Hi all,

Ever since submitting last week (after what seems like a lifetime of having my teeth being pulled out) I have been constantly questioning myself about the chances of passing with minors or having to resubmit.. I only discount the fail/mphil since my university seems to use the word "unlikely" in front of that outcome, I may even try to write a Monte Carlo routine to simulate my result lol.. But seriously I am worried having read the final thesis and some of the posts on the forum.

Listing my errors, and what i consider major and comparing with your ideas of resubmission/major corrections then maybe I can have some decent sleep before my viva .. well i can hope!!

Anyway..
1) Abstract held together by a piece of string (partly due to the two very different projects undertook in my phd)
2) mislabeled a couple of figures
3) i am missing a complete paragraph mid-sentence (I think there was a cut and paste error).
4) My discussion/results were taking from a substantial 12pg paper with the final chapter based on a paper which my supervisor thinks we should write up before my viva in march :)..
I think I have sufficient results and discussion sections, where due to my two pronged thesis projects, I have had to split the discussions to the relevant chapters with a summary of all chapters at the end with a future outlook bit.

5) A bit more vague, but the flow of my thesis is not great in places either..
6) a fair few typos-not so worried

I'm i worrying too much, or not enough? Any information would be great

Cheers

Rob

I'm only a first year phd student so don't know too much lol but I think it sounds like you are worrying far too much!

I'm sure your supervisior wouldn't let you submit if they thought you weren't ready first of all, plus they must think you have some decent results if they want you to submit a paper, its perfectly fine to have two separate topics in a thesis (my sups have already told me mine will) and finally a few grammatical errors are perfectly normal and you will just get told to change them.

So stop worrying, it won't solve anything! You'll be fine!

Hi Robby

I am a million miles away from theoretical physics but only a few weeks post (social science) viva so I can fully empathise with you re: viva nerves - I was an absoulute nervous wreck before mine! It's a pity your supv is not more positive going into it but over the next few days I would try to verbalise a response to the weaknesses you feel are part of your thesis. You could adopt a 'hands up' approach to them and yet endeavour to defend your work without being defensive - that was stressed numerous times to me just before my viva. It's your thesis so it's up to you to defend it. Try to refer to your own thesis when answering; ie keep bringing the examiners back to your work.

The very besk of luck with it; the madness will be over soon(up)

Thank you guys.
@Treeoflife-firstly congrats on starting the PhD, though i made the thesis writing a chore, my research was by far the most enjoyable thing academically. This could so easily of been the same for my thesis writing experience but a lot of putting off led me to this point. However, you words do give me some reassurance and please keep that thought process for when you hit that magical 3rd/4th year phd stage :)..As for the supervisor being ready to submit, it was more about the writing element of the thesis that he is worried about, as a mathematical kinda of guy, I love the finding the new solutions, and tbh i could of written 500 pages but i left everything way to late, which was the reason for most of the errors. As you said about the papers, I do hope that the published paper and hopefully submitted paper will work in my favor with the examiners. ..What are your projects?

@ady Well done on submitting and the viva (I presume you passed :) ?). From what i gather a thesis and defense is constant across all fields of research, so any help and advice is really helpful, since a) it is reassuring me and b) you are providing information for people in similar positions to me, who have to try and bottle up my personal fears from my family!! Sorry, I should of made it clearer, that my supervisor has been a godsend, Due to the fact some of the trails and tribulations of writing has really forced his neck out to save me a couple of times, and if i do indeed have to re-submit its no reflection on him as a supervisor, he has been amazing all the way through..so these nerves are through my organizational skills.

I will definitely do the outlining of errors, to show that these corrections are already performed and for any other corrections should fall under the 3 months easily. Thanks again.

Yup, I did :-); the viva is probably the one time in anybody's life when it is actually 'all about me' so go for it(up)

Well done Ady :).. Hopefully I will be on the "have passed" side of things in a couple of months. Well i thought all PhD students have that "its all about me and my research" attitude ;)..So I will bring out the Boston Legal catchphrase "Denny Crane!!"