you recorded inadequately source details at the outset. If you
are using notes, significant ‘version control’ problems between
the notes and bibliography can become apparent at this stage.
Even the suggestions made in this chapter mostly cannot be
last-minute operations. Many require you to do things almost
from the first stages of your research. For instance, if you are to
participate in nominating examiners, or to be able to handle a
general professional conversation well in an oral exam, or to
choose useful (‘sales pitch’) words for your thesis title, you can-
not switch on these capabilities overnight, or even in your last
year. You need to get out into your discipline’s conference cir-
cuit at least two or three years ahead of time – so that you know
the personalities of possible examiners, and have a good sense
of where the profession has been so far and is going now.
Planning ahead for a smooth end-game is something you
always need to keep an eye on. The comforting thing is that
these efforts at professional orientation will also be of benefit to
you beyond the submission and examination process.
A doctorate is more than just a pile of words, or a smartly
bound thesis with your name on the front in gold letters. It is a
process of change, and the crystallization of a substantial slice
of your intellectual life. So ending a doctorate is not as simple
as just completing the mandatory submission and examination
stages. These mark the bureaucratically defined terminus of
your apprenticeship. But they do not in themselves give mean-
ing to three or four years of intense effort. For a more lasting
way of getting your research acknowledged, you need to get it
published and into print, to which I turn in the next chapter.
226 ◆AUTHORING A PHD