Many research students in Australia will be planning to submit their thesis next month. Let’s fast forward to that sweet moment you find out your examiners reports are back, or completed your Viva and been told you have passed. Congratulations! Time to ring up the bank and the passport office to get that long awaited ‘Dr’ in front of your name right?
Wrong.
You cannot use the title of Doctor until you graduate.
To graduate you must first get your thesis published in the university library. This involves submitting a ‘camera ready’ or complete copy of your thesis to the relevant administrators, who will then pass it to the librarians to catalogue. I’m writing this post because Laura left a message on the feedback forum asking questions and I realised I have never got around to talking about this aspect of the process.
When I started Whispering, about seven years ago, we used to lodge bound copies in the university library stacks. Now most universities have a public, online repository. This has been a great development; increased accessibility means increased relevance. But before your thesis can take its place there, you must attend to the changes that your examiners have suggested that you make to your thesis.
(If you are in the USA, you may want to stop reading now unless you are interested in what happens in other countries. What I have to say pertains to the Australian and UK system, and some other parts of the world, usually those who were formally colonies of the UK)
How many amendments you have to make will depend on how your thesis was categorised. In most universities I have worked or studied in there is a 5 point categorising system, with varying amounts of time allowed to make the amendments as follows:
- Category One: no changes, around 2 weeks to submit final camera ready document to the online university repository
- Category Two*: minor amendments, usually 6 weeks to submit
- Category Three*: major amendments, mostly 3 months to submit
- Category Four: revise and resubmit for examination, 1 year
- Category Five: fail
*Primary supervisor has to approve the final version.
The categories I listed above are not a scoring system, despite what the numbers might suggest. A PhD is a pass or fail proposition; the scoring system is just a way of communicating how much change is needed before you can pass. In Australia you will get category Four before you get category Five, so you’ll have at least one year to pull yourself out of the hole if the examiners do not think you did a good enough job. Only 2% of research students, nationally, fail on their second attempt. To put this in perspective, as my old boss Denise Cuthbert used to say, with an average attrition rate of around 30% nationally, there’s far more risk of never completing than failure.
The examination process is full of ambiguity. One examiner might think problems with how you have numbered the footnotes means you should get a category two, but another might merely tell you to fix it and give you a category one. There’s no need to panic if you get category 1, 2 or 3 – your thesis can still be considered of high quality. I got category two for my PhD, but both examiners checked the ‘outstanding work’ box which made me feel better. I later won the faculty award for best thesis and was one of the runners up for the university prize (dammit!), so category two didn’t hold me back a bit.
Everyone who has amendments will find it disheartening, if not demoralising. But remember that the overwhelming majority of people have to do amendments of some sort. At RMIT, where I used to work, around 89% of people had to do changes suggested by the examiner before they could submit their camera ready document. Here are five suggestions if you get a Category Two or Three and have to negotiate changes with your supervisory team (I’ll write another post about category four because I think the issues are much more extreme for those who have to be re-examined).
1) Do it now, and as quickly as you can
You’ve probably waited up to 5 months for your exam results or the chance to do your Viva. By the time the reports come in life has moved on; you may have a new job or even be living in a new country. It can be hard to even open that document you sweated over and a time limit of a couple of months can seem both daunting and depressing. But just because you have a couple of months, doesn’t mean it will necessarily take that long. I’ve known people to work through category three amendments in less than a week. The category two changes on my PhD took a day of hard work. The trick is to do the bare minimum of the suggested changes, which leads me to my next point.
2) Work out which amendments you really have to make and which ones you will refuse to do
No one’s work is perfect, so swallow your pride and try to read the reports as objectively as you can – how many of these changes do you HAVE to make? The examiner is not the expert – you are; the report is a list of suggestions, not a shopping list. So take control and address only those concerns you think are important.
In a perfect world you will have a civilised meeting with your supervisors to discuss a plan of attack before you make substantive changes to your document. I should caution you, however, that there’s potential for conflict here. Some supervisors, particularly inexperienced ones, are under the impression that their job is to make sure you carry out every suggestion, no matter how ridiculous. Make yourself familiar with the regulations around examination so you can explain them if necessary.
3) Always make a cogent and well argued case for not taking up a suggestion from the examiners
You’ll need good reasons why you will not make a suggested amendment. Some reasons are more acceptable than others and the language you use is important. Never complain it will take too long; state how and why the changes suggested are impractical within the timeframe you have been given. I think you should resist, as far as you are able, any requests to collect more data. A thesis that honestly needs more data was poorly designed in the first place and should never have passed. If data is highlighted as an issue, suggest to your supervisor that you do more analysis or interpretation instead.
4) Summarise the changes as you go
Your supervisors will want to assess the changes you’ve made without reading through the whole thesis again. This is why it’s important to document the changes as you go in the form of a rejoinder. You might use a table with three columns ‘suggestion’, ‘response’ and ‘page numbers’, itemising each change as you go. Alternatively you can arrange the suggested changes in themes, and make a written statement of the changes under each heading. This is what I did in attached PDF which is a response to Examiner comments on my own PhD. As you will see, it’s a formal document similar to the kind of document you write for journal editors when you have made changes to your article, but perhaps a bit more forceful.
5) Cross the T’s and dot the I’s
Usually you will submit a PDF to the repository, which might present some challenges to those who have video or other data which accompanies the written work. Check the instructions and get help from the library if you need to. Many universities require you to get copyright permission for any images or tables used in your thesis that you did not make yourself. This involves locating the original copyright holder and writing to them.
Getting copyright permission can take anywhere from 24 hours to never; sometimes even locating the original copyright holder can be tricky. I’ll do a post on this process in the near future, but I mention it here to highlight that there are a lot of small details you need to attend to before your thesis will be considered acceptable. I’ve known people to spend months, even up to a year, working on these details – such a waste of time.
I hope this cheat sheet helps you in the final stages. Are you about to complete and have questions about this process? I might not be able to answer all of them, but feel free to ask away in the comments. I’m hoping some of the experienced supervisors, whom I know read the blog, might chime in and help with advice and suggestions in addition to what I have written here.
Finally – best of luck with your submission!
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Just on time. Thanks a lot.
This is so helpful — those details no-one tells you about! I’m doing a Creative Writing PhD and I will be exempt from putting my novel on my institution’s online repository; instead I will submit it bound to the library, the old-school way. I’m not sure if the accompanying critical commentary goes online — I hope to make the case that I’ll sell both of them!
Just to say that I’m sure this goes for other institutions and practice-based courses as well. If there is possible commercial value in your work, you won’t be expected to give up the chance to see that value realised.
Just a word of caution. If you hope to get your thesis accepted by a publisher, they are unlikely to consider it if it is already online as your thesis. This is something that the uni does not like to tell PhD students.
Thank you so much for this post – I’m waiting on the return of my thesis from examination and had absolutely no idea of the process ahead! This was brilliant – I feel much more in control now. Thank you
Minor mistake: “But before your thesis can take it’s place there”. It should be “its”.
thank you!
Thank you , the 2% statistic is reassuring as I got 4, and the fear of failure on resubmission can be overwhelming at times.
I also got a 4. Not nice, but not the end of the world. The real work, for me, is to sit down and do the corrections. For some reason I keep postponing (Viva was on Dec ’12 I’m writing this on Feb ’13) the correction process: I have everything in my desk, the thesis with the comments, the files open in the computer, a nice home office with a lovely view, and somehow The New York Times seems to be more important to read. Fear of success one might argue, perhaps.
you think that’s bad? my viva was in march 2011 and i still haven’t done my corrections (i got a 3). i just couldn’t deal with them at all for a year and a half and have only got back on the horse in the last few months.
I like the term fear or success! I took time away from the revisions as I need to be ready to go back into my thesis to see it for what it could be not what it was.
A fellow 4
I did the whole spread sheet thing – I married up the examiners comments (some were quite similar so they became one action item), I added the former page and the new page as seperate columns then I added a column that was entitled response. Some of the issued I could just write Done or ocrrected (spellings/grammer,formatting) but others I detailed what I did or why I didnt do it. I thing from memory there was only 3 or 4 things I DIDN’t do. One would have needed a completely new thessis and two wre not actually relevent to my arguement. I still managed to submit bound copies with formatting errors (the dreaded 1 line on a page problem). No one actually seemed to care.
“it’s place” ? Tsk, tsk! A tip for all PhD students (and academics): please learn the difference between it’s and its. Thanks.
It’s already been corrected, but thanks anyway. Did I get that one right?
Your posr came just in time as I’m in the throes of addressing amendments and feeling a bit overwhelmed by how to address them. Knowing I am one of 89% helps! So thanks for your advice, Susan Inglis
Sent from my iPhone
Excellent advice Inger, and timely
The spreadsheet idea makes for a well organized strategy.
Thank you Aunty Thesis Whisperer
I am a newbie PhD student, and often feeling at loss … having re-entered the academic world after ten years in business. I am at the second year now, preparing for data collection and moving through the bureaucracy which I had thought to be simpler than the business world’s or the government organisations I have worked for. Well, thanks to your blog about rookies mistakes, I choose not to be “angry about the weather” and just tidy up those PLSes and ethics application to fit the administration requirement. I am on a huge learning curve to write at PhD level, as a scholar. I used to be a lecturer and conducted research at short term projects scale, but after a decade in the business world where speed, succinct-ness (is this the right term?) and practicality trumps the slow-cooking of ideas and thoughts, I am re-learning what it means to be writing to a distinguished academic audience. And this blog about the thesis amendment … oh my, completely shattered my fantasy about the third year being a peaceful, consolidating, contemplative kind of time writing the new knowledge. No wonder my mentor (who’s completed her PhD in the emotional experiences of adult learners) advised me that before I signed up for a PhD I must, MUST find a topic so hot that I can get up every morning for the next 3-5 years without anybody having to make me to. It takes THAT MUCH passion to complete this scholarly journey … which is fun from thought process and sharpening the mind kind of view, but honestly it is difficult especially for me, to slow down and process new information and construct new knowledge. REally, at times, it feels like training to be a starship captain (oh yeah, I did read the blog about what to say when somebody asks me why I am doing my PhD, esp. as a mom of two children under 7, a part time employee and a social kind of person…)
Thank you, Aunty
Hope you have a good day knowing that what you wrote has helped another PhD student makes sense of her world.
Thanks for the post – and a brief question: what is your position on online repositories vs. hardcopy to the library with respect to later book contract negotiations? I know a book is not a thesis and vice versa, but there has been quite some chatter nonetheless that a full digital copy of your work might make presses reluctant to print a revised version (unlike one or two chapters out as articles, which likely work the other way round). Going for hardcopies would then be a sound precaution (if your institution gives you a choice, that is). What do you think?
Fascinating and important question. I don’t know – but I will talk with some librarians and publishers and try to do a post. Thanks for raising it.
Very useful post coming at the right time for me! Thank you
Good advice – I sent in my corrections earlier today before seeing this post, but think I did the sorts of things you suggest. Think the wait for it to be signed off is going to be worse than waiting for the Viva!
I’m one of those who could have stopped reading but read on because I actually am interested in how PhDs are done in other countries.
It’s honestly fascinating. I’m doing my PhD in Germany and here it’s not enough to hand in a bound copy to get your title. You have to publish your thesis and while it’s possible to do online, this won’t do if you are in the humanities and want to stay in academia. So publisher hunting will await me after my viva. Oh, on the other hand – it’s up to you to incorporate the criticism from the reports. So it’s really quite different.
Thank you. A very timely and useful post for me. It has taken me so long to get to the point of submission (two pregnancies-babies, etc) that at times the idea of having to do any corrections is just too much to contemplate, but having a short guide/pep talk will help.
I have the sudden urge to send the url of this post to those fellow students and have them read this…..
Fantastic Inger! When I handled complaints I dealt with a few students who were very upset when their Faculty ‘averaged’ examination numbers in a way they thought was inappropriate – mostly when there was two reports of a 1 or 2 and one report of 4. This almost always resulted in a 3. Students felt this was a punishment to do lots more work, rather than seeing the interests of schools and examiners was often to have the thesis be the best it can be. With my Masters Research I received two reports with category 1, but I probably in effect implement category 2 changes – they made comments that were helpful and made certain sections stronger once I made additions. Category 1 did not mean the thesis was perfect, it meant the thesis met the bar for a Masters Research even if no changes were made. I think it is helpful to keep that in mind.
Excellent point, thanks Liz
I went back and thought about it, I think I was a category 2 or 3 thesis. I remember submitting on 7th December 2010, getting results early April 2011 and resubmitting to my supervisors I think in May?. I promptly went overseas and then started a new job. I got final print permission 28th September and submitted 14th October. Graduated December 2011.
I am just so, so terrified of getting a 4 or a fail now!
Thank you for this great post though!
A quick point with regard to averaging – my university doesn’t average as such, your thesis gets whichever grade is lowest, so a 1 and a 3 meant my thesis was assessed as a 3. Which was a little depressing. In the end, the changes significantly improved my work, and also helped with my anxiety that I had missed things or got things wrong – I had, and the result was not catastrophic. In terms of timing, I took a couple of weeks to process the reports (and do a bit of raging about how a couple of comments “just didn’t get it”), then a couple of weeks to make most of the changes. 3 weeks off for a holiday. Finish the other changes. Ignore for a week. Check changes. Send off to examiner with a table like the one mentioned above, and all of my changes marked in track changes. The timing was submit in early August, reports back in late November, changes sent in January, everything approved in February, degree to be conferred in March, graduation will be in June.
Sorry, that should be “send off to Supervisor” on the 4th last line!
Thanks so much Inger, this is invaluable. Please, please, please could you post on tips for category 4 soon?!
It would be quite interesting to see the average amount of time it takes for reviewers to hand back a corrected thesis (Hons, MSc, PhD) between universities and states! I am currently waiting on my MSc to be reviewed and hope it won’t be much longer now (I’ve heard it can take up to years!)
On average I believe it’s around 5 months. Best I’ve heard of is 6 weeks. Worst I’ve seen is 2 years… But very rare.
Would be quite interesting to know the average amount of time it takes for the viva to happen once the thesis has been submitted (in the case of Masters by Research in Australian Universities)? Any information on that?
Hi there! Excellent article! Would anyone know the average amount of time it takes for the viva to happen once the thesis has been submitted (in the case of Masters by Research in Australian Universities)? Any information on that Inger?
Excellent article – I am waiting for my examiners reports right now and I feel much more confident about what to expect. Rewriting tasks seem to be left out of conversations regarding submission, lots of people will talk about their thesis process but rarely speak about their examiners reports and the following processes.