Hi Lostinoz it is quite natural to get upset about things during your PhD. I think instead of letting things build up you should be honest(in a nice way!) with your supervisor when you feel an issue arising. Personally I have never told my supervisor off, I don't think I could because, she is my boss.

Thanks BB! these suggestions are a great help, I've been finding quite hard to prepare for this, it's as much work as writing the thesis itself.

Congrats again for passing :-)

Thanks BB, the question what I would do differently might be a problem for me because If I get asked this I will most probably answer it in such a way that it will look at my work in a negative way. The questions why didnt you do it this way, what is your contribution to knowledge might get me into trouble too. Even at this stage I don't know what my contribution is, I probably wont need to use my research again, so I never thought about how someone else might. My only answer at this would be "building on the theories of others to make their findings more concrete." Would this be a suitable answer?

What if they ask something you can't answer? This is something I will ask my supervisor anyway, but has anyone experienced this at all? I have given talks in conferences where I have been asked questions phrased in a certain way, that I couldn't answer, but I did know the answer :$

======= Date Modified 03 33 2010 13:33:52 =======
Hi Everyone,
My viva is coming up soon, for people who have done their viva, how long did it last? At the start did you do a summary discussion of your thesis - how long did you talk about your thesis for? Where you asked about anything not in your thesis? What kind of generic questions were you asked? Any tips for a student waiting on their viva? :-)

For people like me who are waiting on their viva, how long have you spent on your revision? How are you preparing yourself? Are you having a mock viva? I'm not having a mock viva because I think it will worry me more. Thanks Everyone :-)
(turkey)

My personal favourite is Wing Dings, but for writing I would use Arial. I wrote my thesis using LaTeX.

Congratulations!! :-)

======= Date Modified 31 Mar 2010 18:45:14 =======
Thank you for all your help guys!!

Hi Moggy, I'm not able to give you any advice on this but it is your uni's responsibility to provide you with a supervisory team, especially since you are paying the fees yourself, can you even go see someone in your student union about it?

Bilbo, this is brilliant news, congratulations! :-)
I hope this does not mean we won't be seeing you anymore on the postgrad forum :p

My Viva is only a few weeks away, my thesis is 120 pages, including all the stuff at the front and references, I really think I should have taken an extension rather than submit a thesis full of typos and that looks half finished. At most I'm hoping for a resubmission, I definitley won't get minor corrections. I'm really annoyed with myself as I know I am capable of so much more, but it is too late now, I can't get into the right frame of mind for preparing for this viva.:-(

Thanks teek, on top of this my thesis is so short, at this point the most i'm hoping for is major corrections and resubmit

Submitted my thesis a while back and I'm waiting on the Viva. I had found some major typos, told my supervisor about them, but, since then have found some more major typos, I was sloppy and obviously hadnt read things properly. My viva is going to be a complete disaster and I'm seriously thinking about withdrawing completley instead of being humiliated. I just want it over with now :-(

Thanks guys! I'm assuming the examiners look for a number of things from the thesis/viva - that the student displays knowledge of the area they are studying, the work is original, and it is a contribution to knowledge. If you have published from your thesis doesnt this mean that the thesis does cover these things? As I've mentioned this below, I know that papers are not essential criteria for passing a PhD, I know plenty of people who passed no problem without publishing, but I still think I need more work done to my own thesis and If the quality of my work is doubted by the examiners I intend to use this argument, but how many papers make it a good argument?