly not significant (evidently in my sleep deprived write up state I misread the table). I have then proceeded to bang on about this significant statistic and its possible implications for a page and a half.

I genuinely do not know what to do or how to handle this in the viva. I was already preparing myself for a major corrections verdict / revise and resubmit but I now think full on failure is on the cards.

My PhD supervisor is pretty much useless, and attempts to contact him have failed since February. I know this is utterly my fault and the responsibility is at my door but any advice on how to handle this in the viva would be welcome.

Thank you in advance

Amazing! Congratulations! You must be so happy it is over and done with.

I really, really hope I will be joining you in a week (although I am expecting to get considerable amendments).

Now bask in the glory and try not to think about the thesis for a week!

Honestly at this stage just relax, you can only respond to what they put forward during the viva, no point second guessing. I know easier said than done :) Obviously if they mention something that you haven't put in just acknowledge that you have considered it, talk about how it is applicable in your context and then move forward to the next line of questioning. As all the viva prep book say, the majority of examiners actually want to pass students and if you and your supervisors have chosen wisely you should have nothing to be concerned about.

I think you should try and do something non-viva related this evening that you enjoy and that relaxes you.

Let us know how it all goes! Sending you lots of luck! Remember when they ask you a question just keep thinking define and defend!

All the best!

Hi Millymoo,

I have my viva a week on Friday so very much can empathise with your level of panic :) I am absolutely TERRIFIED! Really do not worry I have found A LOT of errors in my thesis. Instead of having a melt down I have just constructed a table, one column with the title "Description of error" and one column "Page number and line number". I know you only have two days but if you haven't done this you could start constructing a table maybe?

Secondly, in relation to your literature review, you will always have missed some literature. You just need to be able to justify why you included the sources you have and if something is mentioned that you haven't read or referenced, politely ask them for the bibliographical information and thank them for their guidance. That is all you can do. The only reading that you should do at this point if you haven't already is read your externals 3-4 most recent articles.

At this point in the game I would say just relax, be kind to yourself, sleep, eat well and breathe. If you feel like you still need to prepare I'd focus on practising speaking out loud regarding your motivation to do this research, your theoretical perspective (if applicable), your methodology & justification for approach, key findings, strengths and weaknesses and future research.

I am sure you'll be fine, all I keep saying to myself is that it is one day & worse things have happened at sea!

I haven't got direct experience of this problem, but I have known other PhD colleagues who have and have successfully overcome this.

Firstly what year in your PhD are you currently? This really does have a considerable bearing on your choices, as a prospective university may have reservations of giving funding to someone who has left a PhD late in the process (beyond 12 months into a 3 year programme). Funding, especially in social science is so scarce and universities really want to allocate it to a "safe bet" so to speak. I would say exhaust all other options first before going down this route.

Secondly have you spoken to your Graduate School officer (or equivalent) about your options? I know in some of my colleague's instances they were able to recruit an external specialist (from another university) to be an additional supervisor so that they had someone on their supervisory team to provide expert feedback. This meant that their "in-house" supervisory team focused more on the process (research methods, analysis and structure of thesis) and the external specialist gave specific feedback on the content.

Also as someone who has only recently submitted I really cannot stress the importance of attending as many conferences and seminar talks outside of university as possible in your research area. Build a network of specialists in your field.

Papercloud how did it go in the end?

Hi Tulip,

I was in exactly the same position, where I had to complete my final study and analysis in my fourth year before embarking on writing up. I had been funded by a research council for the previous three years but anticipated set backs occurred during the second year which meant completion within three years was impossible.

What I ended up doing was ensuring that I had at least two modules to contribute to (teaching, seminars and marking) and I also made the department aware that any additional work would be welcome (administrative jobs, invigilating exams etc.) This kept me a float until the end of the Easter term and then I took on a part-time job in a market research call centre. I'm not going to lie it was incredibly stressful and difficult, there were many times when I wanted to quit, when I was fed up of not being able to have a night out because of the cost, but in the end when I handed in this January the feeling of achievement was worth all the sacrifice. You just need to be organised, get as much part-time work as possible, budget heavily, set-up an excel spreadsheet with all you outgoings and work out how much you need to survive. You can do it! :)

Hi Papercloud,

I'd recommend spending the time between now and the viva reading your thesis and writing a comprehensive list of the amendments that you think are necessary to get it up to the required standard. You should also try and formulate a timeline stating what needs to be done and realistically how long each amendment would take.

By doing this you'll be prepared to fight your corner in the viva, demonstrating that you could indeed submit a PhD quality thesis within 12 months if a resubmission verdict is given to you.

I know that you must be so stressed, but if you believe your contribution is original then I genuinely think you deserve to give yourself the best chance possible of getting this PhD in the end.

I'm facing my viva in March and am petrified of getting an MPhil or failure verdict. I am not happy with what I am submitting next week, so you are not alone :)

Good luck

Hi,

I have just finished writing up my introduction and adopted the following structure:

Introduction of context of thesis
* In this section I laid the historical development and contextual background of my area

Research problem
* Discussed the problem and why it was important

Previous research
* A brief but thorough outline of the perspectives already used in my research area

Gaps in existent literature
* Identification of the gaps in the existent literature and/or deficiencies in approaches already adopted.

Introduction of thesis perspective (in my case theoretical approach)
* Summary of my theoretical perspective and model. Justification of approach in terms of how its satisfies the existent research gaps

Research objectives and methods of inquiry
* Summary of research questions (3 guiding research questions in my case).

Contribution to knowledge
*Explicitly state my contribution to existing knowledge in three areas:
1) Theoretical
2) Methodological
3) Practical/applied

Outline of thesis
* Provide an overview of the chapters of the thesis, before introducing your second chapter.

Obviously this is just my approach and could very possibly be totally wrong, but hope it gives you some ideas.

Best of luck!

Thanks for your quick reply :) Helped a bunch!

Just done an independent samples t-test and it has come up perfectly.

Had a total mind blank and need to have all the final analysis by Wednesday hence the minor freak out.

Really appreciate the nudge in the right direction :)

Hi everyone,

I am new to this forum and need some urgent help. Really struggling to work out what statistics test I need to test a particular hypothesis. This is the last test I need to conduct, and I've hit a brick wall.

Basically I have two groups, one high knowledge level, one low knowledge level. They were asked to rank the importance of five elements on a 7 point continuous scale (very unimportant to very important) on eight separate occasions (which were scenarios). I hypothesis that these two groups will differ in their rankings of importance.

I apologise for the lack of clarity. Incredibly stressed.

How do I test for this?

Thanks in advance for any replies :)