So...I have passed my viva, subject to minor corrections. Some of these were very unambiguous, such as typos, but one request has been a bit more vague, and subject to my own judgement where to modify it throughout the thesis. I had a meeting with my internal, and we discussed the amends, but I still felt there was an ambiguity about the scope of what was to be corrected. I emailed a list of the corrections I thought we agreed but haven't heard back from the internal. I made what I thought were the correct correctiions and emailed the revised thesis over, but am now wondering whether I need to make further amends. I guess it's not etiquette to send another corrected version of the thesis over?(even though I am still within the cut-off time to send this to my internal).

Right, I've been through the whole thing and spotted 63 typos...about one every 5 pages...urgggh. This isn't pretty :-(

Hi, these kinds of threads get posted all the time...but I need to share this people who might be in the same boat. I've handed in my PhD and am now re-reading it pre-viva. I am spotting loads of typos; I've counted 50 so far and have two more chapters to review. I can't understand how I missed so many of them when I was preparing for submission. I feel depressed because they devalue my work and will likely put the examiners in a negative frame of mind and make them more critical. I am ashamed of my own sloppiness and annoyed that I didn't give myself more time to re-read the thesis prior to hand-in. I feel like I've let myself down; I'd wanted to get through with no corrections (ha!) and now this won't happen. Friends say it's an achievement to finish a PhD, but at the moment I feel like recalling the thesis and resubmitting...I just feel really upset.

@Hugh, wishful thinking re. September, it's due in April!

I think this question has been addressed in various forms before, but as they say, the devil is in the details...I was wondering whether anyone has any ideas of how long it takes to edit a (humanities) thesis? I have a complete first draft (intro, chapters and conclusion), and have provisionally agreed on a hand-in date of September 2016. I know what needs to be cut, and what changes will need making to the thing. Is five months a realistic amount of time in which to accomplish this? (*Complicating factor: my supervisor is currently away from the University and I don't know when they're likely to return)

@Girlwonder: I'm in a pretty comparable situation to you, and I empathise with your dilemma. After getting a First in my subject at university, I embarked on a series of spectacularly stupid career decisions which have left me bored, miserable and frustrated, in a low-status job which I hate, and which offers no creative stimulus whatsoever. It took a while (20 years) for me to decide to do a PhD, but I am very glad I did, even though it might (probably won't) lead to a job in academia. But I have to believe, and be hopeful. The way I see it, someone has to win, to carve out a career post-PhD; why shouldn't it be me?

Finding the money has been a stretch, but not an unsurmountable problem. I am lucky in that my partner is the breadwinner, so we're not wholly dependent upon my salary, even though I work full-time. Despite frequent bouts of depression, I've managed to keep going and am hoping to complete next year.

Will I get a job afterwards? I hope so, even though there are no guarantees. But strangely, being an older PhD candidate (and someone who has experience of doing a job (jobs) they dislike) is that you don't get a second chance at life. If you really think, deep down, that you want to do this, then you will ultimately regret it if you don't. Best of luck, whatever you do!

I'm doing a part-time PhD while juggling family life and a full-time job. It is possible, but it takes discipline. Good luck!

I'm quite lucky in the sense that I have a wife and kids who I can come home to at the end of the day, which has helped keep me sane throughout my part-time PhD. That said, I also work full-time and have to squeeze my work in whenever I can (as well as all the other employability tasks, such as teaching and trying to get papers published). I don't really have any friends among my fellow PhD students, in part because I'm much older than they are, and I hate the job I work in to pay for my PhD -- in consequence, I don't have any work friends. So yes, like you I feel lonely and isolated most of the time. A mitigating factor is that we live in an internet age, so it's easier than at any other point in human history to share these experiences. Loneliness and isolation are, I think, inevitable -- doing a PhD is inherently isolating, but it's also a temporary state of affairs; things will change.

*Bumping an old thread* I've started using Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/) and can really recommend it. It's also free (bonus) and open source, and the development community are great at responding to requests for tweaks etc.

Can I ask a subsidiary question? *groan* I know that when you're quoting in parentheses, you put the full stop after the quotation mark: e.g.: 'Cheese is made from milk solids' (216). What I'm still confused about is how you insert the page number when using the original full stop, e.g.: 'Cows eat grass.' (215) This is assuming that the original sentence read 'Cows eat grass.' In this instance, does the page reference go after the quotation mark (as shown above), or does it go after the full stop, but is enclosed within the final quotation mark, e.g.: 'Cows eat grass. (215)' Sorry to be obtuse, but this is really confusing me...