Post-VIVA corrections

the-jojo-axiom

So I have my list of corrections to go on, between the written comments of my external examiner on his copy of the thesis, and the written report. My query is about the extent of corrections. Some of them I would have issue with, and for the most part I let it go and adjust to what's looked for. However, in terms of style, I have a problem. The examiners don't like my style of writing, whereby I avoid using the first person where possible. In my opinion, in academic writing 'I' or 'my' or 'me' looks awful and childish, and so I tend to use the third person.

I was under the impression that personal writing style would not impact upon the examiners' view of the work. Has anyone experienced this before and how flexible can one be with the corrections?

Thanks in advance. By the way, I'm in the humanities arena.

Ostrom

I'm nearing the end of writing up at the moment and I use strictly third person - no comments otherwise from my supervisor on other chapters.

How was the viva?

the-jojo-axiom

efla wrote: »

I'm nearing the end of writing up at the moment and I use strictly third person - no comments otherwise from my supervisor on other chapters.

How was the viva?

Oh, good luck!

I never received any serious negative comments from my supervisor on the subject of my style. This is what confuses me...I was also told throughout the PhD that once you stick to one style and are consistent, you're okay.

VIVA was grand really, nothing too taxing came up and the nearly-two-hours flew by. I did have a bit of a grilling on my theoretical viewpoint as expressed in one of the chapters, but I kind of expected that.

Ostrom

the-jojo-axiom wrote: »

Oh, good luck!

I never received any serious negative comments from my supervisor on the subject of my style. This is what confuses me...I was also told throughout the PhD that once you stick to one style and are consistent, you're okay.

VIVA was grand really, nothing too taxing came up and the nearly-two-hours flew by. I did have a bit of a grilling on my theoretical viewpoint as expressed in one of the chapters, but I kind of expected that.

Thanks (good bit off yet)!

Of the few theses I've read, I cant remember any using first person - I assumed as you did (pick a style and stick with it)

the-jojo-axiom

efla wrote: »

Thanks (good bit off yet)!

Of the few theses I've read, I cant remember any using first person - I assumed as you did (pick a style and stick with it)

So I'm not crazy!

I'm not going to change every instance, it would necessitate a complete rewrite. From the examiners' report: '..the work requires proofing and there are a few annoying persistent mistakes, e.g....use of the third person instead of I; split infinitives...'

This kind of stuff is seriously putting me off doing the corrections

P.S. I'd advise, if you can, to get a copy of a colleague's corrections list to have a quick look over...If I had sourced something like that last year I would have got great use out of it.

Ostrom

the-jojo-axiom wrote: »

So I'm not crazy!

I'm not going to change every instance, it would necessitate a complete rewrite. From the examiners' report: '..the work requires proofing and there are a few annoying persistent mistakes, e.g....use of the third person instead of I; split infinitives...'

This kind of stuff is seriously putting me off doing the corrections

P.S. I'd advise, if you can, to get a copy of a colleague's corrections list to have a quick look over...If I had sourced something like that last year I would have got great use out of it.

How does it actually work - is the PhD now awarded, or do the corrections need to be approved by the examiners?

the-jojo-axiom

efla wrote: »

How does it actually work - is the PhD now awarded, or do the corrections need to be approved by the examiners?

It's awarded subject to changes being checked by the examiners. So I have about 6 months (from December) to fix them, then send a copy to the examiners. Then hopefully, if they say it's okay, it's printed, bound and I'll be allowed to graduate at the next set of graduations. It's a long process, something which a lot of institutions may not warn you of during the degree.

DeepSleeper

AFAIK the internal examiner needs to certify that the corrections have been made before the final submission is made.

Edit: The OP (post no. 7) seems to have a good grasp of the process - institutions differ on these things

the-jojo-axiom

DeepSleeper wrote: »

AFAIK the internal examiner needs to certify that the corrections have been made before the final submission is made.

That's what the official line is, although there's a bit of flexibility with that. Often the internal examiner will have a quick look and then defer to the external examiner. It's quite dependent on the sector and the people involved.

Dr Strange

the-jojo-axiom wrote: »

That's what the official line is, although there's a bit of flexibility with that. Often the internal examiner will have a quick look and then defer to the external examiner. It's quite dependent on the sector and the people involved.

Yes, there can be some local differences. In my case the internal examiner and the director of the programme were given the list of corrections and once they both individually checked that I carried them out they reported to the external examiner and signed off on all corrections. After that just had to wait for the next conferring date and that was that.

djpbarry

the-jojo-axiom wrote: »

In my opinion, in academic writing 'I' or 'my' or 'me' looks awful and childish, and so I tend to use the third person.

Absolutely. Anyone who disagrees should be stabbed in the face.

the-jojo-axiom wrote: »

I never received any serious negative comments from my supervisor on the subject of my style.

Even if you were instructed to make major revisions, I think it would be asking a lot to change the style of the entire document.

DeepSleeper wrote: »

AFAIK the internal examiner needs to certify that the corrections have been made before the final submission is made.

It varies from situation to situation. I had to make minor revisions after my viva, but I didn’t need to run them by my examiners before submitted the final document – I just checked with my supervisors and they essentially said “we’re happy if you’re happy”.

At the end of the day, it’s impossible to have a thesis that’s 100% error/inaccuracy free – you have to draw a line under it at some point.

itzme

From the comment you made I would think there might be a chance you have misinterpreted the examiners remarks or they haven't explained them properly. The split infinitives comment is a grammar one and is not an easy one to correct, as in if you are not aware you are doing it, it will be hard to find them all. Having said that, that is not style at all thats just correct English.

On the third person rather than I comment, it would be my take that the examiner is asking for a distinction between the passive voice and active voice in your thesis. The passive voice is the third person as in "It was found that in 1869....." whereas the active voice is direct "I/We found that in 1869....". Now this might seem like style but there is an important difference.

The passive voice can imply that it was either found by someone else, it is generally agreed (and we don't know who found it) or we don't want to attribute an acknowledgement as to where this came from because its an accepted fact in the field.
The active voice in a thesis allows the reader to determine what exactly YOU did. As in you found that result, you discovered it and it is a new result. If you don't use the active voice then it can be extremely difficult to ascertain what has been your contribution and whether or not what you have stated was accepted by the field at the writing of the thesis.
So if this is correct (it might not be) you only have to change the occurrences where you didn't acknowledge your own work. From an examining point of view, this can be interpreted as, "From the writing it is difficult to ascertain what the authors contributions to the field"

Active V Passive is a discussion that happens quite a lot in academics, passive is the tradition and its always hard to break conventions in such an established field as academics. Here is my take on where it came from and why it should change to active when applicable. I think it stems from the belief that if you use passive you are implying that the fact is true and objective which gives it alot of strength. In other words, this is a statement of fact and cannot be disputed. Whereas if you use active you are attributing it to you and introducing doubt as it is subjective and makes it weaker. To me, I(/you) do research (active), it is not done (passive) so without the use of both we cannot distinguish between what was research was already in existence and what is new created by the author of the thesis. The only interesting thing about the thesis is the contribution we make, if I can't identify what that contribution is from reading your work easily then to me that is a big mistake.

djpbarry

itzme wrote: »

To me, I(/you) do research (active), it is not done (passive) so without the use of both we cannot distinguish between what was research was already in existence and what is new created by the author of the thesis. The only interesting thing about the thesis is the contribution we make, if I can't identify what that contribution is from reading your work easily then to me that is a big mistake.

If the use of first-person narrative is necessary in order to determine the author’s own contribution, then that suggests to me that their thesis is extremely badly written and/or laid out. The distinction between work conducted by others and work conducted by the author should be obvious, even if the entire thesis is written in the third person. Seeing first-person narration in a paper always makes me cringe – it looks incredibly amateurish.

itzme

djpbarry wrote: »

If the use of first-person narrative is necessary in order to determine the author’s own contribution, then that suggests to me that their thesis is extremely badly written and/or laid out. The distinction between work conducted by others and work conducted by the author should be obvious, even if the entire thesis is written in the third person. Seeing first-person narration in a paper always makes me cringe – it looks incredibly amateurish.

OP I'm not sure if this discussion between me and djpbarry is very relevant to your original question. I have given you an interpretation of the externs comment that could be true or could be completely wrong. My advice is to contact the intern and ask them to contact the extern and clarify the comment as to whether its a first/third person style point or an active/passive tense comment. Remember you don't have to sit back and guess at what they mean, give them a shout through the intern or directly if you like.

The rest is more for djpbarry just to clarify my point on active/passive.

I think you have got the wrong end of the stick with what I was saying. I'm not advocating using I everywhere or creating a narrative. "I did this, then that, then the other". In fact I don't agree with the use of I at all personally, I prefer "we" To me research is rarely if ever done in total isolation and to say "I" is to ignore the help and advice received (I am in science so maybe this is slightly different in humanities but I'd be surprised). I do agree if the whole thing is written in "I" it is amatuerish. I am not in any way talking about using the first/third person throughout the thesis, I am saying that might have nothing to do with the examiners question and that it could be to do with active passive tense not being used correctly in parts of the thesis.

What I am saying is that the active tense should be used appropriately to distinguish at necessary stages what was contributed by the author. As in a phrase like "it was interpreted from" should be " I/we interpreted from" if this interpretation was new/novel and/or different from previous ones. If that interpretation already existed and the author agrees then fine use passive but if not and is significant use active. This is not advocating first person narrative at all.

From my own field it can come in the form of data interpretation. Say an algorithm is applied to some data which outputs some results which are the bones of the work. It is actually untrue to say something like "the output of the algorithm was interpreted as..", who interpreted this? The who is significant, was it you, your team, is it the standard way of interpreting these results? This will all impact on how novel your research is which is the single most important distinguishing factor in awarding a Ph.D. (Is the work publishable in part or in full and is the work the authors). If you only ever use the passive voice then you are making it very difficult for the examiner and a reader to identify whether something new and novel is being done/found.

So again I'm saying the active tense should be used appropriately to highlight the novel contributions of the author. Its not saying first person all the way or third person all the way, I think there is a different point and an important one in general in the active V passive tense. Its not every decision they made and why, just the important ones that are different/new from what is already known/produced by others. I hope you understand my point after this.

Aunt Arctic

It's surprising and interesting to me to hear that it's unusual to use first person in humanities theses. I did mine in science like itzme and I'd say at least half of the theses I've read use "We". The other half use passive voice. Either is acceptable but some supervisors do express a a preference for one or the other. Like itzme said, some people prefer "we" because it makes your contributions and decisions really clear, while also acknowledging your colleagues.