After your viva (oral examination)

After your viva, you may be required to make any necessary corrections to your thesis and have these approved by your internal examiner before submitting the final version.

Please see our Guide to the thesis examination process for more detailed information.

Correcting your thesis

Recommendations for award subject to editorial and presentational corrections or minor deficiencies cannot be confirmed unless the internal examiner is satisfied that the required corrections have been carried out to a satisfactory standard.

After successful examination you should begin to prepare the final version of your thesis by undertaking any corrections and returning these to your Internal Examiner within the normal time period:

• 4 weeks from the date of the viva for editorial & presentational corrections
• 12 weeks from the date of the viva for minor deficiencies

Individual pages of the thesis must be fully corrected and it is not possible to simply provide an errata page. You are advised to consult with your Supervisor(s) throughout this process. The Internal Examiner does not take a supervisory role during the correction period.  They may, however, provide clarification of the corrections required. If you are unclear about any of the minor deficiencies requiring correction you must seek clarification promptly, and at an early point in the correction period. You should consult with your supervisor in the first instance and, if appropriate, your supervisor may contact the Internal Examiner for further clarification.

If you experience any problems completing and returning the corrections to your internal examiner by the 4/12 week deadline please talk to your Graduate School who can provide advice and support.

Approval of corrections

Please submit your corrections to your internal examiner for checking along with information outlining what corrections you have made. This could be in the form of tracked changes or as a separate list. Please check with your internal examiner what format they would prefer.

Once the internal examiner has approved the corrections (possibly after consultation with the external examiner) they will confirm this and your final thesis can be submitted to White Rose Etheses Online. You can do this as soon as you have heard from your internal examiner and should not wait to hear from Doctoral College Operations. For more information about submitting your thesis and eThesis, read our page on submitting your eThesis.

Submission of your final eThesis

The University has withdrawn the requirement to submit a hard bound copy of your final, corrected thesis for the award of your degree. You only need to upload your thesis to White Rose Etheses Online. 

Deadlines for submission of the eThesis are as follows:

• If the award of the degree was made without corrections, your eThesis must be submitted no later than one month after the oral examination.  
• If you have made editorial and presentational corrections or minor deficiencies, the deadline is no later than one month after the corrections are approved.  

Once you've uploaded your eThesis, a confirmation email will be sent to you, your supervisor(s) and Doctoral College Operations. Your eThesis will not be made live until after your degree has been awarded and your name has appeared on a pass list. However, if you've placed an embargo on access to your thesis, your eThesis will not go live until after the embargo has expired.

Thesis embargo arrangements

You must discuss the retention of thesis arrangements with your supervisor before you upload your eThesis. As part of the eThesis upload process you'll be asked to indicate whether your eThesis can be made immediately available or whether a restriction on access is needed. Please see our eThesis page for further details and the Guide to the thesis examination process.