examiner comments on thesis

How to write a PhD in a hundred steps (or more)

A workingmumscholar's journey through her phd and beyond, responding to examiners’ feedback.

I finally got my three examiners’ reports on my thesis this week, after just over 3 long months of waiting. I have been joking that I have been through something like the 5 stages of grief waiting an extra 5 weeks because examiner 3 was late with her report. At first there was a kind of denial (this can’t actually be happening – the report can’t really be taking so long. Maybe this is all some sort of weird email mix-up). Then there was anger (how could she do this to me? Doesn’t she know how hard I have worked?). After a couple of weeks of being really cross, I moved quite quickly through bargaining (if it comes this week, I will do all my corrections, I won’t procrastinate, I’ll be nice to everyone and walk the dog every day), to depression (I’m not going to graduate. The report will not come in time), and finally to acceptance (well, it will come in time for me to graduate or it won’t, but ranting won’t make it happen faster).

I think,  in hindsight, that the additional few weeks of waiting for the last report was a good thing although it drove me crazy at the time. I think it was a good thing because of the way it influenced my attitude towards my 3 reports when they did finally arrive. I was just so grateful to get them and to finally know, good or bad, what the examiners thought of my work and what additional work I needed to do in order to graduate that I think I took the critique better than I might otherwise have done.

Kate Chanock has these 7 stages of resentment about getting feedback on your work from reviewers, which can be adapted for how a PhD student might respond to examiners, whether the reports are written or oral in the form of a Viva (although I am aware that an oral exam in quite different to receiving written reports).

I think I can revise this list, personally, thus:

1. Relief – thank god the feedback is here

2. Anxiety and nerves – but what do the examiners say? What if it’s bad news?

3. Suck it up and read – you’ve been waiting for ages!

4. Wow – what lovely comments 🙂

5. What!? That’s not fair – I covered that in my discussion! I explained why I did that/left that out/showed that data and not the rest. Didn’t they read it carefully?

6. Hm, okay, fair point. I could probably make that a bit clearer. I suppose. Maybe.

7. Well, these are really good reports. I think they mostly got what I was trying to do. Phew! And actually, the corrections they want could make the thesis much better. Time to get going on them!

At first I read the reports, and called my husband and read bits to him, and told my mum, and my best friends and my Facebook people – they were all thrilled, as was my uber-supervisor – and I just basked in all of that for a day. Then I had a conversation with my supervisor about the corrections I will need to make (the final recommendation was that I make corrections to my supervisor’s satisfaction), and the reality started to set in. It’s not quite finished yet, and the corrections are not just typos. They require rethinking, reflection, rewriting, adding, clarifying, refining. It’s more than an afternoon with the ‘Find’ and ‘Replace’ functions, or fiddling with formatting. I wandered back into post-submission blues territory, and I’m still there, being a bit petulant and procrastinating because I just don’t really want to rethink and rewrite and revise. I just want to be finished now.

But, and there is always a but isn’t there, I really do have to engage with these reports and the comments and suggestions for changes precisely because they are not small, take-or-leave-them changes. In beginning with examiner 1’s report, I can see that a lot of what she is commenting on is vagueness in some of my definitions, explanations and discussion – partly because the literature itself is vague, and partly because I did not make my writing and thinking as clear as I could have. Examiner 2 has concerns about my analysis – he thinks I have made things a little to easy for myself – is he right? If so, what do I do to respond to his thoughtful and also probably somewhat accurate critique? Examiner 3 doesn’t think I need to make any changes, but she poses a couple of questions about my methodology I think I should respond to.

I do not have to do all of the corrections and follow-up on all the suggestions. I can decide which changes need to be made now to improve on my thesis, and which comments and suggestions need rather to be taken into account later, when I am writing up parts of my argument for publication. Examiners should and do go beyond the thesis to comment on other things you can think about and do post-PhD; they comment on the theory and how your have used it, on methodology more generally and on how you have realised yours, on the strength of your analysis and on things you could have done differently, and might want to do differently in future studies. A student’s work, then, in reading or taking in their critique is to work out what is for now and what can be for later (although not all students have a choice).

Hopefully, examiners will judge your thesis on its own merits, whether they agree with you or not, and will not make suggestions that have you writing their thesis into your corrections and revisions rather than your own. If you do have a choice, think very carefully about what they have said – they are experts in your field, and if you can open yourself up to the critique as well as the praise, I think you will find much food for thought. I certainly have. Of course, now I just have to work out what to do with all of it…

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Responding to Examiners - Guidelines

You should use the following guidelines in preparing your report:

• Make any corrections or revisions in your thesis using 'Track Changes'. Before doing that, however, make sure that you keep a copy of the original thesis that you submitted for examination.
• Your response to the examiners comments should be presented in a systematic manner using a tabular format in which you clearly indicate the comment to which you are responding and then give your response. (Please do not use landscape orientation for this.)
• If you accept an examiner's criticism, you need to indicate that and provide the verbatim change(s) that you will make clearly indicating where they will go. If the change is relatively small, then include the text in the body of your response. If it is longer (more than two paragraphs), then attach it to the tabulated response as an Appendix. If you accept an examiner's criticism, it is not generally necessary to give a long justification for what you originally did.
• Criticising the authority of an examiner. Examiners were chosen based on their expertise and so suggesting that they are incompetent is not an acceptable response.
• Basing an argument solely on the fact that one examiner mentioned the issue and the other two did not. Quite frequently, based on expertise only one examiner identifies a problem and the fact that the other two did not, does not invalidate the criticism.
• Dismissing a criticism on the basis that the relevant information was given elsewhere. Such criticisms can indicate that you have not presented the ideas and information clearly and hence that you need to revise it to clarify the material.
• Arguing in multidisciplinary studies that the examiner is an expert in the discipline and hence implying that they are requiring too much expert knowledge. In multidisciplinary research, the researcher has to be proficient in all the disciplines covered in the thesis.
• Each grammatical, spelling and typographical error does not need to be individually addressed in your response. Instead a generic statement indicating that this has been attended to will suffice. Your supervisor will check to ensure that such changes have been made in the revised thesis. (It may be worth getting professional proofreading and/or copy editing assistance also if there are lots of these sorts of errors in your thesis).

What the examiners said

Reviewer comments: examples for common peer review decisions

Peer-reviewing an academic manuscript is not an easy task. Especially if you are unsure about how to formulate your feedback. Examples of reviewer comment s can help! Here you can find an overview of sample comments and examples for the most common review decisions: ‘minor revisions’, ‘major revisions’, ‘revise and resubmit’ and ‘reject’ decisions.

Examples of ‘minor revisions’ reviewer comments

If you want to learn more about common reasons for a ‘minor revisions’ decision and see examples of how an actual peer review might look like, check out this post on ‘minor revisions’ .

Examples of ‘major revisions’ reviewer comments

Examples of ‘revise and resubmit’ reviewer comments.

If you want to learn more about common reasons for a ‘revise and resubmit’ decision and see examples of how an actual peer review might look like, check out this post on ‘revise and resubmit’ .

Examples of ‘reject’ reviewer comments

Master academia, get new content delivered directly to your inbox, minor revisions: sample peer review comments and examples, 5 proven ways to become an academic peer reviewer, related articles, how to benefit from chatgpt as an academic, 24 popular academic phrases to write your abstract (+ real examples), how to write effective cover letters for a paper submission, types of editorial decisions after peer review (+ how to react).

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Investigating PhD thesis examination reports

2004, International Journal of Educational Research

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This paper outlines the procedures used in the textual analysis of examiner reports for 101 PhD candidates across disciplines in one Australian University. The method involves the use of QSR software2. Three levels of findings are outlined. The first level is the coding categories that emerged out of reading the report text. There are five broad categories of codes that capture: the structure of the reports, the ways in which examiners communicate, the subject matter of the thesis, the characteristics of examiners' evaluative comment and their comments on their role and the examination process. The second level of findings concerns the frequency of different categories of comment and the prevalence of comment on the analysis and interpretation of the candidate's results. The third extends beyond the individual categories to what we can learn about the utilization of the report. One key finding is that the examiners took on specific roles: mentor-colleague, supervisor-instr...

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Thesis amendments after your examination

Useful links.

The following information is for HDR students who have received their external examiners' reports and grades.  Students with A/B/C grades are required to make amendments to their thesis based on the examiners’ comments. 

Additional detailed information about the HDR examination process can be found in the HDR examination procedures.

Amending your thesis

The majority of students will have some amendments to make to their thesis based on examiners’ comments.  The majority of these amendments will need to be approved through an internal process at Flinders before your degree can be completed.  The Office of Graduate Research will guide you through this process so please continue to monitor your Flinders email account.

Students will be asked to use the  Thesis Amendments table  to address the examiners comments and the attachment/link in this line needs to be updated with the new document attached, and the text also changed from minor/major amendments to Thesis Amendments Table. 

Thesis amendments are due within 3 months of receiving your examiners' reports and must be uploaded into Inspire.  The approval of your amendments will be managed in Inspire and you will be notified when your amendments have been approved.

Below are suggestions for how to manage the thesis amendment process

Read your examiners' reports, take a breath and don’t take the examiners’ suggestions personally.  Take the emotion out of the reports - you are not your thesis.  The examiners’ recommendations are intended to improve your thesis and future work.  Remember your thesis will be available via open access through the Flinders University Library so you will want to improve it based on the examiners' comments.  Take time to speak with your supervisor(s) about the reports and required amendments.

Don’t leave it too long to make changes to your thesis.  You have worked hard to make it this far; it is time for the final push to finish the thesis and obtain your degree.

Make the easy changes to your thesis first, such as typos and grammar.  This will help start the process and help you gather momentum.

Make sure you track all the changes to your thesis and update the Thesis Amendments Table as you work through your changes. This will need to be provided as part of the approval process and documentation uploaded to Inspire.

Be grateful, respectful and professional in your response to examiners' comments.  Negative comments towards examiners will not be accepted.  The examiners were chosen as experts in your field of research.

You must address ALL of the comments from both examiners.

If you disagree with an examiner’s comments then you must provide a professional, logical and respectful academic argument as to why you disagree.  Use the current literature to confirm your argument.

If only one examiner identifies a problem the fact that the other does not, does not invalidate that examiner.  Respond to all issues separately.

If an examiner is commenting on a part of your thesis which has already been published, you will still be required to update your thesis.  The fact that work was previously published is not an acceptable academic argument to ignore examiners’ recommendations.  

Examiners' comments must be respected.  If you believe an examiner has mis-read or missed a point in your thesis, consider that you may not have communicated this sufficiently in your thesis.  Improve the ‘signposting’ in your thesis and add more commentary and clarity based on the examiners’ recommendations.

If an examiner asks for more information in your thesis that was not part of the scope of the research, amend your thesis and introduction to more obviously state what the thesis will and will not include.

If comments of Examiner 1 and Examiner 2 contradict each other explain why this divergence could have occurred.  Choose a recommendation that will improve your thesis and provide an academic argument to the other examiner about why you have not acted on their recommendations.  Consider making your arguments more overtly in your thesis and adding a discussion demonstrating the various differences of thought in your discipline.

If you have any questions related to our HDR examination process or require any additional information, please don't hesistate to contact us. 

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Main navigation

• Graduate Students
• Faculty & Staff
• General requirements
• Preparation of a thesis
• Initial Thesis Submission
• Thesis examiners
• Evaluation of written thesis
• Thesis examination failures
• Doctoral oral defence
• Final Thesis Submission
• Thesis Writing and Support Resources
• Letters of Completion/PGWP

Thesis Examiners

Master’s thesis examiner.

For a Master's thesis, the examiner must be a scholar of established reputation and competence in the field of the thesis research. The examiner may be from inside or outside the University. Units* may nominate a member from within the Unit who is not in conflict of interest (see conflict of interest checklist ).

Doctoral Thesis External Examiner

The Doctoral external examiner must be a scholar of established reputation and competence in the field of the thesis research. They must be from outside the University, hold a doctorate or equivalent and have no other conflict of interest (see  conflict of interest checklist ).

Doctoral Thesis Internal Examiner

The internal examiner is expected to be knowledgeable in the area and topic of the thesis, though not necessarily to the same extent as the external examiner. The internal examiner also ensures that the written thesis meets the standards of McGill University.

The internal examiner is usually a McGill faculty member (but not the supervisor) affiliated with the student's Unit*, but they may also be nominated from other Units* at McGill. The internal examiner must not be in conflict of interest according to McGill’s conflict of interest regulations . A member of the student’s supervisory committee may be named as the internal examiner.

The internal examiner must attend the final oral thesis defence.  

Nominating Examiners

Examiners are nominated and invited to evaluate the initial thesis through myThesis. Units may have specific procedures for the selection of names prior to their entry into myThesis. For more information on myThesis, please see here .   

Objectivity of the Examination Process

Once the thesis has been submitted, no one outside of GPS should attempt to communicate with the examiner(s) regarding the thesis, nor should the examiner(s) communicate with one another or with the student or the supervisor(s) until the examination process is complete. Any contact with examiners by the supervisor, student or Unit after the nomination process constitutes a conflict of interest and the examination process will not go forward. All questions regarding the examination or defence should be addressed to the thesis.gps [at] mcgill.ca (GPS Thesis Unit) . 

Examination Procedures

When the thesis is sent for examination, the examiner(s) have a minimum of four (4) weeks to evaluate the thesis and return the thesis examination report(s). When the completed examiners’ reports have been returned to GPS, the procedures for Master’s theses and Doctoral theses are as follows:

Master’s thesis:

• If the examiner has passed the thesis, GPS will send copies of the report to the student, supervisor(s), and the Unit. The student must make any corrections and/or minor revisions in consultation with the supervisor before final submission.
• If the thesis has not been passed, see Thesis Examination Failures .

Doctoral thesis:

• Both examiners must pass the thesis before the examination can proceed to the Oral Defence.
• GPS will give myThesis access to view copies of examiners' reports to all members of the Oral Defence Committee (including the supervisor) approximately 3-5 business days before the defence. The student is not to see the reports until after the oral defence.
• The student will have myThesis copies of all reports 1-2 days after the defence.
• The student must make any corrections and/or revisions, where required, in consultation with the supervisor, or other individual designated by the Oral Defence Committee, before final submission of the thesis.

In cases where plagiarism is suspected, the examiner must return the thesis and report the suspected plagiarism, citing sources of the original material that was allegedly plagiarized. In cases where plagiarism in the thesis is charged, the thesis examination does not proceed and the case is investigated through a University disciplinary process.

*Unit refers to a department, a division, a school, an institute, or a Faculty/University-wide program.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License . Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, McGill University .

Department and University Information

Graduate and postdoctoral studies.