Daily viva help for PhDs
Say it with emphasis as you get nearer to the viva: “If I’ve come so far, I must be so good.”
Not perfect, not omniscient, not without nerves for such an important event.
You’ve come so far on your PhD journey, so you must be good enough to pass your viva.
If you could wave a magic wand and improve some aspect of being ready for your viva, what would you do?
All great, idealised outcomes. But there’s no magic wand. We can’t get perfection.
Instead, you could take small steps towards all of these. You can’t be perfect, but you can make things better.
No Zap! No magic. Just lots of small, positive steps to helping you get ready. What will you do?
That’s your thesis.
Before the viva they have to read it, think about it, make notes, think some more, read papers and write reports and then think some more because that’s the job they’ve agreed to do. That’s the role of the examiner. They have to examine your thesis so they can then examine you in the viva.
Whether your feet are firmly planted in one discipline or you’re playing Twister between two or more, your examiners will do what they need to do so that they can examine you properly. You might have expertise that spans multiple areas; theirs might be more concentrated. Still, they will do the necessary work to do the viva well.
Examiners are never perfect. They’re professional. They’re prepared. But they might not know as much as you, or be familiar with all the terms and ideas that you use. So they do their homework. That might put them out of their knowledge comfort zone, but they still do their homework.
Expect them to be ready, whatever their background.
Expect that you will be too.
In your research you might disagree with something: a position taken by another researcher, the results of a paper or conclusions of a thesis.
Your examiners might disagree with a method you use, the way you interpret something, or your opinion on a topic they raise.
You might disagree with your examiners on something they think, or the way they view something you’ve done or the way they approach research.
And all of this is fine.
It’s fine to disagree but the person disagreeing has to say why.
“I disagree,” is not enough. Say why.
You would have to do this in your thesis to present your research well. To be able to engage with your examiners and their disagreements with your work in the viva you need to know why. If they don’t say initially, it’s fair for you to ask.
Ask why they disagree, if they do, and use that information to see how you can engage.
Are they making a fair point? Are they missing something? Are they simply expressing an opinion or comment? Once you know why you can respond well.
Big, open questions in the viva like “How did you get started?” or “Can you tell us why this method is valid?” could have big, open responses. It might be necessary to talk about a lot of different things to really respond to a question, and it’s not unreasonable for a candidate to be concerned about saying everything they need to or staying on track.
What could you do in your viva to stay on point with a response? A few thoughts:
If there’s a lot to talk about it’s natural to be concerned about going off the point you want to make. Thankfully there’s lots of little things you could do to make sure that isn’t such a big concern.
It can be useful as part of viva prep to read your examiners’ recent publications. A little time invested exploring their recent work can help give a little perspective on their research interests, the questions, methods and topics they are focussed on or just tell you a little more about them.
You don’t need to read everything. You don’t need to include them in your thesis (unless of course there is a really good reason to). You don’t need to become an expert in what they do, because you’re an expert in what you do.
With the right framing, an hour or two of reading could give you a little boost for how you feel about engaging with your internal and external in the viva. What they wrote helps you to see what they do. What they do helps you to reflect on what might be coming up in your viva.
There are a lot of questions that could be asked in a viva. There are lots of resources that share typical questions you could use to prepare for the viva. If you wanted, you could write down key points and perhaps try to memorise them. A mock viva could help you to get a sense of what the viva experience might be like too.
But none of them can give you a script to prepare for and follow.
Instead questions, if used well to prompt practice and discussion, can help you to stretch a little. Exercise your ability to respond to questions, to think on the spot, to dig into a topic and listen and reflect and talk. All of this can build your confidence for the viva much better than rehearsed lines for you to read out or recall.
You need rehearsal for the viva, but you don’t need a script.
A list and two questions could be a simple way to manage your viva prep.
What do I need to do? How can I be sure I’ve done enough?
For the first question: look at what others tell you might help, compare it to where you feel there are gaps in your knowledge or confidence, and then make a list of what needs to be done as a result.
Assuming you’ve done enough simple work for your list, responding to the second question is straight-forward: when something gets done, cross it out. Move on to another task and as you see fewer and fewer things on the list you know you are closer and closer to being ready.
Lots of questions that explore viva prep can help – when to start, how much to do, when to do it and so on. These questions are valuable, but first explore what you need to do. What kinds of work will help you get ready?
Make a list, then work towards crossing it out.
Making notes helps with the viva process.
You can make a note in the viva. It could be a helpful pause in the middle of a difficult conversation. It might help you to stop and unpick a challenging question.
You can make a note (or twelve) on your thesis before the viva to help make it a better resource for the viva.
You can make a note – lots of them! – for every time you think of something that you did that has helped you grow on your PhD journey.
And you can make a note, just one, and keep it close to you through the final stages of your PhD and viva prep:
“I could not have got this far by being lucky. I must be good.”
I often describe the process of viva prep as adding lots of little things:
To get ready for the viva a candidate might also need to take a few things away too:
You need to add things to get ready for the viva. You can also help by subtracting things too.