Hi everyone, I'm five months into the third yr of my phd....history, very empirical, curzon as viceroy of India. i am planning to submit in a couple of weeks...should i? meaning to say that supervisor is ok with it, but says i wont get an outright phd, i'd be asked to make minor or major corrections, which is ok, but what if the examiners give me an MPhil? does anyone know of anyone actually being given an mphil at the viva? sup. says it would be "rather bad luck" if that happened, but the thing is examiners obviously have their own views and they might just think that they'd like to gimme an mphil. HELP! Should i put thesis in next week, or stew around for a further six months?
(i should add i am an overseas student in the uk, and fully-self funded, so am snowed under debt and also missed out on last yr's grad milkground)

======= Date Modified 21 Feb 2009 12:13:36 =======
Dhara, a PhD is ready to submit when you and your supervisor think it will pass. No one on the forum can really say 'yes submit' or 'no, don't', because only you and your supervisor know the standard of your work. All I would say is that submitting a PhD after 2 years and 5 mths is fairly uncommon (and if I'm not mistaken, not allowed in many universities), and you really have to ask yourself and your supervisor whether you would pass. Frankly, I find your supervisor's comments a little irresponsible with respect to saying it would be 'rather bad luck' should you end up with an MPhil.

Is the gamble worth taking after all the money you have spent on your PhD studies?

======= Date Modified 21 Feb 2009 12:23:14 =======
Personally, I'd go with the supervisor's opinion, as they should know what they're talking about. I'd imagine lots of us have some debt problems (I do), but it would be a shame to fall at the last hurdle, so to speak, and end up with an MPhil instead of a PhD if the thesis just needed a bit more time and effort. If you've done all this work so far, wouldn't it be worth getting substantial and detailed feedback from your sup about what exactly you need to do to turn it into a decent PhD, then hanging on and finishing it properly?

I know of of one student who got an MPhil after her viva though she was registered for a PhD, but her work was problematic. She didn't mind as she didn't need the PhD for an academic career. Another student (quite arrogant) took no notice of her sup, submitted and had to do substantial rewrites over a year. If you submitted now and got major corrections to do, it still prolongs the whole process so it won't exactly change your current financial situation anyway.

I agree with Missspacey too, you're not even in the required time frame for having to submit, so not surprising your sup doesn't think your thesis is up to PhD standard.

oh thanks. i did ask supervisor. that's when he said they'd probly ask me to make changes, but an mphil would be kind of 'harsh' of them. i don't know myself re: it's level because i don't hv a masters thesis etc to measure it against, as i'm doing it straight from my under grad degree.
re: re-submissions, my idea was that once the examiners ask you to resubmit, they are very specific abt what changes you shd make, and once you make those, you get the phd anyway. so there is a degree of certainty to that. i see people slaving away for 5+ yrs n then getting asked to resubmit, so idea was that i get asked to resubmit now. (sound stupid but method to madness etc) ...

But you haven't slaved away for 5+ years - you're only 5 months into your 3rd year!! Don't you want to do as well as you can??

no of course not. but idea being that even were i to, i might still be asked to re-submit!:-)

======= Date Modified 21 Feb 2009 12:42:04 =======
Have you actually done enough research for it to be of PhD standard? Some theses don't actually have enough substance for a PhD, whether or not they got corrections after a viva, hence they'll always be MPhils. You really should check with your sup and take his advice.

I agree with Ruby here, are you sure you have done enough research to warrant a PhD? I'd be concerned if I'd gone straight from UG to PhD, and then submitted 6 mths early.

Have you read successful PhD theses from your department?

Also, do you have another member of your department that you can consult on this?

If I were you I would be waiting until my supervisor thought it was ready to submit. If they think it is going to need corrections of the major variety you probably won't save much time overall anyway. The regulations might not allow it, but your super should know if it is OK to submit early.

Whilst I appreciate that your financial situation is a concern, if I had another 7 months to play with and my thesis was anything less than perfect, I'd carry on working with it. Yes, it's perfectly common to come away from a viva with corrections to do prior to a PhD being awarded, but if there are clear issues you could work on prior to submission I imagine that the examiners would look more favourably on your work. If I had to examine a thesis that needed further development, and then found out that it had been submitted really early, I don't think I'd be too impressed.

If you are of the opinion that making the necessary changes/developments to your thesis aren't that big a deal (although check with your supervisor about this), then would it be possible to get at least some kind of small part time job, just to keep things ticking over and help prevent more debt mounting up, while you work on those issues?

Finally, I think in a way the fact that the expected time for a PhD project is three year is not just reflective of the fact that it takes (at least) that long for most people to do enough tangiable work to put down on paper. Certainly for me I would say that I need time to absorb information and synthesise it into something cohesive - you might find that by submitting early you may be depriving your thesis of some insight that you haven't yet made.

Just a thought.

Dhara,

I am 5 months into a PhD and am looking at a 2.6 yrs submission to graduate in 3 yrs. My supervisor is on board with this. But I should tell you, I almost do *nothing* except my CV, research jobs and my thesis. I write a HUGE lot, my sup reads a HUGE lot, I run very fast, so does my sup. Without that a PhD standard work cannot be achieved, even with that, things may still be doubtful.

As I look at this, unless your thesis is of a SOUND standard you should not submit. and doing sound work in 2.6 yrs time needs a HUGE HUGE amount of effort, please believe me, I am going through it, and it's awfully strenuous. SO you will know best whether you have done that kind of thing. If you have, trust your sup and go ahead. If you have come straight from bachelors and have written something that looks okayish, i woud say hold on.


All I know is, I did masters, I do almost nothing except research and thesis, and I stick to a calendar like a leech. It's unimginably tough to do something really good in such a short period of time. I would agree with all people here that considering you came from a BA and considering your sups slightly doubtful comments, give it time .

best

bug

PhDBug - I don't mean to sound rude, but I think you might be a little more qualified to answer this when you are further into your PhD.

I think its fairly standard practice to aim for an early completion, because nearly everyone finds that it takes longer than you expect. So, if you aim for 2.5 years, you might be done in three...

Hi all

Bobby I agree that it is standard practice to be "optimistic" about when you can submit - you are right on that score. However, what normally prevents submission are the revisions that any (decent) supervisor insists on. No-one expects their thesis to be perfect, the majority of us want a decent pass with as few revisions as possible. Dhara, to willfully go against your supervisor's advice, or to not be extremely concerned that your supervisor sees such glaring omissions in your work that he can categorically state you won't get a straight pass is total madness.
I completely agree with the previous poster - if someone submitted a thesis to me (and the majority of academics I know would agree, and they're mostly historians) that was both full of errors *and* submitted early, I would fail/MPhil them just for being so ridiculous.

Hi I just hope you could catch up and prepare your PhD in a way that satisfies your supervisor first and then members of the jury.
Good Luck