Dear all,

I have submitted some time ago and am preparing for the viva, although I am not sure when that will actually be. As advised by Bilbo I have made a list of typos.

I have found 6 typos which really need correction. There are also about 4 small passages which are written a bit unconventionally, yet are strictly speaking grammatically correct.

My view is that this seems quite acceptable, yet have no idea how many typos are the norm in a thesis. What would be your views? And would you stick to real errors or also include the "style issues"?
:-)

I assume it all depends on your examiners. I have a copy of a girls thesis, I know she passed with no amendments, yet I have found NUMEROUS mistakes throughout it, she's hardly referenced half the people she's cited (i.e. she has cited but not provided the full reference) and there are a load of typos.

Mind you, I'd rather have my amendments being typos than anything else :p

Hi Sneaks,

thanks. The same for me, better typos than major rewites.

I agree that the examiners may just not notice the errors, like I did not notice them when I wrote and read, and re-read etc. the whole thing. It is to amazing that all of a sudden one sees the mistakes, when one has a little distance to the work.

How are you today?

======= Date Modified 20 Sep 2010 10:11:14 =======
============= Edited by a Moderator =============
I recently had a publication that was proof read by 3 people multiple times and there was STILL a blimmin typo in it when it was published! And one of those sneaky ones that doesn't get picked up on a spellcheck e.g. ration rather than ratio (I pick this up a lot in hubs phd as he's doing a maths one AND is dyslexic).

I *nearly* left in 'b*&%$r' the other day, as meant to write 'buffer' NOT GOOD - might do a search for rude words before I hand it in. The sentence was "variable x buggers variable y in xyz situations" - haha!

I'm cold and waiting for SPSS to process some bootstrapped regressions, which seems to take 10 mins a go for the poor sickly processor

I picked up (and the examiners too) about a dozen typos in my submitted thesis. And I still have two that I have noticed in my final bound and published one (that neither myself nor the examiners picked up!)

Oh and I just read "bootstrapped regressions" and smiled. It doesn't take much to cheer up an agitated statistician :-x

======= Date Modified 20 Sep 2010 10:09:09 =======
============= Edited by a Moderator =============
Ha ha,

the "b&*%$r" error is quite a funny one! Maybe you should keep it in, for a laugh!

Same with me, all errors were existing other words, therefore not picked up with the spell check.

I hope the SPSS is working and that you make good progress regarding the analysis. Cold down here as well. I have been to the gym, that always makes me feel good and relaxed afterwards. So I am quite happy. Wish you well.

:-)

just walked the dog in the sunshine :-)

My friend did a PhD on shift work - must have been a nightmare for dodgy typos! :$

Hi DanB,

just saw your posting, thanks.

So about 12 typos, that is helpful, gives me a bit of an idea what would be "normal". I think you are right, the more one re-reads the thesis the more one detects all kind of issues! To a certain extent great though, that it cannot be changed anymore, just have to accept it.

Did you take a list of typos to your viva?

Hi Sneaks,

what kind of a dog have you got?

Personally I like cats, yet not much walking the cat. At home we always used to have a cat. Once, my brothers and I thought it would only be fair to take the cat for a walk, we had bought a collar and leash and went for a walk in the park. The first thing the cat did was climb in a tree and then jumped from a high historical old wall, to avoid strangling him, I had to jump as well! Not a great success!
:-)

She's a working cocker spaniel - this is her ladyship ;-)

http://tinyurl.com/26zxzzw

I do also have two cats - I'm like one of those freaky pet hoarders on those animal shows, although I do feed mine and they're allowed out all the time and bring back lots of birds/mice/frogs as presents :-(

I had my viva on Monday and passed with no revisions. I found probably 60 typos in my 290 page theoretical PhD during my preparation for the viva and the two external examiners reckon they found about 80 all up; although I haven't yet recieved a catalog of these back yet. I also had a couple of sections that I think were not written well but this never came up on the viva.

Although my viva was pretty tough when it was over the externals both invited me to the pub. I really didn't want to go - I wanted to go and tell my freinds and run around in circles beacuse I'd passed - but I felt I should go with them because one had come from the other end of the country and the other had been flown in from Spain for the day. Anyway, at the pub they told me that as long as everything makes sense, is original and is argued for logically and strenuously then examiners are generally happy and will not sweat the small stuff. They then proceeded to compliment me on my argument while teasing me for being such a bad speller. So don't worry about typos just worry about defending your argument.

Good luck at the viva

So you don't have to correct all those typos Biddysbottom? I had far less than you, just a dozen or so all told. So I had minor corrections, just typos, but they could be done in a matter of hours. I was very happy :)

Hi Biddy,

congratulations for passing the viva! Well done, good show!

Nice to hear that the essential part of the viva can be the content, and not so much minutia, like typos. As always, the "truth" is probably somewhere in the middle: one needs to know the stuff, yet also has to take care that it is presented neatly.

So do you have a big party? And what do you do that you get an examiner being flown in from Spain?:-)

I once applied for a job in which I had stated in my application that I had organised 'pubic meetings'! I got an interview but not the job so I don't know if they actually noticed.
I had a journalist friend who was writing about somebody called Angus and a letter got missed out.....

On whether or not I have to correct the typos they told me two things. First not to spend more than a few hours on any corrections and second that they would not need to see the thesis again; well they actually said to email the final document to them but that they trusted me to make the corrections and they would not be opeining it. So I suppose I could get away with not doing any corrections but I wouldn't risk that. I will do whatever they put on their list of edits even if it takes a week.

On the guy coming in from Spain; I just asked my university if they could get him (I didn't know where he lived I had just read his books) and they arranged it. My thesis has a large component of very abstract theoretical philosophy which deals with the epistemological ramifications of solving a traditional philosophical paradox; I wouldn't say it is impossibly hard but thinking about paradoxes takes a certain type of brain; most days I wake up and I cannot understand my own argument for an hour or so. So I guess that it is because of this that they got this other philosopher in. To be honest I didn't know that this was not usual; maybe my department were worried that someone else might just not get it and they wanted to help me out.

BB