I really need some advice from people who have been through the viva process.
My viva is a few days away and I am panicking. I have been going through the thesis and I have loads and loads of mistakes. Really, I mean loads.
It was such a rush at the end to submit in time to meet my funding body's deadline and I wasn't coping very well emotionally at the time.
I have many missing and incomplete footnotes, mislabelled and misnumbered section headings, paragraphs that don't follow one from another because something was inserted between them or which tail off without coming to a conclusion, as well as an incomplete bibliography. To take one example, I have just found a paragraph which begins 'So, Smith thinks X....' when the previous paragraph isn't even talking about X and there should clearly be some sort of transition here which are just missing.
I don't know what to do because I can barely read for panicking and I am scared I will just crumble the minute I walk in the room and talk them out of awarding me anything because of these mistakes. I really feel like I need to defend what I have managed to do and what I have achieved but it just seems pointless when there are so many glaring errors. I am so ashamed of what I have submitted and feel like this means the end of an academic career for me.
There are so many corrections I don't think I can even come up with a full list of them in time for the viva.
What should I do?

Firstyl, Calm Down! I haven't been through the Viva process myself as I am just embarking on my EdD however, it is clear from your post that you already know what you need to do! You need to defend the work that you have done. Write a list of all the thingst that your thesis has acheived. That way you've got a good basis. Yes, they will see the issues and corrections but hopefully if you defend your position strongly enough you'll just have them down as minor. If they're major corrections then fine, hopefully you're now in a better frame of mind to be able to complete them.
I don't know what effect having major corrections has on your future career in academia but there must be hundreds of other doctoral studies which get major corrections and need more time.

feelingfestive

Whatever you do, please stay calm. You've come this far, while many of us here are still struggling with our thesis. I would advise you to think peaceful thoughts. Try to act confident, (even though you are a bundle of nerves), because you need all the confidence you can get for the viva. Call up someone you can count on to give you some last-minute encouragement ; it could be your parents, friends back home, etc. That's what a close friend of mine did 4 hours before his viva, when he suddenly felt all nervous and jittery. He survived his viva with minor corrections :) So, all the best and good luck !