Help! I am having some pre-submission panic. I've done a qualitative PhD in chronic illness, I have read through and re-read my thesis countless times, I think it is really tightened up now. I'm submitting this week but I am worried about some things, mainly literature.

I'm very anxious that the external will pick holes in my references, say "why haven't you included this, etc" - I haven't quoted/cited him at all, I didn't know about him until I knew he was going to be my external! (BTW, this concerns a vast area of literature, not something experimental or anything, I wouldn't have been expected to know about him) My focus was trapping articles on the main problem, which was a particular disease, then expanding into other sets of literature as far as I thought necessary to continue the argument. But now I'm very worried that I'll get major re-writes for omitting a load of theoretical stuff.

Sorry for the anxious post, in spite of wanting to get it out of the way, I think I'm finding it very hard to let the thesis go. Anyone else feeling/felt like this?

Hello, everyone feels scared when they hand in their thesis, it's a odd mixture of joy of submitting and intense fear of viva!

The external can't force you to include discussions of his/her work if they are not directly relevant to your project. It (should) be enough that you are aware of his/her work and able to discuss it in the viva. Ask your supervisors, I'm sure they'll be able to reassure you. Good luck with the viva!

hi there, its perfectly normal to feel anxious before submitting and want to keep adding to it/ wondering if you should. One of my friends even contacts the binder and got them to unbind part of her thesis to swap her pages for those where she had made some changes...I think its best just to submit and accept its likely there will be some corrections. As long as you can justify your choices for inclusion you should be OK.