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Month: May 2022

Nathan

Your System

Daily Post

Annotating your thesis before the viva can help you as you read and prepare. You then have an enhanced version of your thesis with you for the viva. Adding bookmarks or tabs to chapters and important sections can help you to find things. Highlighting references or underlining typos, as well as making notes in margins, can add layers of useful information as you refer to your thesis.

Before you sit down to add anything to your thesis though, take a few moments to create a system for yourself. Just reflect on a few simple questions then make a few simple decisions.

  • What do you need to add?
  • What options do you have so you can usefully and simply add what you need?
  • What will you do for each option?

Keep things simple, clear and consistent.

Nathan

All Right, Alright

Daily Post

You don’t need to answer every question. You don’t need to know every fact. You don’t need to have absorbed every detail about your examiners.

To be alright in the viva, you don’t need to get everything all right in advance of it. You don’t need to respond in the right way for every question. Of course, do your best! Of course, try and work hard! But if your mind goes blank, or your freeze, or you forget, you will still be alright.

You will have done enough before the viva and will do enough during the viva to pass.

You’ll be alright.

Nathan

Take A Day

Daily Post

It’s a Bank Holiday in the UK, which is always a good reminder to take time off. It might not be today for you: it may be that your situation means you have to work, research or do something that doesn’t allow for a significant element of rest or relaxation.

But you need it.

If your viva is somewhere on the horizon, taking a day off to do something else entirely can be helpful. Take a day for you, before you do anything for your viva. Pause, relax your thinking, rest your mind, leave – for now – all the prep and hustle that still needs to happen.

You have time to do all of that later and a need to look after yourself now. Take time for yourself as part of getting ready for your viva.

Nathan

One Way

Daily Post

There’s no single right way to select examiners. There’s no best criteria for deciding whether you should have you supervisor at your viva. I can think of many options for planning out and completing viva prep. I have a lot of suggestions for how someone might build their confidence before their viva – but I don’t know the best one to suggest to you offhand. And, of course, there are many different questions that can be asked at the viva, many approaches that your examiners can take, endless variety of situations on the day.

There are so many aspects of the viva that have lots of possibilities and yet, ultimately, there’s only one way you succeed: you do the research, grow as a researcher, write your thesis, submit it, then prepare for and pass your viva.

It’s the only way to get it done.

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