Dilemma on MSc Dissertation Mark Appeal (oral presentation part)

...............

Should I appeal? a MSc distinction is very important to me (I may need this in the future), and my current PhD is of course even (a bit) more important.

I don't see what the problem is - You'll still get a distinction for you dissertation!

It doesn't matter if your marker is not familiar with the subject, you shouldn't have to be to understand it. Presentations aren't marked on content but on how it's presented. I've been to seminars on stuff I knew nothing about and understood everything because it was so well explained. I've seen 3-4 year PhDs condensed to simplified talks that anyone could understand. You should learn from your mistakes.

Harshly put by threeportdrift, but I'm inclined to agree that you just need to move on.

Most universities won't allow you to appeal simply because you disagree with your mark and will only accept appeals on procedural grounds i.e. the presentation assessment and marking procedures were not followed. That means a bit of small print checking. Did the assessment brief state clearly that you had to make the subject comprehensible to someone unfamiliar with your topic? If it did not, then you may have grounds for appeal in that you've been penalised for failing to do something that you were unaware that you had to do. If the brief *does* say that you needed to pitch it for a novice, then you need to accept that you didn't do that to the satisfaction of one of your examiners.

You should be aware that academic appeals can drag on for quite some time. It would be a drain on your mental resources and stamina. You're already at the next step of a PhD, which is going to be very demanding. In my experience, the last thing you need is a diversion of your energy and attention. In seeking to revise your Masters result to the one you wanted, you may find youreslf not delivering the right PhD results. As you say yourself, your PhD is even more important.

Easy to say, but in your situation I would let it go, step away and move on.

Another thing that I want to ask is that Appeal is common in this situation like 69 or 59, right?

Hence department should not get upset about Appeal, if they feel their marks have nothing wrong, right?

thanks for reply. No, the total mark for dissertation is 69, so I did not get distinction.

I can do such simplified talks if the instruction said so. The thing is as I understand, I am there to present (points/conclusions in) my dissertation, instead of explaining complex products and doing some sort of popuar science talks. But I feel I failed just because I did not spend 20mins to explain the complex product (the presentation is 30mins long). You got to have better reason to convince me this is my mistake!

I do think 69% might affect some oppurtunities that there is intense competition for.

It might help if you give us the exact brief you got for your presentation. Do you still have the wording?

As Klix said, appeals are usually made on procedural grounds and universities generally don't allow you to appeal just because you think the mark should be bumped up. Do you know what your university's policy for appeals is?

For example, for postgrad, my uni's policies state (they talk about "complaint" but state this is equivalent to "appeal" at other unis):

Complaints about academic judgments... are outside the scope of this procedure.

The grounds which might constitute a complaint under the terms of the procedure are narrowly defined:
that there existed material circumstances relating directly to the examination (excluding circumstances relating to the candidate’s course of research or course of study) of which the Examiners were not aware;
that procedural irregularities occurred in the conduct of the examination, which were of such a nature as to cause reasonable doubt as to whether the Examiners would have reached the same conclusion had the irregularities not occurred;
that there is demonstrable evidence of prejudice, bias, or inadequate assessment in the examination process.

Do you know of any examples? Given that you're already working on a PhD, I can't imagine how 69% instead of 70% for a Masters dissertation would make a difference once you have a PhD and some publications under your belt.

Remember that once you finish your PhD you'll be three years - maybe more - from your Masters. Judging you by a dissertation percentage from three years previously, would be pretty unlikely.

The main judgement may be based on the recent PhD. However, if you check some job sites, you will find some do require marks from A level or something like this.

The main judgement may be based on the recent PhD. However, if you check some job sites, you will find some do require marks from A level or something like this.

Hm, I'm afraid if it says you must explain to a non -specialist then you probably don't have grounds for appeal.

Also in my experience, econometricians - particularly academic ones - have a pretty good handle on maths and modeling .... I mean, maybe you ended up with one who specialises in panel data for development economics rather than financial econometrics for example, but... I think you may find it difficult to argue that they just didn't understand the maths. I presume in fact that is precisely why they got an econometrician rather than, say, a historian as the non-specialist...

And tbh, you dismiss the requirement to explain to a non-specialist by saying you think it's not applicable to your type of report. If so you should have raised this objection before your presentation, not when you decided you were unhappy with your result. I have no experience of the appeals process, but in my opinion you don't have grounds for appeal.

If you are doing a phd in financial derivatives, I can pretty much guarantee you your potential employer won't give a toss about your a-levels. And a 1% difference in your masters grade will not be a deal breaker. Source: me, with experience in both investment banking and asset management.