By following this approach you will quickly have a few thousands words of literature survery written down. I would recommend to aim for 20,000 words until Christmas. Send draft versions frequently (every 3 weeks) to your supervisor and insist on feedback. The benefit is that you don't have to read every single bit of every article and actually have a tangible result (i.e. the literature chapter written down as a first draft). The downside is that you may drift away gradually from your actual research questions. But that's not too bad as you'll probably change them after a year or so anyway, due to an adjusted focus of your study.

I would advise the following: read an abstract of an article, decide if it's remotely related to what you are doing. Continue until you have about 50, relatively recent articles from a variety of top journals. Then print them out, put the in your Endnote library.
Then start writing literature review straight away, mainly by skim-reading. For the beginning it should be enough to read abstract, first few literature pages and conclusions and to skip all the methods, data bits etc.

Yes, that's true Hattie.

In Germany, a PhD/doctorate is almost essential if you want to work as a senior manager or management consultant. In general, people would give you much more respect for it (and you would also add to your passport and identity card)

I wonder why a PhD doesn't give you a similar status in UK industry as the time and effort to get on remains high. But perhaps, as you said, the tide is turning.

Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Analysis, Evaluation, Conclusions, References.

If you haven't thought about it yet, it might be useful to have a look at some exemplars in your library.

I just went to ASDA (with my last remaining bit of physical strength) and bought Beechams All-In-One, VapoRub and Wick First Defense. Now I'm in bed feeling like an overdose.

Who else would like to indulge in joint self pity due to having a flu or cold or cough or sore throat or anything else?

23-7=16, I can confirm that.

There is a lot of negative energy in this thread...

I would ring them up to make an appointment, both of them. I would however, also make it very clear that you do not seek any further comments, but rather their comments are unclear to you AND your supervisor.

I am aware that the university does not allow such contacts, but in your case it's different because you don't want any advice, all you want is a clarification of the required changes, and this is perfectly legitimate. If in doubt, ask your supervisor or head of department concerning the rules in such a case that neither you nor your supervisor understand the comments by the examiners. As your supervisor doesn't understand them, it is very clear that clarification is definitely required as otherwise you are unable to proceed in making these changes.

Contact the examiners and talk the report through with them. If I were you I did that in person, i.e. not by email. Just make an appointment and travel there. I'm sure they can explain what they mean.

Besides, I'm not your mate.

Calm down, Manuk.

I merely asked for the age as it is important to know - PRIOR to giving any advice to the original poster, capice?

In this case, I can say that 23 is not too late to start a PhD, in my opinion.

Before I attempt to give any advice - do you mind asking how old you are currently?

Thing is, as Badhaircut mentioned above, it's not about distinction or 2.1 or 2.2 or first class.
You call yourself scientifically unstable, implying that you are worried about your skills and your knowledge.

Problem is, PhDs are rarely about your knowledge and your research skills. If you get a PhD depends on different factors. At the end of the day, it's a question of being emotionally and mentally stable, being patient and having the right level of support, for example from your supervisor (s).

So I wouldn't worry about not knowing enough but rather ask yourself the question if you really want to live for three years in a state of anxiety, financial insecurity and mental exhaustion. Only if you are willing to sacrifice three years of your life to one, relatively boring and probably useless research topic, then go for it. If I had to make this decision again I'd probably run away.

That's terribly interesting...(sarcasm highlighted)