Daily viva help for PhDs
What’s the probability that you’ll hear one of the following statements said in the viva?
“This is the best thesis I’ve ever read!”
“You should be doing my job!”
“You are one of the foremost minds in the country – nay! The world!”
None of these are impossible utterances in the viva, but they’re pretty unlikely.
What can you definitely hear in the viva? You.
Capable. Knowledgeable. Fully participating in the discussion.
Ready.
Your thesis is armour to protect your ideas. Well-conceived, long-considered and oft-checked.
But it’s still just paper. Flaws can make it on to the page. It’ll be good, but it won’t be perfect. There’ll be nothing terribly wrong probably, but your research needs something else to protect it in the viva. Your thesis needs someone to help it shine.
A champion. Skilled, trained, clever, capable, someone who can make ideas move.
Sound like anyone you know?
Software is often patched after an initial release. Sometimes to repair a previously unknown defect. Sometimes to add other functionality. And sometimes a patch just makes something better.
The last kind is the same as making notes in your thesis margin before the viva. It’s equivalent to highlighting or underlining text or references. Small additions can help a lot. Annotation is a patch to make your thesis more user-friendly for one important user.
At a workshop in December, a PhD candidate told me he couldn’t see past the “event horizon of his viva.” This put into words, quite beautifully, something I’ve felt for a long time about the important events in my life. Some things seem so massive that they draw you in completely. There’s no escape from thinking about them.
Time and space breaks down at the viva. Perspective gets skewed. The viva feels so big it distorts everything. What can you do as it draws you in?
Steer your focus. The viva doesn’t have to be a black hole.
One way to look at the viva is that it’s the end of the PhD. The finish line. The finale. You’ll probably have corrections to do, but in your mind, this is it, the end.
Except… It’s not. Not by a long stretch. Whether it’s been three, four or seven years, all that time has been when you were doing a PhD. The viva is the start of having a PhD.
Being a PhD.
Something to remember.
In the viva you may have to defend your work. Ideally, you need to do so without becoming defensive.
Defending: “This is why I made this choice…”
Defensive: “I made the right choice!”
Defending: “…that’s a fair question. I think…”
Defensive: “…that’s not relevant because…”
Defending: “…well, I think I addressed this point in Chapter 3…”
Defensive: “…oh yeah? Well what would you know!”
Stay on the right side of defending in the viva. No thesis or PhD is perfect. You can defend, explain and explore your decisions and conclusions, of course, but don’t make it personal. Make your examiners’ comments about the work.
Take a step back and breathe if you feel that you’re being criticised. If your examiners don’t agree, ask them why. Listen and then bring it back to what you did and why. That’s what will help your answers.
Do none of these things.
Candidates sometimes worry that they might do the wrong thing in the viva. Common sense rules. You’re going to have a great conversation with experienced academics about your long-term research project. Your instincts won’t lead you astray.
Thankfully there’s not a lot of bad viva advice out there. Listen for the good stuff, run it past your gut feeling. You’ll get it right.
There are lots of things people think will have an impact on their viva or their prep. Here’s a partial list of factors people think could make a difference, for good or bad:
Your examiners. Your institution. The number or types of awards or results. Whether you were part-time or full-time. Home or international. Number of supervisors. Time spent on your PhD. Do you have a Masters? How long between submission and the viva? Will you have an independent chair? Have you cited your examiners? Number of references in your bibliography. Number of chapters in your thesis. Number of published papers during your PhD. Number of hours spent on prep. Will you have had a mock viva? Have you read a book about the viva? Did you go to a workshop about the viva?
I’m a mathematician and there’s part of me which would love to take all of these variables and make an equation. But there’s far too many. Lots of them could make a difference.
So why not focus instead on the constants? The things that are always there.
You did the work. You made the choices. You steered yourself. Your examiners are capable researchers, who know what they’re doing in the viva. You are a capable researcher by the time you submit, and have the time to prepare yourself for the viva.
Focus on the constants that hold true for everyone.