Assuming you have started your PhD following acceptance of your proposal there are one or two hurdles you may face in the shape of an annual qualifying report also called an annual progress report.
What is a PhD annual qualifying report?
Institutions use these reports as a type of quality control, to identify candidates who may have lost their way, need additional help, or seem unlikely to have the stamina to get to the destination. This progress report could take the form of an expanded version of your proposal or maybe a preliminary literature review. The review committee will be looking for early signs of the “original contribution” and will also be interested to see if your written English is going to be good enough. A poorly received report could mean the committee will recommend your research be downgraded to MPhil. level, a lesser qualification in a competitive world but a good one nevertheless.
What’s in an annual qualifying report?
Each university and even each department has different requirements for their annual reports. Just to give you an idea, here are the headings from a recent report a candidate asked my advice about.
Introductory overview
Review of literature
Research methodology
Managing the research project
Provisional table of contents
References
The report came to nearly 12,000 words but the good news was three-quarters of that could be used in the final thesis. You may even be able to use some of the preliminary literature review you wrote for the proposal.
Don’t underestimate the importance of these annual reports. Many will include a review of the literature and this work can be used for your thesis so is not going to be time wasted. The committee will also want to see evidence that you are engaging with your institution and the support they offer, so put yourself down for those seminars and get involved with your department.
Another area you need to give a lot of thought to is your ethics authorisation. If your research has a major ethics-related stumbling block your PhD journey could come to an early halt.
In addition to written work, you may be expected to show that you are contributing to the life of the department and are taking advantage of the seminars that are being offered. So book that place on the data analysis seminar you were thinking about!
What happens if I fail and my annual report is rejected?
It is possible to have your PhD journey halted at this stage. These annual reports are part of a filtering process to weed out those deemed likely to ultimately fail. It is unlikely you will be removed from the programme unless you have failed to write the report but your committee could recommend you switch to an MPhil. programme. Another possibility is that you are asked to resubmit the report with specific tasks to add.
If the quality of writing in your annual qualifying reports is really quite bad then the committee may conclude that you have no chance with your actual thesis. So don’t wait until thesis submission to get editing/ proofreading help because that may be too late! Drop me an email and we can discuss how I can help.
