Best of Viva Survivors 2018: Reflections & Summaries

To finish 2018 I’m sharing my favourite posts from the last year. Today we’ll take a look at several posts on the topic of reflections & summaries. It’s useful to take a step back from your research and your thesis and think about what it all means. If you can then create a concrete resource from that – a written summary, a list of points or a mindmap – then you’ve made something valuable.

• The UnAbstract – unpick what your abstract is all about, and give a clear summary of your research.
• VIVA and the Viva – a directed thinking acronym I created to jumpstart reflections.
• Looping Thesis Reflections – a process for digging deeper into your thesis.
• A SMART Review – another acronym, but a very different kind of summary!
• Reflecting on the Edited Bibliography – questions for thinking more about the references that help your research most.
• New Resource: 7776 Mini-Vivas – one of my favourite things I’ve done this year, a game-like resource to help reflect on your thesis.

I hope these posts help you reflect on your research as your viva approaches. I’m really quite proud of 7776 Mini-Vivas and if you’ve used it do drop me a line to let me know what you think! And do share these “best of” posts over the coming days, retweets are always welcome!