Are PhD standards slipping?
A friend of mine passed his PhD viva yesterday forthwith with no corrections. I flicked through his thesis before he handed it in and it was full of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and one figure failed to format properly and was therefore incomprehensible. How did he pass without ANY corrections??
This would not be acceptable in primary school essay let alone for a doctorate thesis? And my supervisor sure didn't let me get away with any tiny errors like that.
I feel that passing a PhD is becoming more about who your supervisors are chummy with and the power they have in their field. Is anyone else feeling a bit like the standards are slipping? It infuriates me to think that for work of such different quality we all get the same result.
I feel like the academics responsible for this and the department involved should be shamed into taking more care over marking. Does anyone think it's worth talking to someone at my uni or let it go?!
Any opinions very welcome.
I have discusssed this with my sup in the past and she says every examiner is different - so aPhD with no corrections is not necesarily flawless as compared to a great PhD with minor revisions. Pedantic examiners, who are old school, for instance, might interpret a single missing reference to be indicative of poor quality and suggest minor or major revisions to a great thesis. Someone who is moreeasy going on that account might gloss these over and focus on the same argument.
I think it is a good idea to not look for gradations in the result (they do exist - in germany for instance) as I think there's little point in being competitive. But it is a question of luck. If your examiners are known to be pedants or difficult to please,but will make for great referees and authors of blurbs on the back of your first book - well then, the choice is clear!
Yea I think you're right about the gradations and the difference in examiners but I suppose what I mean is that there should be some standard rules with regards to what examiners should be looking at. So as well as content, things such as spelling, grammar and the quality of figures are taken into consideration; as is done in all other exams.
I was doing a different subject to my friend so couldn't begin to comment on the actual ideas and content but to me a document with spelling errors and bad figures is just shody!
A thesis should represent the pinnacle of academic achievement and should not contain the same sort of basic mistakes you've been penalised for since primary school.
I think the PhD process differs so dramatically across countries, universities, schools and even departments. I know several EU students, for example that didn't have to have a viva!!
And know people who have submitted 1 study which is 12,000 (I would consider a masters dissertation) and got a PhD.
I'm just stupid for not researching this before my PhD, I have to do 3-4 studies at least, and it has to be about 60k words - rubbish!
I really see no point in the thesis though - I think all PhDs should be by publication IMO.
I was glad to see your comment Red.
I've just started on my PhD and I've read two theses which give a background to my subject. One (from the University I am at) is full of spelling mistakes and typos, and even has the full stop on the final sentence of the final page missing - how shoddy is that!
The second one carried out fieldwork in an area near where I live, and they not only spelled it wrong throughout, but the name they are giving the location is geographically incorrect (there's none of the particular type of organisation they are working with in the area they claim to have researched).
The irony being that the supervisor of thesis two gave the writer of thesis one a really hard time in their Viva because they consider themselves to be the top of their field. How can you be top of your field when you supervise a PhD student who doesn't know where they are doing their fieldwork?
To be honest with you, reading them both made me feel really disappointed about the standard of what I was reading. On the plus side, I read them both thinking that mine will be miles better. The thought of my thesis being on a library shelf filled with spelling mistakes and basic errors would keep me awake nights!!
My supervisor doesn't seem overly surprised by this, but I find it worrying that I will have the same award as someone who can't really be bothered reading their work over, or an examination team who think spelling isn't important.
I've read about 8 different theses and most have them have been brilliant. Real scholarly achievements. There was one with a self-reflexive piece in that really put the Ph in the D. Do I think standards are slipping? No. I think that it just depends on who your external and internal examiner are. For instance, if it's Prof McFlarty from the University of Gold Standards, they're going to pick up on typos and missing refs, then slaughter you. If it's Ian from the New University of the Surrounding Counties, you'll get away with a lot more and people will say standards have slipped. Besides, there's no standardisation of the PhD examination process.
I can't understand how you can say that you think standards aren't slipping yet admit there's a range of standards deemed passable dependent on the examiners! A thesis should be of the highest standard in every respect and I suppose that is the point I'm trying to make. It should be the culmination of your knowledge and skills across every area including basic spelling and grammar. These type of mistakes are not acceptable at any stage of your career both before and after your PhD so why should they be allowed to be overlooked during?
Having said that I don't really know what the answer is. Maybe the answer is to have more examiners or allow more people to pass comment? Or possibly give specific roles/checklists to the internal and external examiner to ensure nothing is overlooked?
For standards to be slipping they need to be high in the first place and to come down from there. So an inconsistency in marking across the board does not necessarily mean standards are slipping, so long as it has always been like that (I don't know if it has or hasn't)
Personally I think that all theses should be checked for spelling, grammar, format etc and there should be some kind of standard to do this to. It's all the same regardless of topic.
but the quality of a PhD is not just judged by 'no amendments' 'major/minor amendments' or 'fail', its ALSO based on who the examiners are. If they are the top in your field, you walk away from your viva with the prestige of having had them as examiners, which indicates to other people that your thesis is very good.
You can't say 'standards are slipping' when they vary so much. Standards at my uni haven't slipped, but they are probably different to standards at Wal's uni for example (not saying better or worse, just different).
Its the same as being able to get a undergrad degree from University of Rubbish, and the same titled degree from Oxford. they might be called the same thing, but they probably aren't.
I don't think on the whole standards are slipping, I think you will find most people on here would not unknowingly allow spelling mistakes and other things through, and I would guess that goes for most people. You don't embark on this process and think, 'I'll just throw a few things together, that will do' it is a long, hard path. The trouble is you get so familiar with your own work that it is easy to miss these things. True, the examiners could/should have picked them up, but they didn't, that's human fallibility maybe, together with a bit of luck on the part of the student. You only have to pick up books, or journals to find mistakes that should have been spotted, so a thesis is unlikely to be immune. I think standards are as good as they have ever been, a bit of who knows who is involved sometimes, but all thesis are a result of some solid graft by the writer. Thing is though, only the best ones will probably get a book etc. out of it, same as before.
Personally I don't think I could go down the publication route as my thesis is way outside the normal education area, and is unlikely to get anywhere with education journals, it will need careful airing in other places first, and it is something I'm not considering until I finish the PhD in case anyone else pinches it! :$
maybe the examiner was dyslexic.. have you angry guys considered that? i think content not spelling is what should pass a phd.
My external examiner was dyslexic, so didn't pick up on typos, but instead higher-level issues. But my internal examiner picked up on typos, so I was well covered.
It's probably unlikely that lots of examiners are dyslexic. I would think people would take enough pride in their work and would not want it to look like they didn't bother to read it over before submission.
I don't agree that the spelling doesn't matter - it's supposed to be a really high quality piece of work. Quality of writing includes spelling and grammar.
Well here you go - look at the posts here (all written by future examiners, might I say) and see how different the evaluation yardsticks are. Note though, that all of us who have posted here value high quality research and define it differently when it comes to the aeshtetics of presentation of the high quality content.
The spelling argument could be extended to the sociology of citation styles - dont get me started. I know someone who thinks anyone whomakes the tiniest error in APA 5th should be failed instantanously as it 'indicates deeper flaws'. To that I'd say bo&&*Cks.
