Thanks for your reply, Ady - I hope my viva is just a formality and that is the end of this sorry saga.

Some readers of this post may think it's odd that I've been able to write and publish papers but not get my PhD complete. That was just an artefact of working in the labs looking after needy students 8 hours a day. Writing a few sentences and reading a few paragraphs here and there was infinitely easier than trying to crunch data. Plus my plan was to get RAE returnable and then perhaps my situation could be changed to a more research-oriented one. I got myself into a position where I was returnable but my old institution failed to deliver once again.

I'm pleased to say that my new institution have evaluated my research work and have rated them 3* (international class). Hopefully I can get through the viva and come out the other side in a relatively good position.

Don't worry about it. In nearly every paper that I have reviewed for academic journals, references have been missing. As long as you haven't made them up, they will just ask you to include them in your revision, that's, of course, if they are thorough enough to pick them up!

Hi Dunni - thanks for your reply and encouraging words.

The university that I transferred to have been good insofar as they have effectively paid for my "write up" fee and have provided some technical assistance. However, I wouldn't exactly say my supervisors (one is of a similar age, with a PhD, who i have co-authored with previously) they are hands on and I'm not sure they know exactly what I am doing either. All seems a bit casual for my liking, almost like they have seen what I have produced in terms of research outputs and aren't really concerned about me because they assume that it will be a given that I will get it done (either that or they don't give a monkey's!). I, however, don't share their view. Writing up and presenting theoretical arguments in international journals has been relatively easy for me, but the actual data side of things hasn't and my data doesn't reflect the quality of my theoretical analysis. This is my main concern when viva time comes round.

As for my examiners, one of them has indicated that he is keen to collaborate down the line and the other one is from another subdiscipline of my field but seems a good bloke. Anyone reading this is probably thinking I've got nothing to worry about, which I am hoping is going to be the way it turns out!

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here. I was going to describe my PhD experiences but it would take too long and exceed the allowable word count! So briefly:

+ I registered at a "new" uni in 2001, where I had just completed my UG deg, with an internal DoS who had no expertise in my area but was one of the few members of staff who had a PhD. I had two external supervisors (E1 & E2), who were established Profs. elsewhere in the UK.
+ I didn't receive any funding so had to take a 9-5 technicians post that was supposed to allow me time to complete my studies but that never happened.
+ My originally accepted PhD proposal was based on funding that E1 was confident of getting but never transpired. E1's interest in the programme soon waned but E1 still stuck around long enough to cream off some of my theoretical publications, which I had written with E2.
+ Both E1 and E2 move institutions to New Zealand.
+ Because the funding of E1 didn't materialise, my originally accepted programme of studies was not possible. E2 made some impractical suggestions regarding what I could do (E2 was not much of an empiricist), but in the end it was clear I would have to forge my own revised programme based on other data that i had collected through my consultancy work.
+ In 2007, I decide to quit my position and PhD at the "new" university, take a bit of time out, and consider my options.
+ In 2009, I was able to transfer to another university for a "write up" fee. I have been using the data from my consultancy, which isn't great and have tried to construct research questions based on it that sits alongside the theoretical work I have been able to produce when I didn't have a clue what was going on, where I was going, and how I was going to complete. I am hoping that these mainly theoretical publications (I have over 30 articles, chapters, and conference papers now) will show that I am worthy of a PhD even if my empirical studies don't. I am very anxious about this however and fear that my examiners may fail me. After all this time, isolation and hardship, I'm not sure how I would react to failing. I have produced some "Leading Articles" in leading journals in my field so I would be devastated and highly embarrassed if I didn't receive a pass.

My situation is probably one that is not that common but I was wondering if anyone could offer any words of advice given what I have written here?