Examiner's Report - How much detail should there be?

F

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE COULD YOU HELP ME? (I am desperate!!)

If you have had a viva and received an examiner's report for corrections of any variety, could you please tell me how long your report (or list of corrections) was?

This can be for any type of corrections/revisions: minor / major / R&R - anything. I received 5 sentences (after a 5 month wait)...that's 1 sentence a month...wow...hard work being an experienced Professor ain't it?

Anyway, all joking aside, I'm going through an important appeal and your feedback would greatly help me. Thank you!!

T

Hi. I had minor corrections and these were dealt with in five bulletin pointsat the end of the report. However, we had already discussed them during the viva so there wasn't really anything else to add (and also they were very clear things to add rather than being anything that needed more explanation).

T

Hi, really sorry to hear about your situation, that is simply ridiculous and highly unprofessional. I have gone through minor corrections myself, supervised 3 students to completion, one i inherited after a revised and resubmit decision, I have chaired two viva examinations and finally acted as internal examiner for a couple more. In all cases the corrections where issued within three weeks that includes the revise and resubmit student. For the examinations I have recently undertaken we issued corrections a couple of days later, but the university reported them to the student about a week after the viva. Hope that helps, there's no excuse for five months wait! Good luck with you appeal.

E

My viva report was about a page and a half, and includes 7 bullet points describing the particular areas I needed to focus on. This is for a revise & resubmit. It was a bit less detailed than I was expecting, but we did discuss all the points in much more detail during the viva itself so I had a chance to ask questions and make notes.

I do think this is going to vary greatly between different examiners and different subject areas, so not sure you can necessarily compare. But the corrections should be clearly explained, and (in my opinion) should relate to concerns raised during the viva, not be completely new things never mentioned before.

Good luck getting this sorted out. It's beyond belief how badly you've been treated and how long this has dragged on.

M

My report for R and R was 5 pages in length- very detailed. Happy to send you it through.

T

Hi, faded07,

My thesis submission required minor corrections, and I received a report of 12 pages with very detailed comments/corrections.

Examples of the comments/corrections are:
i) grammar eg. were not are
ii) experimental design eg. Why did you use X concentration instead of Y concentration since you saw previous effects of ABC at X concentration?
iii) more information eg. Please insert a new table covering comprehensive novel therapeutics targeting Z to treat YY disease.

Hope this helps.

R

Hi faded07,

I'm more than happy to send you my examiners report. PM me your contact details if you're interested.

Cheers,
RLD

G

I had six months of corrections and my report was about a page and a half in length.

A

Hi faded07,

I had two reports. The one with no corrections was 2 full pages single spaced size 11 font.

The one with minor corrections was half a page and the corrections were not listed in a detailed way, just 'questions' that I had to answer as small paragraphs in my thesis (total of 3 different sections).

T

I got minor corrections, which consisted of 7 bullet points of areas to correct (half a page). These could be quite large corrections though ie one was "provide more detail in all figure legends".

F

Thank you all for your replies - they have been incredibly helpful. I may well get in touch with some of you who have kindly offered to send me your reports in the coming weeks.

I'm currently waiting to hear back from the chair of my examination panel who is in talks with the university over the unprecedented situation I am in with my PhD. If things don't go the way I want them to, I will be launching one hell of an appeal against the university.

I will keep you all updated as I expect to hear news over the next couple of days!

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