The purpose of the intermediate reviews is to give an objective and independent view on your progress, and to identify any factors which might lead to a delay in the submission of your thesis.
As with your first APR, the panel will expect you to give a presentation of 10-15 minutes in addition to your written report.
The Graduate School do not expect a written report of the length produced for your first progress review, and recommend the following structure:
- A summary of the data you have acquired to date.
- Detailed analysis and results from a completed portion of your data, showing statistical methods if appropriate.
- A discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of your study to date.
- A list indicating what you will need to achieve in order to complete your work. This will probably be accompanied by an updated time plan.
- An appendix containing any abstracts, manuscripts or papers you have written or presented.
As projects develop differently, a word limit is of limited value. We expect this report to be about 3–4 pages of text (excluding figures), and not more than 10-15 pages all-told (including figures). Any supplementary materials can be included in an appendix.
If you feel a longer report is necessary, please discuss this with your panel before completion and submission of the document; it is difficult for a panel to read and comment meaningfully on a very long document, and will probably be counter-productive.