Hi,

I am wondering what people's experiences are, how long it took or should take their supervisors to read their final PhD draft? Mine is only half way through after almost three weeks now....... is that normal, long, any tips how I can make some friendly pressure? I would like to have my defence in May.

Thanks!

I emailed my final draft to my supervisor in early December 2009. He sent the printed version, all covered with scribbles, back to me just before the New Year. I think he was rather fast, given it was Christmas, but then that might have helped him find time too.

My draft was 70,000 words. How long is yours? That could be a factor in how long it takes to read through. Also it's arguably better that your supervisor takes a little bit longer to read it thoroughly than possibly skips something important that they should have picked up on.

thank you! that's good to know. it took him 5 weeks for the first draft, and I had to cut many many words because I did not know that footnotes are not included in the normal word count unless you tick the box (I have not been educated in a word counting system). now I have a bit over 100,000 words in my final draft. i suppose, he is still in time then. if you already had your viva, congrats.

It took a couple of months for my supervisor to turn around an earlier draft last summer! But this time he was being extra quick, I think because he knew my uni registration deadline was looming.

Haven't had my viva yet, and don't even have a date yet. But chilled about it 8-)

i also had my first draft in the summer.

Ah right. It wasn't my first draft - I've been writing for years, as a very part-time student (typically just 5 hours total a week) But it was my first nearly finished thesis draft. I just had some more research to plug in, so sent my supervisors the draft as it stood, then while they read it (slowly!) I got on with finishing the researching and writing it up.

Good luck with finishing off your PhD.

Hi - time has passed, eventually I had a 97k thesis I think, which I submitted a few months ago and 10 weeks later :-s had a (great:-) ) viva- I talked myself out of any amendments... phew! Where are you standing now? cheers

Congrats on a good viva :) Mine was great too, back in March. I graduated a month ago.

I'm now an independent researcher, converting my thesis into journal papers and planning more research. I'm long-term seriously ill, so can't take on any academic posts, but want to produce more academic stuff.

awesome, congrats! :-) we are done --- it's so great to know that noone can ever talk into your business ever again and that there will probably be no more exams in life :-)

i see, how do you arrange access to publications, infrastructure etc.? i read s.th. in the current BSA newsletter 'Network' that it's not always easy if one works outside academia, or perhaps this is not an issue for you.

I don't need any infrastructure: I did my PhD completely from home, so can carry on like that. But access to electronic journals is a problem area. I've asked if I can get an honorary research fellowship, which would solve that problem for the short term. But I do have life membership of a local university library, so that helps a bit, though it doesn't get access to the electronic resources.

Just battling on as best I can really! Are you hoping to get a post-doc?

Yes mostly I meant access to electronic journals, another option might be s.th. like visiting researcher or research fellow or so? i had a visiting graduate student status once at a foreign university which was great; it meant to pay nothing but have complete access to the infrastructure, library etc. this way one is also affiliated with an institution or department.

Hoping to get a post-doc and trying also ESRC, even though this will be very tough, but I have a great institutional option... Depending on how long it will take to get s.th., I might also have to find such a solution to guarantee access to publications etc.

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Posted by mistake :p