Now what?

I am getting along with my blogmate, Celeste, slowly but nicely. We are both PhD students and almost at the same stage. I have been very comfortable with writing my reflections on my study here since I knew her on the web. Although this blog is a kind of obligated activity by my supervisors, I start enjoying my writing.

Now, I reply to her comment: Do you need to resubmit, or are the comments just to help you? In other words, What will happen after the PhD confirmation seminar?

For other readers, I briefly describe the process up to the seminar:

1. Submit 8000-10000 words PhD confirmation paper to an independent assessor;
2. The assessor is assumed that he/she has read the paper until the seminar;
3. The assessor attends the seminar and evaluate the presentation;
4. The assessor provides comments immediately after the seminar;
5. The candidate (me) defends ONLY WHEN particular questions were given;
6. The assessor provides comments (including suggestions, evaluations and critiques);
7. The canditate waits for the result outside of a room; and
8. The assessor informs the candidate whether he/she was officially confirmed (pass).

After the seminar, the assesor will summarise his/her comments and provide a report to the e.g. Graduate Student Office. At the same time, supervisors SHOULD have responsibility on putting down those comments of the assessor and HOPEFULLY they will give notes to the candidate. This is not always the case, therefore, the candidature MUST record the assessor's comments for the future access.

About one month later of the seminar, the Graduate Student Office will send you the evaluation report. The candidature must respond to ALL comments indicated on the report and will have to submit it to the Office. The update report will go to the Research Dean. When the Dean approves, the candidature will be informed that "you are truly safe" (I mean, truly confirmed). In fact, almost nothing will happen.

Why is this so important then? At my university, travel and other grants are given only to CONFIRMED PhD students. Hence, it is just the matter of money, at least for me. Indeed, it is all helpful to improve quality of the research. Especially critical comments must be the most welcomed. When those are raised, you only have to say, "It is a good point. I will think about it". This is the most tricky part. It is because you will have to provide written defence once you attempted to answer and say something back at the seminar! Therefore, it is better not to say any particular thing there unless you really know about it.

Actually, my PhD seminar went well (except my presentation) in terms of having a lot of critical comments. Some scholars attended the seminar gave me lots of confusion. Thanks all. As Celeste suggested, I will seek about the term "coding". I do not think it is not necessary to use the term as it is for my research. Instead, I would have to provide an alternative or equivalent term with justification.

By the way, I am thinking to purchase a transcribing software. I have a voice recognition and an auto-transcription programs for Japanese but those do not work with English. Does anyone know the best program is?