All Of The Above?

There’s a lot of everything.

• There’s hundreds of references in your thesis. You don’t need to check all of them before the viva.
• Your examiners have probably published a lot. You don’t need to read everything of theirs.
• You have pages and pages of important ideas in your thesis. You don’t need to memorise them all.
• There are lots of questions you might be asked in the viva. You can’t rehearse and prepare for them all.
• There are many ways you can explore your thesis and annotate it before you meet your examiners. You can’t follow up every idea.

But you have to do something.

You have to take some time. You have to think about what’s missing. You have to explore for yourself what you need to do. You have to take the time, because no-one else can. You might need to be a little brave in some cases, because once you know you need to do something then you need to do it or you’ll only feel worried.

But you can do it. If you got this far through your PhD, you can do this.

Finally, there are over 750 posts on this blog. You don’t need to have read them all to be ready for your viva – but there’s a lot that will help!