Yes mostly I meant access to electronic journals, another option might be s.th. like visiting researcher or research fellow or so? i had a visiting graduate student status once at a foreign university which was great; it meant to pay nothing but have complete access to the infrastructure, library etc. this way one is also affiliated with an institution or department.

Hoping to get a post-doc and trying also ESRC, even though this will be very tough, but I have a great institutional option... Depending on how long it will take to get s.th., I might also have to find such a solution to guarantee access to publications etc.

awesome, congrats! :-) we are done --- it's so great to know that noone can ever talk into your business ever again and that there will probably be no more exams in life :-)

i see, how do you arrange access to publications, infrastructure etc.? i read s.th. in the current BSA newsletter 'Network' that it's not always easy if one works outside academia, or perhaps this is not an issue for you.

oh I know so well how you feel - mine was just a week or two ago.......

apart from reading my thesis and some articles (new and already included), I actually have done most of the work in the last 10 days following my mock-viva, in which I also felt to have answered poorly and that I should say so much more. However, at some point after that in the preparations I decided to keep it 'simple' and basic. The important point is to answer the questions with some confidence - not to have the most scholarly and rhetorical performance and to come up with this and that. Your thesis and what you did is the point of reference. This helped me a lot, because I felt less under pressure to 'shine' and to say tons of things.

The best preparation for me was to think of a short summary of what I did in 2-3 min.; my original contribution to the field, both empirically and conceptually; my major findings; conclusions; and implications for the field.

A common question perhaps even before your contribution is about your doctoral history, what brought you to the topic.

Then another common area of grilling is your theoretical framework, why you chose it and then your methods, what are the core methods, their strengths, weaknesses and limitations.

Apart from these typical areas, be prepared to be challenged on pretty much any of your decisions, try to think of your work and what you did from someone else's perspective who would have done things for whatever reasons differently, it's not that they necessarily disagree but the defence is what its name says. It helps to get yourself into the mood of critically examining what you did in order to be able to explain 'why'.

What examiners really like is if you somehow bring their own work into play, and if it is only one point of a recent article or so ;-)

Sorry if you knew all this already.... it was just a very good recepie for me to have this basic structure prepared and thought through, good luck!!! (up)

according to current 'Nature', the cuts effect the sciences (at least as well):

UK government warned over 'catastrophic' cuts p420
Royal Society predicts 'game over' for British science.
Richard Van Noorden

I am desperately trying to find some information what the ESRC is going to do now, because I am considering a postdoc application... but in this climate the likelihood of success may be next to none :-(

Hi - time has passed, eventually I had a 97k thesis I think, which I submitted a few months ago and 10 weeks later :-s had a (great:-) ) viva- I talked myself out of any amendments... phew! Where are you standing now? cheers

i also had my first draft in the summer.

thank you! that's good to know. it took him 5 weeks for the first draft, and I had to cut many many words because I did not know that footnotes are not included in the normal word count unless you tick the box (I have not been educated in a word counting system). now I have a bit over 100,000 words in my final draft. i suppose, he is still in time then. if you already had your viva, congrats.

Hi,

I am wondering what people's experiences are, how long it took or should take their supervisors to read their final PhD draft? Mine is only half way through after almost three weeks now....... is that normal, long, any tips how I can make some friendly pressure? I would like to have my defence in May.

Thanks!