If you don't mind more commercially oriented work, there is a lot of demand for ethnographers in the market research industry right now - not sure if the age would be an issue, but if you can profile yourself as some kind of consultant, that may help getting into academia too.good luck!

anz07, I replied to you in the other thread, but: merge Foucault and Feminism into one theory??? That is a ask that the best of us would despair at, mainly because these two things are pretty incommensurable :-D

Hey there,

I'm not sure if I can contribute an uplifting story since I'm also having to contend with bullshit corrections (still waiting for me report), but just wanted to say, I'm sorry you're in that situation - it sounds like your university has acted in a blatantly unprofessional and incompetent way (they LOST your report??? In any other job people get fired for shit like that). I'm not sure about the legal situation here so please do talk to an expert, but in my opinion, if you can prove that this has cost you job opportunities and money, you might have a case for a lawsuit (you cannot challenge academic judgment in court, but this is another matter). I have seen it happen that departments suddenly become extremely cooperative the minute there is actual grounds for a legal challenge - but do not throw around any threats of legal action unless you are 100% sure you have a case.

Don't forget that thanks to the joys of the neoliberal university, you actually are a paying customer and you are entitled to the university doing its job. Don't feel like you're a supplicant, you deserve proper treatment. Your uni has no interest at all in you failing, so use all support you can get/make them give you.

Regarding your corrections - what I read in your post is that you are committed enough to your research to actually go and redo the PhD if all else fails - that may sound like a horrific prospect now, but hey, it means you love what you do enough to actually consider this, how many people can say that of themselves?

Can you discuss the changes with the external before submitting them to make sure you've done what they want? What does the internal/your supervisor say?

Thank you JStanley - I'm glad you emerged with your sanity intact :-)

Ian, yeah I hear you and everyone else. I guess it's a matter of, bite the bullet now and change the system from the inside later :-) i will remember this in case I ever get unleashed on a Phd student...

Venting here definitely helps!

I'm not at all saying it is "better" than anyone else's - it all depends on discipline, topic and specific data. Mine is ethnography, I.e It is per se more narrative n style and more 'vague' in terms of methodology and results than say, a quantitative study. imo it is doubtful whether ethnography counts as a 'scientific' practice in the conventional sense at all, but that is certainly a different discussion. But I'm not going off on one because I think I'm above the 'law', but because I had a good reason to structure the thesis as I did (which I clearly state). I don't want to go too far into the details so I don't identify myself, but let's just say that the traditional research report format has implications as to hoow you define and what you can say about yor object of study, and I was trying to question these very assumptions.

JStanley, we just cannot win, can we :-)

Believe me, if I'd had an opportunity I would have done just that. They never put it up for debate tho. They simply stated "this needs a literature chapter" and moved on to something else. Maybe I should have interrupted/shouted over them, but it seems I'm too polite for my own good.

Awsoci, it's certainly not the best writing ill ever do, that's not my issue. My issue is that for me, the degree I've worked so hard for has just been completely invalidated because I was basically told "no one gives a shit what you think matters, now jump through this hoop".

I thought when I finally got the PhD (even with corrections) I would be proud and happy and have a sense of achievement. They ruined that for me. Now I'm just depressed and wonder why I ever wasted my time with this bureaucratic bullshit...

HazyJane, that is a good point - my university has the option of deferring the publication of the thesis on its online directory for 2 years in order to avoid that.

I'm glad of course they didn't find anything wrong with the content, it just all seems so pointlessly pedantic.

I guess it will be a case of trying to do this with the least possible amount of effort...

I actually saw a post here from a person who had a similar situation, and said their restructured thesis was much worse than the original, which eventually even their examiners realised. I hope mine will, too...

TreeofLife, yeah, that's what it comes down to, there's no choice. The word for that is "coercion". And it really isn't about the criticism as such - I am sure there is plenty more that could be improved in the thesis. I don't want to come across as the sort of person who just cannot take criticism, some of the other suggestions the examiners made are perfectly valid. This is about the extreme powerlessness, of literally having my career and future in the hands of two random human beings who can do whatever the f*** they like to me. And I was certainly lucky, as many others in this forum who were less lucky can confirm. This whole system is just deeply effed up.

Yes, that sums it up!

Really? So if, say, the police fine you for something that isn't illegal but happens to offend their personal tastes, do you just pay?



Yes, they will - but in that case, if I really do not agree with the reviewer, I can pull the paper and submit it somewhere else. I cannot do that with the thesis (unless I went for a re-viva, but not even I am that crazy...)

Bilbo, you are probably right about the pragmatism - I should be more cynical office worker and less sensitive artist :-) I just find it disturbing how coercive and undemocratic the whole thing is, and how normal everyone seems to find this. Again,it's not that I'm refusing to do any corrections at all, just this one seems arbitrary and frankly a bit abusive ("spent five years creating something you're proud of? Great, now we want you to set it on fire, then you can have your degree. And no, you cannot argue because we're your superiors which automatically makes us right, ha ha").

Yes, that's academia for you. But do we have to just lie down and accept that?

Mackem Beefy, where does it specify that a discrete chapter is required? I'm not trying to argue with you, just interested if there are any regulations I'm not aware of, since I was never told this by sup or anyone else.

Dunham, I hear you - but this really is a matter of principle...

I just re-checked my university's regulations, and while they specify that there must be a critical discussion of the relevant literature (which I obvs have), nowhere does it say that there has to be a discrete "literature chapter". So this may be "traditional" but it is not a formal requirement, and the examiners are simply acting out of personal taste. This annoys me because while I am perfectly happy to submit my work to scrutiny and criticism, they cannot just make up rules as they go along (and yes, I am from another culture, so this British way of doing things seems quite strange to me :-)

I will wait and see exactly what the report says and check in with my supervisor to see if it's worth haggling...

Thanks for your replies. It is true that there is a traditional thesis format, but in my discipline this is handled quite loosely - many of my cohort did not adhere to this formula and passed with flying colours. My mistake was to choose an external from a different discipline on the basis of content, but that is now coming back to bite me in the behind.

I heard the internal say that I could negotiate on how to implement the corrections, so there may be the option of salvaging the text and do their suggestions as an appendix or so - I'd just like to find out if anyone has successfully negotiated on corrections they disagreed with or if talking back at this point is going to get me in trouble. The tenor in this forum seems to be, do as they tell you or else, but I'm wondering why they call it a "defense" then instead of just "rewriting orders"...