Dear roer,

I highly appreciate that you took time for this really helpful post. It touches me in a way.
Indeed I started to prepare an overview over the literature and models captured and already think of a new structure which is more intensive and detailed. I think I need to wait and see how big the damage really is, but be prepare for the worst.

What hinders me in having a clear mind is that the more I read, the more I find it difficult to defend the thing as a whole. Suddenly, every page, statement or conclusion seems somehow weak which is definitely not the case. Yet, if I could do things differently, I definitely would.

I’m very angry on myself at this stage, realising that after all that hours in the library, discussions and money spent, the work could have been better…Usually I’m very confident but right now it feels all gone…

Nevertheless, I take your tips and do the best I can and keep it updated right here.
Thank you!

Dear fellow PhD students,

after almost 4 years I managed to submit my thesis a few months ago and the viva is set in a couple of weeks.
Since then I was basically happy that I managed to submit the thesis and confident that I made a valuable contribution to my field of research.

Yet, I recently received the (confirmed) info that one of my examiners sees some serious issues with my literature review chapter, in terms of length and depth.
I immediately started to compare the LR with other work, theses and his publications. I realised that even if I covered basically most of the important literature, he may has a point here. I now see that my LR discussion was of rather generic nature than explaining each and every bit in detail!!!

Sh**! Why didn’t I see this coming earlier? I’m totally scared now that they will award an R&R or even fail.
At the moment I cannot sleep, eat or do anything else except of reading Viva stories, watching viva prep videos or thinking of the worst.

This little piece of information brought me basically from the top of the world to very close to hell.
I know my strengths, I know that this was a unique research and I know that the methodology applied is solid. I know that if something can be updated quite “easily” it is the LR. However, I fear that they will grill me on the LR and don’t even consider that the rest was a very solid piece of work. There is this prevailing fear of failing I have to fight with.

Just wanted to write this down and see if there is/was somebody facing a similar situation? Every little helps.

Nevertheless, I call it a day today and try to relax a bit before thinking of an appropriate defence plan and continue preparation tomorrow.

NoChoice

Hi Intj,

personal tip:

Go with the one you have or will have a better personal relationship with.
Problems will be resolved more quickly and most probably also in your favour.

In the end, the greatest research achievment cannot help you when your supervisor blocks or hinders you because of a bad relationship.

Good luck,

Hi fellow PhDs!

I'm trying to find a good tutorial / book / video or whatever to run an EFA / CFA / SEM with my questionnaire data.

I'm not doing my research in math or any related topic, therefore it should be explained how to do it, not how each and every value is calculated.

Hope that some of you are/were in the same situation and might recommend s.th.

Thanks a lot guys!