Best of luck Lara! Please tell us how it went? (up)

Those two, Miles & Huberman and Denzin & Lincoln, are pretty much the best ones you'll come across.

Did I read that Ruby passed her viva????? Congratulations!!!!!

Mine is in three weeks and I'm finding it very hard to find time to prepare. I've done bits and pieces here and there, but as always you never feel 100% prepared. Fortunately I've finished all my marking and besides some reporting I need to do, I now can organise a bit better so I can put aside a couple of hours every day to prepare. If I can, I'll start from today, if not tomorrow with a bit of a more methodical preparation.

Hang on there Lara, we'll get through this (up)

Hi,

I've got news today. I'm having my Viva on the 12th of June. So, now I can go back to freaking out mode ;-)

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all keeping well. Sorry for not have posted very often, but I've been up to my eyeballs with work. I've had very little time to actually work on the Viva preparations. Fortunately the term is coming to an end soon and hopefully I'll be able to organise better.

Last week I got some news about my Viva; examiners were appointed and the thesis has been sent out to them, so I'm now waiting for them to formalise dates, but I was told that it is likely to take place sometime around May.

Lara, I'm sure having a deadline will help you finish your preparations. It is a very good idea to cc the admin people with the excuse that you do not want to bother your supervisor with those details, and in the hope that they explain the process to you. That way it doesn't look like you are going above him/her with a complaint.

Best of luck.(up)

Ruby,

I'm so glad to hear that you submitted and that you are now taking it easy. I know that it is a combination of feeling great about not having to work on it any more and feeling paranoid about what went wrong. The good news is that you had it read by your supervisor numerous times before submitting, and that this is only part of the exam; the rest is the Viva. So, do not worry that your thesis is missing stuff, just make sure that you are aware of what is missing (if anything) and discuss it with your examiners. That will do, you've done a great job so far (up).

I came to the University today to talk to my supervisor and find out what the story is with the Viva. He said that he'll have news for me by next week for sure. So, It's time to work a bit harder on my preparations.

Well Lara, I meant that I do not need to re-read any literature for that chapter. Only because my case study chapter is based on the data; it is like your findings chapter. When I move on to another chapters loads of literature will have to be re-read, though. But I'm hoping it will be much more focused than it would if I just get straight to it. ;-)

Ruby, I feel for you. I remember those days and I still get frightened when I think of myself in that situation again; which will probably come when have to resubmit my corrections :-( Nevertheless, remember that no other crowd will provide with as much sympathy as this electronic community, so even if for no other reason, keep posting to let us know how you are doing. Keep going, you'll get through this.

Heifer, I know! I consider myself an organised person, but still I managed to make a mess out of all my files. There is hope for me though ;-)

Hi Girls,

I've been going through the tons of paper which are now spreading across my office in the university, home and my office in the college where I teach. I can not believe I have so many versions of the same chapters printed out and with comments, either mine or my supervisor's, and that all of them are so bad. I really need to make sure that the chapters I finally submitted are some sort of improvement from those many earlier versions. I found a couple of very simple corrections that keep coming up on every version of my case study chapter I find, but apparently never addressed. I'm going to make sure that I did in the final thesis and that all other comments are indicated on a clean current copy.

Actually, I think that could be a good set of aims for these week:
-Read my case study again.
-Make sure that all recommended corrections were made.
-If they were not, write an addendum.
-Come up with my own corrections, if any.
-Write a second addendum.

The point would be to bring those addenda to the Viva with me as evidence that I'm aware of the shortcomings of the thesis and that I have already started to address them. Hopefully, the examiners will let me incorporate them as part of the final corrections. I also think it could be a good start, since I do not need to re-read any literature. I will however make me go back to the data, which will give me an idea about how to do the same thing for other chapters.

Cool! Now I'm excited this is going somewhere (up)

What do you girls think? How are you doing?

Talk soon 8-)

======= Date Modified 11 Feb 2009 11:29:25 =======
Hi all,

I'm not lecturing today, so I'll try to catch up with work and if possible put some time towards my "re-familiarising" stage of Viva preparation.

Heifer, my project is a case study of the electronic health record in which I'm looking at the multilevel implications to organisational change and strategy. So, as you can see it is also related to the public sector. One of the theories that I found useful to explain some of what's going on there is "new institutionalism", which works well at the interface between levels of analysis and technology and human agency, if that makes any sense, that is ;-) I've been waiting for a Viva date since November.

Lara, the important thing is that as you re-read your thesis and those papers, the whole thing makes better sense in your mind and, if you think, that with this new understanding things could have been explained better in the thesis, then you should make a note on that and bring it to the Viva. The examiners will be interested in how well you understand the whole process.

Missspacey, I'm very sorry to hear that you are not feeling well. Take it easy and recover. You will be much more productive when you are not sick any more. No point on trying to juggle both, the work and the illness; it never works.

Ruby, I'm sure you are working on those final details before your submission. Go on, you can do it!(up) And then come back here and tell us how it went... we want to hear all the details ;-)

Hi Girls,

I'm back for a little while, at least :p

Welcome Heifer, sounds like you are in my area! Must of my thesis falls into the "organisation theory/studies" domain; I'd love to talk about it sometime.
Ruby, you are almost there. Just focus on finishing this chapter and you'll see that everything else follows. You are doing great.
Lara, it's great to read that you are consistently keeping at it. That's precisely what it takes, just keep on going like that and you'll see that by the time of the Viva you'll be so familiar with the material that you won't have any trouble at all.

Today I came to the university to see if there were any news for me. They have not appointed external examiner yet, so no Viva date yet. For the moment I'm OK with that since it gives me a bit longer to prepare, but I wouldn't like it to go like this for much longer.

So, what I'm doing at the moment is sorting out papers and books, re-reading here and there and basically just familiarising my self again with the whole thing. I really need to make a plan, but for the moment everything is in such a messy state, that I think I'm better off doing this until I can get rid of everything that I do not really need and then concentrate on the actual substance.

So, battle face :-s and get on with it

Talk soon 8-)

...I just realised that last post was getting very long and I clicked the post button before I'd loose all I've written. I hate it when you've been writing and all of the sudden nothing turns up in the post. Anyway :p

I'm glad to read that you girls are making much more progress than I am.

Ruby, it sounds like that methodology chapter is keeping you busy. I'm sure you are only saturated. Perhaps if you leave it for some time to do something else, and then come back to it just to wrap it up... what do you think?

Lara, looks like you are reading a lot for your Viva, just make sure that you are actually preparing on things that will bring better understanding of what you did in the thesis. For example, that mind map you mentioned you were working on just to get your own ideas a bit clearer, it would be great to have it as a handout for your examiners so you can explain to them the whole structure of your thesis.

Keep it up girls, you are doing great!

Talk soon :-)

Hi girls,

Sorry I haven't been around much, but catching up on work has taken me much longer than I thought it would. I think I'm OK now, and I could probably (really) put some time into my Viva preparations from now on (fingers crossed).

Last week I went over to the university to ask about my Viva, and they told me that examiners have not yet been appointed, so it will still take some time before I have any news about that. I told them that I was in no hurry, but I keep thinking to myself that I really need to make some progress on preparing since I do not want to run out of time as I did before the submission.

I have been reading the forum, and I remember Lara asking about my strategy for the Viva. I never answered; sorry about that Lara. Something that I thought I should do, is to point out myself all the shortcomings of my thesis before (or as) the examiners do. The whole purpose of the PhD, in my understanding, is to make you a researcher; or at least an apprentice researcher. So, I need to convince the examiners that I understand the research process and that I can conduct further research at an acceptable standard of quality. Part of it, hopefully, would be evident in the thesis as it is; but surely, since it is my first attempt at it, I failed to report everything that I should have in the thesis. And actually, since the moment I was preparing the document for printing, I've been having these thoughts about all the things I should have included in the thesis that I didn't, and all the arguments that would have been clearer if I had written them in a different way. So, what I'm planning to do is to make my Viva, a complement of my thesis. I will try to show the examiners that I'm aware of the shortcomings of my thesis and that, it is not a matter of having done the wrong research, but of not having reported it properly. Does this make any sense?

The first thing, for instance, I want to tackle is my analysis chapter. I know that I made an analysis, that in the paper, doesn't look systematic and rigorous, but it is. So, I want to bring in to the Viva evidence of the process I followed for my analysis so they can see it. Obviously I'm thinking this will be part of the corrections they'll suggest.

The other chapter I think I need to correct is the methodology. I'm guessing now, that my description of the research design might have not been the best, so I also need to bring in further evidence of the way I went about designing it and my reasons.

Another important thing is that, since I do not want to make the same mistake I did while working on the thesis, this revisions need to be done in writing. It is not enough to have them in my mind, they have to be written/readable somewhere. So, I'd like to make sure that I have some sort of data display, or even some revised sections from the thesis. I'm hoping that way it would look as I have somehow started the corrections already.

Yeah, I know the book is good. She also wrote the one I was following for writing the thesis. I think I'll go buy it; I might even find it in the book shop. :-)

Hi,

I'm thinking about getting a book about viva preparation myself. Is that Murray's book you are reading?

Hello everyone!

I'm back from the longest and most relaxed holidays that I can remember having. The draw back is that I have done nothing Viva related, and back in the office I found tons of things that require my attention queueing up. To make things worst I was back a day late due to cancelled flights, and I'm somehow jet lagged. Nevertheless it is great to logon and read all your posts. You are all doing fantastic and make me want to get into the full swing of things straight away and catch up.

This week is going to be a hard one, since I have a couple of deadlines to deal with at work, but I'll make an effort to start organising papers and books, and specially putting some time aside from here until the day of the viva, so nothing gets in the way.

I'll keep you posted on the progress and I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Best of luck (up)