No worries.

Try Z-Library:

https://b-ok.org/

Very rarely lets me down. Good for articles too.

I'd contact them if I was you and politely as them for an update as you've handed in your notice to comply with the start date they've given you. That wouldn’t be unreasonable at all in my opinion. It’s possible that they work on slightly different time scales than what you’re used to (academia), but the fact is they can’t leave you hanging until you’re potentially out of work over what is essentially an informal offer (an ex colleague of mine experienced this when dealing with a start-up company). I know what you mean re potentially being viewed as problematic before beginning the job itself however the company has to be a good fit for you too, not just the other way around.

I began mines part-time but switched to full-time 2 years later. Like you, I had also just started my first job at the time working in the Aerospace sector. Although both in Engineering, the subject matter of my PhD was somewhat different to the day-job that I was carrying out my work. I was frequently asked to do overtime at work which, since I was new in the company, I felt obliged to do. However, this meant that I never really had a consistent routine in the evenings to work on my PhD. Naturally this got quite demanding after a while hence the switch to full-time. Thus, if you are considering going part-time I would recommend you really give some thought to what impact your day-job obligations may have on the working arrangements for your PhD. I learned this lesson the hard way! Good luck.

I'd eco what abababa says here. Even if statistics is not your strong point/emphasis of your PhD, you really need to take the initiative to understand and solve the problem (validate the data) by yourself. By all means consult a specialist. But fundamentally you must go through the process as by doing so you will gain insight into the problem/issue which will only help you when you come to discuss the data/results later in your thesis. Getting out of your comfort zone is part of the PhD process and attempting to justify decisions/steps that you've taken throughout with ``My supervisor said so...'' will only get you into bother at the viva stage. Good luck.

Hi,

To me it’s clearly inadvertent, especially if your initial correspondence went to a completely different person. Moreover, when it came to light that the Chair was your external examiner, you took the appropriate action(s). As long as you have a record of this, i.e., the email chain, I believe you should be fine. I would probably run it past your supervisor/advisor of studies though just so he/she is not caught off gaurd if this gets brought up at a later date.

Good luck.

I feel your pain, my thesis is due middle of Jan 2021. Main body is complete, just have 50% of the Introduction and 100% of the Conclusion still to write. I'm totally spent, completely uninterested in the work and frankly just want it over with now. I think many candidates feel this way at this point. My main issue is I constantly overthink the writing part (quite happy running experiments and analysing data) when what needs to be explained/discussed can be done so in very simple terms. In other words, I'm constantly worrying about what the examiner might want which is slowing me down immensely. Sorry I can't offer any constructive advice at the moment other than you are not alone.

Congratulations and extremely well-done on passing without corrections, I'm sure that's very rare. Enjoy the celebrations :)

@random_6772 Congrats and well done on pulling through such a sh*tty situation. I'm going through a very similiar situation and totally relate to your experience.

Try Alpha Academic Appeals. I recall them being advertised on this forum. You seem to have a case from what you've mentioned previously.

That's shocking! I'm sorry to hear about this, especially the alleged racism part. Was there not an independent chair overseeing the viva? Usually there's a third person present to make sure the viva's conducted fairly. This is the procedure followed at my institution. Personally I would raise the necessary paperwork to begin the internal complaints procedure. Of course you need to weigh that up against the possibility of it dragging on for several weeks/months before an outcome is reached.

Congratulations! To have come this far, given all your personal troubles, is proof that it CAN be done! Well done and enjoy the celebrations : )

Of course I would acknowledge the developer of the software used to produce the results in my thesis. It goes without saying.



You only convey how things work to the point where you can fully justify the results in front of you.



Of course I wouldn't be citing the email as justification for why my results look the way they do. I understand how the 'black box' works pretty well. Did you read my post above? What I intend to cite is a simple functionality that one would typically find declared in the User's Guide. The literature for this software just happens to be quite vague. The information was left out inadvertently (as advised by the developer). Nonetheless it is important that I mention because it facilitates a certain discussion in my thesis, by no means does it replace the entire argument or justify any of my results.

Cheers!

Thanks rewt,

I've contacted my library services at my intstituion to see if they have an accepted practice. If there isn't one then what you've menionted will probably be my next step.

Cheers!

Hi Tudor_Queen

Thanks for looking into this. I'm not referring to actual data, it's an explanation of a basic functionality within a particular software that I’ve used. It’s information that you would expect to find in a professional/commercial grade software User's Guide. But given that this is an academic/open-source software, it comes as no surprise that the associated literature is quite poor!

The above approach you’ve mentioned is what I'm leaning towards. However, I've also emailed my library services team (which admittedly I should have done in the first instance) to determine if there is an accepted practice at my institution.

Cheers!