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Viva in 3 days - spotting lots of errors

M

I'm re-reading my thesis, and isn't it incredible how many silly errors you find after submission?!

I'm not letting them get me down, as I'm sure they're not major errors, but how about these couple of pearls:

* Mozart wrote a piece in 1971, not 1791...
* All of my (see fig. XX) numbers are out by four, between fig. 20 and 80, because I deleted four but musn't have gone through the text changing the references to them...

I'm hoping the examiners laugh at the first one and ask me to change it, and that the second one will be seen as a minor formatting error.

So infuriating when you're sure it's all right, and then you look back at it.

I shouldn't be worried about those minor things should I?

M

Sorry for double post, but that brings me to another serious question.

I'm writing down the list of errors I've found. Should I take them with me but not mention it unless prompted? I'm torn between it looking like I'm a professional self-critic of my own work, and it looking like I'm admitting my own weaknesses before I've even started.

Thoughts on identifying own errors in viva? Should I leave it to the examiners to do that for me?

I think it will really depend on how much they notice. I would take the list with you, but keep it to yourself; that way if they do draw your attention to any, you can as you say appear autocritical with your list, but if they don't you haven't drawn their attention to any...

T

I agree with Eds. These things are really minor. I also had some of these mistakes and the examiners noticed some, but not all. Don't tell them unless you have to!

D

I was likewise recommended to list errors but not volunteer them - perfectly OK to correct them in final version without prompting.

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