Many congratulations Dr Vivicov!! Welldone!! I also have my minor corrections to hand in no date stated yet but I'm targetting two weeks.

Hi Vivicov,

You may want to follow my thread "I passed with very minor corrections" it has all the details of the pre-exam-post.

I happen to submit my thesis on the 27th of March. Mock viva was held 28th of June and main viva was held on the 2nd of July.

PM me if you want a copy of questions and post viva revision notes from my examiners.

Just to say that I had 3.5 hours of intellectual debate with my examiners, though challenging I was able to demonstrate my extensive knowledge of my subject area. These were the words of my external. My internal thanked me for giving him a very interesting piece of work to read.

My advice is that you should be able to demonstrate through your answers what your thesis argued. For example "given the data that you have used and the conclusions that you have reached, if someone who was not familiar with your work was given the exact data would they arrive at the same conclusion?" How would you answer this question? Give it a thought and we could debate about this. This was one of the questions thrown to me by my internal.

Another question is this "Would XYZ (i.e/ e.g. an established expert which you've referenced and criticized in your field) agree with your point of view?" This is another opportunity to discuss some of your findings and about three or four of your chapters and then draw a conclusion by saying that those who strongly follow the school of thought of what you have criticised would probably agree with XYZ, however those who agree with your point of view or lay concept would agree with you. So it's not a matter of one person agreeing to a particular framework, but a matter of what perspective they are viewing it from. Another question might be "so what have you contributing then to your field?". This is also where you have the opportunity to reiterate your conclusions. All these answers demonstrate that you have written your work and know it inside out without actually opening it, they know this because they have read your work...

Hi Pineapple,

Sorry this is coming a bit late but very well done and I'm super proud of you!!

DG xx

[Returned (PART 1):

Pre VIVA viva with supervisor 3 days before:

Friday I had a mock viva with my major supervisor. The role play was real and I felt like I was doing the real thing. My sup pointed out some of my assertions which I truly thought needed some re-wording. When I defended my assertions, he either let it go or kept digging in and asked further questions (this is not a good sign). It meant that I have got my assertions slightly wrong and need to elucidate further e.g. " xyz CAN be defined as" instead of my assertion that read "xzy is defined as". The difference between the two albeit very small in terms of the written word but it's very massive in terms of perception, hence the reason why Sup wouldn't stop his repeated line of questioning my assertions. That on board, I eventually gave in and mentioned that I must have typed it wrongly and in fact "xyz CAN be defined as...". That was only an example but the trick is that when an examiner keep asking the same question on the same sentence, then 'maybe I should reward that properly" should quickly come out of your mouth...]

Returned (Part 2)

Feedack from mock viva: At the end of my mock viva, my sup said I did very well, he liked my confidence BUT I was too defensive and that it took him 'digging deep' before I could own up. He mentioned that had I told him it was probably a typo, he wouldn't have stayed on the question for as long as he did. Well good it was a mock viva. Lesson learned here...and I seriously BORE that in mind.

A few pointers here and there: a table that needed to be corrected alongside its reference etc. Note taken, I had all those ready for Tuesday to refer to should my examiners mention that I had one or two inconsistencies. A further warning from my Sup was " do not point out any fault until you're asked, then present any correction so that they know that you are aware"...

[quote].[From DGold:I had my viva today and after 3.5 hours of intellectual conversation, I finally got the "congratulations Dr ...' but there are very very minor corrections that we would like to see and sign off".

The examiners: One Emeritus Professor (internal) and established Dr (external). Prior to my viva, I had read some posts regarding what sort of examiners to choose and not to choose, emeritus was mentioned as a no-go area. I was not too particular about this because my choice of internal examiner was purely based on his experience and previous work in my field of research, therefore I did not think that his emeritus status would adversely (not like this is a confounding factor) influence his examination of my work.

The Viva: oops! got to go...friends ...and drink time. I shall continue on my return...]

Returned (PART 1):

Pre VIVA viva with supervisor 3 days before:

Friday I had a mock viva with my major supervisor. The role play was real and I felt like I was doing the real thing. My sup pointed out some of my assertions which I truly thought needed some re-wording. When I defended my assertions, he either let it go or kept digging in and asked further questions (this is not a good sign). It meant that I have got my assertions slightly wrong and need to elucidate further e.g. " xyz CAN be defined as" instead of my assertion that read "xzy is defined as". The difference between the two albeit very small in terms of the written word but it's very massive in terms of perception, hence the reason why Sup wouldn't stop his repeated line of questioning my assertions. That on board, I eventually gave in and mentioned that I must have typed it wrongly and in fact "xyz CAN be defined as...". That was only an example but the trick is that when an examiner keep asking the same question on the same sentence, then 'maybe I should reward that properly" should quickly come out of your mouth...

I had my viva today and after 3.5 hours of intellectual conversation, I finally got the "congratulations Dr ...' but there are very very minor corrections that we would like to see and sign off".

The examiners: One Emeritus Professor (internal) and established Dr (external). Prior to my viva, I had read some posts regarding what sort of examiners to choose and not to choose, emeritus was mentioned as a no-go area. I was not too particular about this because my choice of internal examiner was purely based on his experience and previous work in my field of research, therefore I did not think that his emeritus status would adversely (not like this is a confounding factor) influence his examination of my work.

The Viva: oops! got to go...friends ...and drink time. I shall continue on my return.

Something doesn't look right! I think I agree with others. Your sups are meant to give you feedback and help you through your PhD with constructive feedback. However, it seems like they're taking the place of examiners. Strange one, but please hang in there, you've come this far!!

Hi Insomnia,

I will try to explain this from what I understand your question to be:

Literature review has to do with all the past research in your area of interest, this will include what has been done and how they have done it (measures and procedure). It will also include arguments for and against what previous individual researcher has found in their studies. Say for example, gender, ethnicity, religion etc differences in whatever it is you're investigating. Additionally, some research will include prevalence and preventative measures etc.

In terms of framework, these are concepts in the field that you're looking at. For example, you could have a particular school of thought whose modus operandi is different from another school of thought. Theoretical framework include a structured way of looking at things, i.e. evolutionary, deductive, positivism, relativism etc are all framework in research.

I also think that your lit review comes with all these arguments, then you have to choose a particular framework that you think will suit your investigation and your reason why you think the particular framework is better in your investigation as compared to others. Well this is what I think.

Hi Sneaks, how are you getting on with the MM?

DG

Hi all,

I am having a depressing moment with my PT job due to some CUTS imposed by the govt (this all has to do with work and not my PhD).

I have informed my SUPS about this situation and they have suggested that I should consider switching from FT PhD to PT, that not only will this help reduce my stress, it will also be economical.

I am super confused and don't really know how this switching business works. What do you all suggest? Has anyone been in this sort of situation? How did you survive? Will going PT lengthen my Doc or...?

I start my final year middle of this month!!

DG

I think your rationale should justify the use of the questionnaire on the 3rd study.

Sneaks, it is not uncommon to use triangulation (normally the term for mixed methods: forget the tri bit, it could still refer to two!). I think that qualitative and quantitative analysis should are not opposites but should compliment/complement each other. Let that be your rationale whichever way you go about it. (up)

Hi Ady,

I'm not sure if this would help but I have done something in my department that everyone is now emulating:

I have a general introduction page which I titled SYNOPSIS. Here, I talked about all the aspects of my thesis which allows the intended reader to understand what they're about to 'encounter'. It is a deep form of abstract but longer than the general type of abstract and serves like an avenue to express the thesis using the first person (taking charge) which is normally not present in most abstracts. It is more detailed and very precise about the general overview of what my thesis is all about. For example, I started off by saying why I was interested in the subject, what the current debates are, what I thought needed investigating; what my first study was, what I found and the need to investigate further and my further investigation led to chapters a, b, c etc. I then gave summary overviews of chapters.

One major advantage of this style of pre literature review is that, it puts you in charge (as I was doing this, surprisingly I felt in control throughout and after my sups read through my synopsis, they had to recommend the style to the head of department) and may also give your potential examiners the impression that you know what you're doing. Mind you, you're also using that moment to demonstrate that "I have done this...', 'I have carried out this research'; 'I have..." giving you the best place to demonstrate all the works that YOU have done in your own language using the VERY FIRST PERSON, which you may not have the 'academic right' to do in your actual thesis using the first person.

Why did I use 'synopsis'? My second sup is not a keen lover of the first person in any thesis and she vehemently refutes it within any research. I thought of a way of giving strength and power to my research and it dawned on me that I could be as subjective (individual research strength) as possible with an excuse page called synopsis. It worked. It was not my thesis, it was my idea of 'introducing' my thesis.

Mm sorry just a moment of reflection there... :-x

DG[/quote]

I have gone to see the HR, there are slight changes to the rate of pay, a drastic drop from 35 /hr to 22/hr!! She said with a PGcert, it is £23/hr without PGcert £22/hr. This rate's different from what I was told during the interview and via email!!!

Do I still take it?:-s[/quote]

Hi all, here is an update as of this morning.

Well the HR personnel who agreed to ring me after she must have clarified the pay rate before my supposedly start date which is Thursday (today);  has not yet rant or emailed me to tell me otherwise.

I have not had any induction whatsoever, I am expected to turn up this morning and teach!! Not knowing how their system works: IT, where to print materials to hand out to students, library books, no undergraduate handbook, course material, ETC; in a nutshell no INDUCTION. Oh plus I haven't received any sort of documentation telling me that I have been accepted for the job, nor any paper work to state my hourly rate! Are all these normal for hourly paid lecturers or am I just making unnecessary fuss? I know I'm keen to get on the lecturing ladder but I do know a thing or two about this level of lack of documentary evidence.

By the way, I have received about 6 phone calls this morning that I was supposed to have been teaching (all went into voice mail) as I was still recuperating from burning the midnight candles!

Now I'm super confused!!

Do I still take it?:-s