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

Most students will have some amendments to make to their thesis based on examiners’ comments. These need to be approved 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.

Thesis amendments are due within 3 months of receiving your examiners' reports and must be uploaded into Inspire for approval by your supervisor, HRDC and Dean of Graduate Research. The following documentation must be included:

Your completed Thesis Amendments table fully addressing the examiners comments and making it clear where requested changes have been made to your thesis (including page numbers where applicable).
A tracked changes version of your final thesis (preferably in Word). Tip: If you’ve made amendments without tracking changes, you can use the 'compare documents' function in Word to create one. Once this final version of your thesis is approved, you will be asked to submit a clean copy (without tracked changes) to the Library.
(Optional) additional files can be uploaded with your thesis amendments in Inspire to support your submission if required.

Before submitting your final thesis for approval, please double check that it meets the HDR Thesis Rules including a signed and dated Declaration (we recommend replacing your signature with your typed name). Don’t forget to update your Table of Contents and any other lists/tables once you’ve finished making changes.

Below are suggestions for how to manage the thesis amendment process

Take the emotion out

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

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 first

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

Be professional

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.

Address ALL examiners’ comments

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.

Add additional clarity and discussion to your thesis

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.