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Friday, December 07, 2007 9:48 AM

The reflective examiner

I love it when an examiner talks about "the PhD" in general, rather than simply the particulars of the one under consideration. When this happens, we get an insight into what examiners are looking for. Usually, such reflection occurs when the examiner
Posted by robyn.owens | 0 Comments
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Sunday, November 18, 2007 7:02 AM

Images of originality

Any diagrams, figures, or images in your thesis must be treated in the same way as your text: they must be your own, or they must be appropriately cited. However, unlike text, when an image is copyrighted (and it is safe to assume that all are unless
Posted by robyn.owens | 0 Comments
Tuesday, November 06, 2007 12:27 PM

Justifying your thesis

I know it is hard enough actually stating what your thesis is, but once you have articulated it, you then have to be able to convince the world that it is important enough to be worthy of 3 years' consideration, and that what you have found is a substantial
Posted by robyn.owens | 1 Comments
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 11:13 AM

The Thesis

I have recently been examining a PhD thesis of a student from another university (in another country). Overall, it was, in my opinion, an adequate dissertation: the candidate had clearly done a lot of work, there were some original contributions (although
Posted by robyn.owens | 7 Comments
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007 2:18 PM

Theses, books, and articles

Frequently examiners comment on the candidate's publications, or the potential for publications. Here is the gist of three independent comments on the same piece of work; these comments provide an interesting calibration for measuring the thesis against
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Tuesday, July 17, 2007 2:47 PM

The oral exam

Some examiners assume that there will be a viva. Overall, the experimental methodologies and statistical analyses applied are appropriate for the research undertaken, and the thesis is easy to read and understand. However, the candidate has used different
Posted by robyn.owens | 2 Comments
Monday, June 18, 2007 9:55 PM

Self plagiarism and salami slicing

Self plagiarism occurs when you re-use your own published work in your current work, without citing the original published work. It's considered an academic crime because in the act of publication you have assigned the ownership of your original work
Posted by robyn.owens | 4 Comments
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Sunday, June 17, 2007 12:18 PM

The most common mistake

I am sure it must be true: the most common mistake in English writing is to use "it's" as a possessive. I know we are all taught this in primary school. "It's" means "it is". Nevertheless, it is a common comment from examiners to PhD candidates: "You
Posted by robyn.owens | 1 Comments
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Friday, May 25, 2007 2:50 PM

When "not perfect" is an asset

We sometimes worry when our research doesn't turn out the way we wanted it to, or that the results don't seem clean or easy to explain. One examiner didn't find this a problem at all. "I particularly like the inherent honesty of her writing, highlighting
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Monday, May 21, 2007 9:45 PM

Precision adverbs

An examiner of a scientific thesis wants a ban on words indicating a probability not entirely certain: "Page N: 'Although the correspondence between the XXX and YYY frameworks is not clear, it is likely that ...' Hmmm. Scientific sentences containing
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Wednesday, May 09, 2007 9:44 PM

That's what I want!

Three examiners, all commenting on the same thesis: "I recommend this thesis be passed with no requirement for any correction or amendment and that the candidate be awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The thesis as such is a substantial and original
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Tuesday, May 08, 2007 1:05 PM

Oh dear!

"The thesis presented for examination is poorly prepared as evidenced by errors in figures, incorrect labels on tables and figures, no chapter titles in the table of contents, references to appendices that are not included and a significant section of
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Friday, March 16, 2007 11:57 AM

Anticipating expectations

One of the first things you learn in any writing course is to model the reader . Here is a quote from a recent examiner's report where the candidate has clearly done this very well: "This thesis was an interesting one to assess. There is much very good
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Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:09 AM

What should I call myself?

A pressing issue that often arises at the time of write-up is what to call yourself. Should you use "I", "we" "one" or try to hide behind a passive voice? Here are some examples: "I showed in an earlier paper [Bloggs, 2005] that ..." "We showed in an
Posted by robyn.owens | 4 Comments
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Sunday, February 25, 2007 3:28 PM

Economical Writing

Has your supervisor ever asked you to cut back on your writing? Here are some hints from an examiner: "From a presentation viewpoint, the thesis is also around twice as long as it needs to be, for two main reasons. Firstly, the writing style is seriously
Posted by robyn.owens | 1 Comments
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