Hi,

I recently passed my viva in a humanities subject at a UK university with lots of small corrections, and was given ample time to fix. The corrections stemmed from the thesis being submitted early (cutting off the last 8 weeks) because of miscommunication, so had a high number of sloppy errors around formatting, missing words, typos and page numbers being out (like pp. 63-4 rather than just p.64). My examiners were very formal and thorough though, and picked up on every single one - and demanded I do a full check before handing the corrections in, which I did. Both said the research was very good, but one seemed very unhappy over the number of presentation issues, to the extent I thought they would push for a resubmit.

Problem is, I just submitted my corrections before deadline to the chair of the committee. The chair desired both a tracked change and a 'clean' version for the examiner to look at. I noticed after this though that I had made an error in the version by clicking 'reject' to some of the changes, which reverted them back to the old file. I'm only talking perhaps 10 of 100 minor changes, but I'm concerned given the nature of the original complaint, that they'll go hard on anything sloppy. Of particular worry is that - literally - one click of a mouse has left in errors that I knew existed, to the extent I now appear to be ignorant, stupid, or both.

I emailed the chair, who doesn't want a new file, as it 'may cause confusion'. However, I've been told that it could take many weeks for the examiner to read the file. Has anyone been in this position before? There seems to be little guidance online about whether examiners can 'fail' candidates after rejecting their corrections, but I was wondering about grounds for appeal should the chair refuse to pass on a version of the PhD I'm actually happy with, having explicitly flagged up a mistake caused by a slip of the finger.

I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news, but I imagine if your original examiner was tough with the original submission, you can bet your bottom dollar he will notice that 10% of the corrections have been ignored.

I'd be prepared for the worst, or - if it's not too late - immediately withdraw your corrections/final draft because of an error on your part, apologise, and resubmit in a week or so when you've done the other 10.

There's no shame in admitting that you deleted some comments/corrections by mistake, and that you need to do them again. It will look far better than pleading ignorance and ignoring 10 comments from a tough external examiner, which to me - I'm afraid - looks like academic suicide.

Thanks - the thing is, it's literally a one click fix (go to an older version, and don't 'reject' my own track changes). Forget a week, it took two minutes once I noticed it. The issue is not that, it's that I *have done* these things, spotted it, told the Chair, but it's at that point there's trouble. The Chair doesn't want a new version, says it'll cause confusion, and my examiner will get back to me in 4-6 weeks.

My view is that if I have spotted an error, I'm before deadline, it was an honest slip of the finger, that there should be some mechanism beyond asking nicely to get this rectified. Because I'm willing to bet the examiner will see it as ignorance or sloppiness. So if they criticise stuff I've spotted already and couldn't rectify, I appeal and blame the chair? That seems like suicide too.

This said though, I'm still thinking that *surely* a solid thesis with a few dozen typos/stylistic errors that passed with three months of corrections cannot fail at this stage. I never really got the impression the examiner particularly liked it, but others have - it's been (in uncorrected but passed form) been shortlisted for prizes, and will form the basis of a book. Being pissed off at a rushed final two months is one thing, but I'm still struggling to see how making 90% of the required changes and holding my hands up for the other 10% will cause something in this position to fail. Though the equally large problem could be the impression I make on a future referee...

I agree in principle, but it all comes down to the examiner.

(S)he will only sign off corrections which he/she believes are satisfactory in accordance with the report. If they get the hump on that you have - even accidentally - not done 10% of them, I suppose by the letter of the law he/she has the right to reject them.

Fingers crossed for you though. I hope it all works out!

What does your supervisor say? Tbh that it might 'cause confusion' doesn't sound like a good enough reason to not let you send the proper version if you are in the deadline.

My supervisor is diplomatic and nice to a fault (though has been utterly fantastic throughout the PhD process), and doesn't want to interfere with anyone's duties at this stage. The other potentially useful bit of information here is that this very formal and thorough examination committee + chair of mine have shown zero interest in engaging in a dialogue with me since the viva (which is where my suspicion that one of them doesn't like the thesis much, despite getting only three months corrections, comes from). I had queries about two of the ambiguous comments in my corrections list a couple of months ago, and I got a very terse response back after three unreplied emails in as many weeks saying it wasn't their job to answer these questions, and to speak to my supervisors - they would read the final thesis only once more. The correction in question wasn't anything major either! Compared to some of my peers who had helpful examiners who wanted to work with them through any questions they had post-viva, mine couldn't have been more distant, or different.

So, my feeling is that my examiner is already on edge with me bothering them, and my supervisor wants to bend over backwards to smooth things over lest I ever need a reference from them. Me sending another version of the thesis in might get their backs up even more, despite them saying they can't so much as look at it for several more weeks. I'm sort of in a damned if you do, damned if you don't, situation at the minute... Half of me thinks they can't possibly fail it in this situation, but the other half is concerned at how arbitrary the process can be if the expert doesn't think much of you, or your work.

I really don't think you are likely to fail on a few typos, so I wouldn't worry too much! You have done the vast majority of them correctly.