I know many capable and even brilliant supervisors, but I also know some who are inexperienced and others who fail to recognise their style of dealing with people is a problem. I sympathise with these students and at the same time I feel frustrated on their behalf. One other member was the VP of the Uni and Dean of Grad Studies who thought it was one of the best ever written. After my defence, they all recommended what they phrased as “substantial minor changes.” The suggestions from the outside reader weren’t very helpful (he worked in the same theory but using a different sub-theory to the one I did, so he wasn’t sure how to offer advice on that; we also had radically different approaches to academic writing, and my other readers didn’t have a problem with my writing style), but between my supervisor’s and second reader’s comments, I was able to improve my work drastically. Quite often a dissertation is something you must pass in order to complete the degree. Students fail elements of their degree for a number of reasons. To make matters worse, my original supervisor has left the university and my current supervisor has no experience with practice based theses. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Even you, dear reader, might not be able to finish a dissertation. I’ll never be completely happy with it, but that’s the way of things, isn’t it? Failing Dissertation. If you’re asked a question you’re not sure about, it’s okay to admit you don’t know. We get more visitors each year than a small European Country! I have a friend this happened to – essentially got a 1 and a 3 and ended up having to do minor revisions to the written component. You can sign in to give your opinion on the answer. They don't want to fail you, but if you aren't cut out for it, that is the point with the least amount invested by faculty and student. Eventually I have to force myself to take what Katherine Firth calls ‘the electronic walk of shame’ to the bottom of my inbox and clear them all out. There are other books and many different points of view. If there’s a graduate school, escalate your complaint to them. Happened to my husband too when the uni parachuted another professor in for his defence session. ? However, the marks awarded for a resubmitted dissertation are usually caped to a minimum passing mark as a penalty to your failure in the first place. Why Make Your Work Available to International Scholars via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global? If you've successfully created an account and logged in, Open Scholarship should take you to your My Account page. Still have questions? As a result, the financial institution must distribute the CD to the person or entities that otherwise would be entitled to receive it. Expect a new post on the first Wednesday of every month or subscribe by email using the link below. You can nap later. Seek help from your academic skills unit. I submitted my thesis 6 months ago and the result came back 4 weeks ago. I’m finding it difficult to get advice, written or otherwise, on how to move my thesis forward and complete. Usually, you get one chance to do it again. People work differently. If you are not satisfied with what your department says, take it to the next level. I’ve not yet entered the critical part of my research, and I know when the pressure is on, is when my relationship with my supervisor will be tested. Yay!] Sometimes they are right – who hasn’t sat through a boring ‘professional development’ workshop where someone tells you a whole bunch of stuff you know already, and treats you like you are stupid? What happens if you don't do a dissertation? Also if there was such a difference in examiners marks, should it have not gone to a third examiner? I’m a busy person, so often these cries for help lie at the bottom of my inbox for ages until I can find time respond properly. So from now on, as I can, I am going to blog my responses to letters I get about supervision, so that I can point students at the relevant post as part of my response. * If you fail a module because you didn’t achieve the qualifying mark or did not submit work for the first attempt, don’t panic, you will be allowed a second attempt which will be capped at 40%. What we mean here by strange topics is that the topic you will choose for your dissertation must not be entirely new to you. I am so glad to hear that you are resolved to complete your dissertation, recognize that what you’re doing isn’t working and are open to new experiments for the upcoming academic year. Continuity helps you to pick up where you left off, so that you don’t have to spend 15-30 minutes trying to figure out what you are supposed to be doing. This is a contested and contestable field. It is really worth resubmitting and getting an honours degree, without the hons you will find it difficult to get onto a masters (if you want to do one at any time in the future) and a lot of employers ask for hons degrees. You DON'T want to sell out to corporate misery. Remember, if you’ve made it to your thesis defense, the hard part is over. Universities need to realise that simply hearing a student’s complaint is NOT the justice they think it is. It’s my belief that ALL supervisors should take part in some of the professional development activities their universities offer. You should have basic prior information related the topic. Usually one of three outcomes: 1. Don’t Go for Strange Topics: If you really want to do your dissertation writing in time, don’t go any strange topics. It was an upsetting experience. Ah, you’ve shared lots of inspiring lessons that will lead us to the exceptional writing path. What made it more frustrating was that the Examiner who could follow the argument came from a different cultural background to myself and the other Examiner!! You did amazing, the committee signs off on your thesis and you're good to go. Everyone had their spiral-bound copies of my dissertation in front of them. I have met all the points for a 2:2 but it looks like a will fail my diss. As Pat Thomson pointed out recently, supervision can be hard. If processes were working properly you should never have found yourself in this situation. This means if I do not pull my proposal together and submit successfully within a class or two, I may miss my graduation next year and that is totally unacceptable. The university decides when this reassessment will take place and which methods of reassessment will be used. Nearly 60 jars of fresh strawberry jams decorated with red laced covers lined the dining table and Silvi’s family was looking ahead to a profitable day at the farmer’s market. This is not your fault. After he asked about three questions which showed he did not understand what was written, he pulled out a prepared statement from his pocket which read, “I am not prepared to accept this thesis as my in-laws do not do this so it can’t be.” He refused to speak to anyone or give any comments about what could be done. From here, you can submit your thesis to the appropriate collection (series). In addition to the sources already mentioned, a useful read is ‘6 rules for practice-led research’ by Andrew McNamara from QUT. The longer these emails stay there, the more guilty I feel because of the time and effort the person has spent writing it and how distressed they are feeling. I’ve slightly edited it to make sure the student cannot be identified. Now the deadline to submit my masters dissertation is in a week and when I spoke to my supervisor about the limitations of the software and why I cannot optimise it last week, I was given a new research paper to read and asked to try their approach. I learned much from books, such as ‘Helping doctoral students write’ by Kamler and Thomson (Pat runs the excellent ‘Patter’ blog) and ‘Style: 10 lessons in clarity and grace’ by Joseph Williams. It does give me some comfort that on a PhD level, you do tend to have two supervisors, and sometimes access to more, but how often do you see supervisors argue in favour of the student – not often. In the UK it depends on the Course Regulations that may or may not have to comply with the University's blanket course regulations.There are a number of possibilities. If you are working on your course work, comps, proposal, dissertation, or just thinking about it, I would really like to connect with you. Resitting your dissertation? As a student, I am also a consumer of the service provided by the university, so such behaviour is also not good customer service on the part of the institution. Problems with theses should be picked up in a final presentation and examiners should be chosen with due care. That is because it looks like Paul failed to submit a written beneficiary change form to the financial institution prior to his death. Having had something similar happen (supervisor with no direct experience in the area I was writing about, and no one really in the University who had a clue) this person has my sympathies. So SO twitchy. Call me thick, but I only just realised that this is a useful way to think about something I do already. you get to resubmit. I made sure I had a third lined up just incase because our department has stories like this too. Surviving a PhD disaster | The Thesis Whisperer, The wildcard of examination | The Thesis Whisperer, 5 things you should know before you enrol in a PhD program, Beyond plan B: post PhD careers in an age of uncertainty, How to influence others with your research, Planning research that matters: from idea to execution, Read Thesis Whisperer in Japanese (brought to you by Ulatus), Tragic research mistakes (and how to avoid them), Australian Historical Society early career researchers blog, Qualitative research advice from Dr Kruikow, The digital doctorate (Paul Spencer's research education blog). What I would like to see is a post around academic bullying/harassment of supervisors to students, intentional or otherwise. This guide explains when you need permission and how to get it. In fact, it’s good! Please refer to the calendar of deadlines for exact dates. Join Yahoo Answers and get 100 points today. I would recommend to have a few other opinions from some carefully matched examiners before moving forward. I am someone who firmly believes that fault exists on both sides of the equation, yet in all three cases I have been the only side to take ownership of the issues and have had to work around the issue. We will be in touch soon with new dates and deadlines. When do I need to submit my master's thesis, specialist project or doctoral dissertation to the Graduate College? You might need the authors' permission to include them, because you will be publishing your dissertation online when you submit it to the UC Berkeley Graduate division. At my university, and I don’t know if this is a universal rule, you have to have a nominated third examiner in the wings before you submit. The rate these emails come in varies, but I would say it averages four a week – and they come from all over the world, not from within my institution. 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