Dear Ady,

Many congratulations on this!!! I am very happy for you. And you are almost there now! (up). Keep it up. Just one more week and then you can take a break from all this till the viva.

Cheers

Hi Cindrella,

I am glad you found it. Sorry, I have been so busy I totally forgot about checking it up.

Cheers

Hi,

Please try mailing the editor from a University account. At times, the gmail/yahoo/hotmail type accounts get marked as spam. Please email the handling editor via email and perhaps again by means of using the online system. It is quite reasonable to inquire about the paper. Secondly, from minor revisions, I don't recall ever seeing papers going to major. At times, for minor, the Editors even simply check the revisions themselves.

Hope this helps,

Cheers

Hi Scared,

Firstly congratulations on getting the minor corrections done. Secondly, I think this should not be an issue hopefully. Although I feel that the rules are unclear about this aspect in most universities but I think it is probably hard for the examiner to go any way other than passing you or else requiring some more changes. Maybe you can check the University online forms (e.g. minor corrections, examiner forms) to give you an idea what could be possible in this case.

All the best,

Cheers

Thank you so much Delta and Skig. Today has been a great day as I ended up doing the official final print version of the thesis. Very hectic but somehow quite satisfying. :-) I still have yet to receive the final letter from the uni but they say that can take a couple of weeks (for whatever reason!). . . But oh well.. .

Dear Ady, Cinderella and KB: Thank you so much for the nice wishes. . . I am actually still having a hard time accepting that it is all over. :) I found this forum quite late in my PhD but it has been a pleasure to be here with all the folks for this brief time. And I sure want to be around here hopefully for a longer time though to share my experiences. (up)

Dear Delta,

I have used Turnitin (via a University account) and Viper (free service) earlier for checking plagiarism but not Writecheck. I actually agree with you that sometimes it can be a good idea to do that especially before any major submissions (and in case that the examiners are in the habit of googling for phrases from your thesis). One of my lab-fellows submitted his first year report and the examiner somehow found out a single sentence which he had forgot to paraphrase properly (even though he had given the citation earlier) and it took quite a bit of an effort for him to get out of this mess (as they were almost ready to make his report a fail/re-submission just because of that one line. . .:-s).

My personal experience is that at times, in the several hundred of pages and over 3 years or so of working on a problem, it is quite easy to inadvertently re-use one sentence or so without remembering the source (e.g. if it was something which has became your second nature due to prevalence in literature etc.) so these services can help find out the source (and then you can paraphrase/add proper citation in case you missed it earlier on)

Hope this helps

======= Date Modified 20 Sep 2011 09:36:11 =======
Dear Ady,

First of all, congratulations on getting to the third draft! It means you are quite close to the goal though I realize simply waiting up on submission can be extremely painful. I have been in this situation more than once when I had to convince my sup. Basically if it were like my sup then he probably does not have time to read (maybe) and wants to ensure that it is fine (while not realizing the traumatic effects this delay is having on yourself). One possible way of convincing him is maybe to ask for a (long) meeting. Bring in the draft, maybe even make a small presentation (In other words, go prepared). If you can find out his exact concerns and address them in the meeting, maybe he will be convinced.  Also, please tell him clearly how much this submission matters to you and that you are unable to face the pressure anymore. I have done this more than once in the last period of my PhD (even though initially I would simply comply) and simply had to discuss with my supervisor that I could not take it anymore. It took a bit of convincing but at the end, it worked as it appeared that he had not looked at it earlier from my point of view.

Best of luck in submission and all.

Hi,

Just wanted to share some good news. Earlier today, my internal mailed me so I went to meet her. She had some concerns with one of the chapters but it turned out that in around 1-2 hrs, I was able to finalize all the corrections to her satisfaction. So finally. . . it appears that I am done now. :-)

I cannot believe I have managed to finish my PhD part-time ( and in the minimum time allowed for part-time though it seems like a lifetime).Though the last part (my viva and corrections) proved to be quite difficult. (I probably wrote almost 150 more pages during corrections in <2 months).

All the best to everyone else waiting for the results of their corrections. Also, best of luck to others who are on their way.

Cheers

Hi Laura,

Firstly congratulations on the EdD. That is a great achievement. Since I myself had a Masters from the US before I went for a PhD here in the UK, I would like to say that you need to be aware that the system here has a lot of politics and bureaucracy as compared to the US. And while I appreciate your interest in the UK system. So once you find a department which allows for a "by publication" route, be sure that there have been previous successful PhDs there *by this route* and do ask them personally about their experiences. I probably could have taken the same route but chose not to do so since I realized that if the examiners have themselves never seen this route before, I might get into trouble (more than I have gone through going the other way :p). The key problems that I realize I might have faced are the subjective (and actually unchallengeable) assessments at times by the examiners here. (e.g. in "their" opinion, are the publications "substantial" etc.)


Cheers

Hi everyone,

While alternating between depression and elation, since I am waiting desperately for the results of my "minor" corrections, I found this rather interesting link about the realities of life . . . :p
http://www.despair.com/viewall.html

Cheers

Hey there,

Hmmm looking at what you have said about the email, I personally think they are hopefully going to pass you. If you notice they asked you for that statement. It appears to me that they were simply sleeping and now want a checklist just so they can quickly get it over with.

Best of luck and keep us all posted.

ZoePhD

First of all many congratulations!
Secondly, I hear you that it was very tough. I had a similar experience and for weeks, I could not get the viva out of my head (I kept repeating answering their questions because I was not allowed much say during it at times). But listen, good thing is, one major step is over. And you did a great job. Think about it. These ppl grilled you and you successfully defended yourself. You should pat yourself on your shoulder for this. :p

Now, chill for some time, plz take a break! Next step is getting the corrections done. . .

Cheers

Hi,

I had the same experience as KB. Quite unexpectedly, my internal turned out to be a very rude person. Even her hand-written comments in my thesis are very impolite. Instead of simply saying something is incorrect, she used words like "crap" etc. (And technically she was wrong as apparently it turned out that she does not quite understand my research domain even though it seemed to be listed in her profile).
So, one important point, if your topic matches considerably with the examiners' profile, please triple check to see if she does not have a special minimalistic understanding of that domain otherwise it might become a bit of a mess (as happened in my case).
Another important point is, maybe senior examiners might not be abnormally hard on the student as they have had a lot of student vivas and don't need to assert themselves. (At least I can say this about mine as my External was quite senior and internal was only a lecturer)

Cheers

Hi Kikuka,

No, you are not being ridiculous. And you are not alone in this thing. I am also in the same boat as you are. I have submitted my corrections (which were officially minor but the internal was insisting they were major even though they were mostly just editorial things) and now I keep imagining that my internal is reading them and trying to find mistakes in them . . . (feels quite awful as she was the one who made the most issues in the viva without reason. . . even though, like yourself I feel I have addressed all of the comments and suggestions ). I am trying to get a grip on myself but it can be hard. Today, I had to force myself to go out and went to gym, got myself totally exhausted by working out. It did help me. Maybe it will help you too. Listen, don't be hard on yourself. You did your best. Now, just relax and do something fun. (This is exactly what I keep telling myself when I feel my nerves getting to myself and I keep thinking of the thesis, viva . .etc. ) Remember maybe it is just that the examiners started teaching etc. and so got busy (after they had too much spare time for themselves in Summer . . .)

Cheers(up)