Hi. Look I'm in the very final stages of the edit-in fact this morning I'm going through the thing again to look for any typos-dates that might not be accurate, that headings align with contents page headings and numbers and that stuff hasn't slipped off the page between screen and printer.

I'll do one last screen for grammatical sense and the comma addiction as well. I'm waiting for supervisor to get back to me- I sent her the final thing 10 days ago and (she's read and edited in between-chapter by chapter, and then chapter again- a few times over). She promised to get back to me in two days and it is now at least 10. Okay, that's fine but the issue is, I've passed my official deadline by about 6 weeks now and would like to just submit. I think it is pretty much okay. I'm happy to wait for her to contact me this week and to make any adjustments that she is worried about but she seems to be happy for it to go months over deadline. I have to wait quite a bit for her often as she is incredibly busy and juggles many different academic activities as well as being my supervisor. So she is always lovely and apologetic but I can see (as with the ethics review) she could put back my submission by three to six months because she is busy.

Ive been advised by friends and family to submit it. I've always received excellent academic grades and most of them say 'come on you fail!!!' and look at me with irony! My work and new role are becoming more intense by the day and there are several major projects that I have put the brakes on or delayed a little so that I can have the headspace some evenings and weekends for this thesis-I would love to submit it next weekend after making any final edits (provided I can contact her next week).

What do others think? Has anyone else done this-just said, look I'll do all of your final suggestions but I am sending it in by such and such a time...? Quite frankly, I do want to do well but I'm over the blind urge to do a phd and can see with the projects that I've committed to at work that I wouldn't be able to in the next couple of years or so anyway. My role is to create a new middle school and revise all of the curriculum for it in our present huge 7 to 12 college. It is a pretty big job and I made this commitment last year, thinking that the thesis would be done and dusted pretty much on my long service leave. Supervisor delayed that as well...but we've gotten over that issue now.

It's a long post-has anyone else experienced this sort of thing and just insisted they keep to a deadline?

Pjlu, whilst I've never been in this situation I just wanted to say: I get the impression you have already made up your mind. You seem very enthusiastic about what is a worthwhile cause (your work projects), and, honestly, if you are happy -- as you say -- with your work, and you have done edits and re-edits and checks and re-checks, then you have completed the work as best as you can.

I don't want to shrug off your dilemma, I see that there is one here, I just get the very strong impression you already know the answer here ;)

I'm sure you can explain this eloquently yo your tutor. I will add this, however: very jealous that you're at submission stage. Still 4 weeks to go for me and my tutor is yet to check anything over until I'm done with the first lots of edits/formatting (so he can check it over as I *would* submit it). I find this stage really tough-going.
(up) Anyway, well done!

When I was doing my thesis for my masters I had virually no help from the supervisor at all, he had no interest in the subject and told me so. He looked at nothing except the final version where he asked if I wanted to pass or pass well... He was so uninterested that when I asked him what the submission deadline was (I was submitting at a different date to others as I had had to wait to complete a final modlue before I could do this, having done all the rest the previous year, even though I was part time and was submitting in the spring) he said he didn't know and didn't even offer to find out. His lack of interest made me miss a distinction by 0.6%, not that that was my aim anyway. I must admit though that reading it now makes me cringe a bit, it wasn't anywhere near as good as it would have been with a bit of help, which was partly my fault for not insisting he did his job properly, and if I had the chance again I would rewrite it. You, on the other hand have had the help of your supervisor so far, so I would probably just drop them an e-mail saying that you have taken her comments on board so far, and would like to submit now, rather than have it drag on, say if you don't hear by, say, Thursday, you will assume she has no objections, and then submit it. Good luck

Thanks to both you-Helena for some much needed positive enthusiasm after what has been a long, difficult and lacklustre day at work and Joyce for your clear sighted comments.

I got in contact with supervisor after third attempt-also after I had had a conversation with the postgraduate advisor for my uni-who suggested I explain my dilemma to her. However, the conversation with the supervisor did not go well. She is unhappy with a sentence in my lit review that is apparently contradictory and what it means and some of the headings in my chapters and frustrated that I have addressed aspects of this but not fully satisfactorily-its hard to gather on the phone so she is sending my thesis back via mail with hardcopy corrections.

So the upshot of this is NO I can't submit until she is happy with it as she has to sign off on it and she did not say much when I said that I only want to pass and don't care about phd's.

So, I have resigned myself to just going on with this neverending process until it does end and just trying to ensure that I share my time out between work commitments. I've worked out that I can work on thesis Thursday & Friday evenings and all day Saturday. That leaves me the rest of the week for work and Sundays for work as well. I'd love a proper weekend or even a holiday that was actually a holiday and not just work on the thesis or playing catch up from work.

Anyway, thanks for the support both of you. Joyce, I am grateful for her support and understand how frustrating it must be to read posts, when you have known the other side of supervision-aka-nada- minimal supervision. However, at times I don't think the academic and the professional world really understand one another and neither side seem to want to give an inch at times. I am committed to this process and I need to see it out-this Master's has really been a challenge and I want my letters...but unlike La Belle Dame Sans Merci- the academic world no longer has me 'in thrall'-although obviously my supervisor does! Cheers:-(

How frustrating! Truthfully, I hate editing after supervisor has annotated. Often I feel slightly annoyed by it (even though I KNOW what they’re suggesting is right). It’s just a crappy, dull and often very patience-testing process.

I imagine that you, like me, would not feel too happy with yourself for submitting knowing that you needed to alter something. Especially considering the master’s will be after your name forevermore! Possibly, though, once you have corrected this it’s over for you? One last hurdle, one more push. We all have that in us, even though it doesn’t always feel that way.

I’m beginning what I have termed “hell week” this week. 7 days of editing (then going to paid-work) then more editing in the evenings (then vodka lol). As I said on the previous post I want to send it to my tutor by 16th-20th August just as I ‘would’ submit it, and have him see what he thinks! I’m pretty sure that after hell-week it will pretty much kill me to get it back with red annotation all over it – and that’s if he can manage to do it quickly enough -- but once Sept 10th has passed THIS WILL BE OVER – come what may.

My advice to you is to find that strength that you think you don’t have and complete what has been a very stressful project. Complete it. Hand it in. Then enjoy the rest of your life ;)

Thanks Helena, good luck with the editing. At least you are getting some form of advanced warning-re: the miserable editing process. It's like being able to prepare for some form of psychological warfare!! Well, maybe a bit of an exaggeration. Hope it goes well for you- I'd better finish breakkie and go to work now. Cheers....