6. Written Report

The Examiners' Report and Notification of Results Forms are intended as instruments for the reports of Internal and External Examiners, and are for use by the whole Examining Board when making a formal recommendation to the University on the outcome of the examination process. Examiners are advised that, under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the subsequent Freedom of Information Act 2000, candidates have the right of access to any comments made about them in these reports.  A report form is also required in instances of resubmission.

The External Examiner should complete section 1.1 of the Report on Thesis form and take the whole form to the oral examination. The Chair of the Examining Board should arrange for the Internal Examiner's report to be typed in, or otherwise attached to, Section 2 'Internal Examiner's Report on Thesis'.

The form and content of the Examiners' reports should be sufficiently detailed to allow members of the University's staff to assess the scope and significance of the thesis and to appreciate 

appreciate its strengths and weaknesses. Reports should, as far as possible, be expressed in terms that may be understood by those who are not specialists in the particular field of the thesis.

In completing their reports examiners are asked to address the following specific points:

• Summarising and analysing the argument
• Structure and coherence
• Methodology
• Presentation
• Originality and contribution to knowledge
• Whether and how the research might be published