ABSTRACT
The key people in the doctoral examination process are the examiners who have been chosen to carry it out. This is an obvious point but doctoral examiners have far more freedom and autonomy, and fewer constraints, than at any other level of educational assessment. At the same time, the judgements they make and the way they ‘conduct’ examinations is of crucial, life-changing importance for the student: they are examining at the highest level. This chapter explores how examiners are chosen, the criteria for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ examiners and the features or characteristics of written (and spoken) presentation that they actually look for.
