Anyone found a mistake in their submitted thesis?

S

Have submitted the final thesis and found a very simple mistake in a table that let to an incorrect conclusion (not a major conclusion, but a minor, inconsequential conclusion, certainly not a main finding). The error was not detected by two panels of reviewers, my supervisors or myself (until just now, I was the one to discover it). My dilemma is what to do about it - realising that no thesis is ever perfect, should I notify my supervisor and contact the university and try to find out if there is some way to correct the lodged thesis...or let it go? Am in such turmoil over this. Part of me thinks that if no one noticed up to this point, then maybe I can let it go, on the other hand, I hate that I now know that it exists in my final thesis, and worry that if anyone actually reads that section, it will be noticed. Anyone been in this situaton? Any advice appreciated.

D

When I re-read my thesis post submission, I found many minor errors. Most were typos and minor. My advice would be to note any errors down including the corrective action. You can change your master copy so that it is done before viva. I would not inform the uni or examiners about these errors as they are only minor. The examiners will be looking at the content and robustness of your thesis rather than minor errors. I am sure they will note them for correcting if they see them but as long as you can acknowledge them in your viva they will go largely unnoticed. They shouldn't affect the outcome unless it was riddled with errors lol. Good luck

S

yeah, definitely try not to worry about it. after i had submitted my MPhil thesis for examination i spotted a few silly mistakes, nothing terrible, just stupid type-o's etc, that left me so annoyed with myself!

i also wrote a list of them and immediately amended my thesis even before i had my viva. to be fair, alot of the errors i spotted actually weren't picked up by my examiners (apparently this is very common!). it will be the overall quality of your work they will be examining and they will be fully expecting some errors etc, as it is very, very rare to be passed with absolutely no corrections.

i know for sure that when my PhD thesis is submitted in July that i'm going to end up doing exactly the same thing! a thesis is such a large document that it is so difficult to spot every single error before you submit.

i should imagine that most people who have ever submitted a PhD thesis have experienced this, and felt the same dread and fear upon discovering mistakes in their thesis! but worry not Sparkles, if it's something that can be amended quickly and easily, and does not affect the overall main findings or your over-arching arguement, it will just be one minor amendment. :-)

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