Your examiners are an important part of your viva. Spend some of your viva preparation time exploring who they are and what they do. Check their recent publications to get a sense of their research but you don’t need to know everything. Setting a SMART objective to have a clear goal for your efforts is helpful so you don’t stress about needing to do more and more.
- Specific: What are you trying to learn? What sources will you consider?
- Measurable: How much work are you going to do? How will you know when you’re done?
- Advantages: What will you gain by doing this? How are you hoping to feel?
- Realistic: How many papers are you aiming to read? What makes you think that is enough?
- Time-bound: What is your deadline? How far in advance of your viva would it be useful to have this task completed?
Just a little planning can make a tricky task manageable. Decide in advance how much prep is enough.
