Eat ice cream, and lots of it.

Many thanks to all for your responses to this question. I have two supervisors, my main supervisor and a second supervisor, and both have read the first draft of the entire thesis. My main supervisor has been great in many ways (esp. in terms of theory and knowing the literature), however close reading for grammar and spotting typos is not one of her strengths. This is partly because she is extremely busy and I get the impression my work is read on the train home from conferences etc. I have noticed typos in her published work which concern me. My second supervisor picks up more of these errors, and wrote on my draft 'I have indicated some typos but I expect there are more that I haven't picked up'...she is now on maternity leave so can't read my work any more. Of course in making edits before I submit I am likely to make even more typos! Maybe I should just try to accept there will be some typos and submit anyway. Thanks for the comments.

...but there's something about it that makes me feel uncomfortable (not just the money). I guess it's because I won't feel that it's all my own work. But I think mistakes are inevitable no matter how many times you proof read. What do other people think? Worth a try or just submit as it is? (English is my first language BTW)

Hi all, I am hoping to submit at the end of July. I had a conversation with my Dr.friend who said that before submitting his thesis, he paid someone to check over it for grammar and spelling. Has anyone else done this, or is thinking of doing it? Obviously I would like my thesis to have as few mistakes as possible, and I don't have anyone who could do this for free.

BTW how long did the viva last?

Excellent news! Well done! Enjoy your relaxation and celebrations! I have handed in the first draft of my thesis and have been told I should be able to make the edits and submit by end of July. I'm still finding it hard to sit down and get going on this again! Glad to hear there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I handed in the first draft of my whole thesis at the beginning of the month. I decided on an outline (in my case 10 chapters) and then compared that with what I had. I only had 3 weeks to pull it all together so divided what I needed to do between that. It was very intense and I always had the feeling I didn't have enough time to finish everything I needed to do, e.g. revise and update methodology chapter in 1 day. I read through the whole thing and tried to make sure my arguments carried through the chapters, and that there were links between the chapters. I was up until 5am the night before it was due and it took me a couple of weeks to feel I had 'recovered' from over-working. Yesterday I had some really positive feedback from my supervisor who said it is 'very close now' and admitted she didn't think I would hand in the draft by the deadline we agreed!!

Hi hillyg, I tend to work in 1 document per chapter and do lots of cutting and pasting, printing and reading through and changing. I haven't put the whole thesis into one document yet- still stored in separate chapters. I would advise you to work out what needs to be done to get a minimum draft in and set yourself times to do the tasks. Don't worry if it doesn't feel as good as it could be, just get to the stage where you are happy to send it to your supervisor.

Please help...Doh!

I'm just killing time pretending to write something whilst really waiting for big brother! Bye Grace!

Many congrats on submitting your thesis!! Alas I am not at that stage yet - trying to get the first draft of the whole thing finished this weekend. I remember reading some advice in one of the 'how to get a phd' books about going through your thesis and summarising the key points of your chapters, anticipating and potential viva questions and keeping a list of any typos you come across. Good luck for the viva!

I also want Pete to win at the mo. I read that Nikki is severely anorexic and believes that tap water has properties that make you fat, apparantly hence why she was freaking out about getting bottled water.

Maybe it is just the first stage and you might be asked to go to the university later if it goes well? If not and they offer you the place I would def suggest asking to visit in person and meet your supervisor, other PhD students etc.

I've found these posts interesting because I've been thinking about the work/family/life balance issue recently. I'm 26 and would really like to have children but its difficult to know how it would affect my career. I'm finishing PhD and work as a full time lecturer - on probation for 3 years before my contract is made permanent! So ideally I would wait until after that, and then there is the issue of publications (getting enough to have more job security!). But then when I go home and see my cousins / friends my age or younger with children I think maybe I am putting too much emphasis on this PhD and career thing. Sigh.

I've read quite a lot of PhD theses and only a couple have a whole chapter on the theoretical framework, but most have some kind of statement about the theoretical perspective of the study, e.g. feminism (I'm in social sciences by the way). I'm finding it really hard because I'm drawing on a range of different concepts and trying to integrate them into a cohesive piece of work rather than adopting 1 existing theoretical framework. I think this has been the most difficult chapter for me to write because it's hard to discuss the theory separate from the literature or my findings.