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Month: March 2023

Nathan

Pause To…

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…think in the viva.

…reflect on what you’re about to say to your examiners.

…decide how you will get ready when you’ve submitted your thesis.

…compose a response to a difficult question in practice or in your viva.

…realise that there is nothing wrong with pausing, and that a pause is necessary at many points for many reasons in the journey from submission to the viva – and from the start to the end of your discussion with your examiners.

…prepare well for the viva and engage well in the viva.

Nathan

Impatience & The Viva

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It’s not wrong to want your viva to be done. That’s a natural response to the challenge and the situation.

But don’t try to rush your viva so it’s over as soon as possible. Don’t try to get every thought out as quickly as you can.

Likewise viva prep takes time. Give yourself a break before you begin. Take your time to do it well and take your time to think.

Perhaps if you feel impatient for your prep to be done or your viva to be over, stop and – if you can – think for a moment about what the real issue is. What’s driving how you feel? And what can you do about it?

Nathan

Elevate Your Pitch

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It’s unlikely that you will have to give an elevator pitch of your research at the viva. I’ve never heard of examiners asking for a polished thirty-second or two-minute overview of 3+ years of work.

But that said, exploring a concise summary could be a useful part of viva prep. You could:

  • Highlight the most important points of your research;
  • Organise your thinking about key ideas;
  • Rehearse using technical terms and jargon;
  • Practise talking about your work.

Your examiners don’t want a pre-prepared speech as a response in your viva, but rehearsing a pitch for your research could help how you think and talk on the day.

Nathan

Measuring Up

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My wife found beautiful curtains in a local charity shop. They were a lovely pattern, they would look good alongside the colour of our living room walls and tone in with the furniture. They were clean and in great condition, and the shop was asking a very fair price for them.

She brought them home, and I leapt into action. Stepladders out, old curtains down, curtain hooks off, hooks on the new curtains and back up the stepladders to hang them.

And discover that the beautiful curtains were six inches too short for the length of our windows.

All of which is a fun little true story to say: find out as much as you can about realistic and relevant viva expectations before you take steps to get ready for your viva. Make sure that your understanding of the viva measures up to expectations – rather than have your actions fall short of what’s needed!

Nathan

The Interesting Times Gang

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Has it really been three years? That’s when I shared Interesting Times, just before the first UK COVID lockdown. It was a strange time, and that strangeness seems to have been magnified and distorted as the last few years have unfolded. Since then we have had other global events, cost of living problems, social and political challenges and much more.

Two years ago I shared Still Interesting Times. Last year was Interesting Times Forever and I wondered if that might be the last time I made special note of the date, but I have at least this one more post in me.

 

The late and wonderful Iain M. Banks introduced The Interesting Times Gang in the novel Excession: the Gang are a group of super-artificial intelligences in a far future who convene when they encounter situations that are beyond even their remarkable abilities. They meet, they talk, they ask questions, they brainstorm and do the equivalent of whiteboarding any and every scenario they can think of. And then they get to work and do their best to meet that novel situation.

In the present day, interesting times are here to stay, and interesting times impact everything, big and small. So make sure you find your own interesting times gang – for your life and for your viva. As I’ve noted in the last few years of interesting times posts, everyone needs help. You might need help or you might be in a position to offer it.

Ask for help when you need it. Offer to help when you can.

For your viva you might need someone to listen, someone to share expectations, someone to help you get past anxieties or problems (real or imagined), someone to discuss your work with or someone to tell you that it’s going to be alright and why. And once you’ve had your viva, you can offer the same to others.

The last three years have been a lot. The next few years are bound to have some more of the same, at least sometimes. Rest when you can. Help when you can. Keep going, and remember that you have got as far as you have by being good, by growing, by learning and by being persistent at what you do.

Ask for help when you need it. Offer to help when you can.

Nathan

Annotation & Other Things

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In case you didn’t spot it at the time, I was interviewed a few months ago for The PhD Life Raft Podcast! Dr Emma Brodzinski runs The PhD Life Raft and hosts the podcast. I was a returning guest, having appeared back in 2021 as well.

It was great fun to talk this time about all things viva prep, but in particular thesis annotation and the kinds of practical steps candidates can take to get ready for the viva – topics that regular readers of this blog will know I am very interested in.

Take a listen when you have half an hour: we talk a lot about viva prep and the viva – as well as Keep Going, the Viva Survivors anthology I published last year!

Nathan

An Imperfect Thesis

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“Submitted is perfect” was a piece of thesis writing advice that jumped out to me on Twitter a few weeks ago. I wish I could remember where I saw it, though I imagine the person sharing it was not unique in expressing the idea. There are several ways that the advice could be interpreted, some very helpful and some much less so.

It was intended to mean that getting a thesis in is a big enough goal: a “perfect” thesis is one that is handed in on-time rather than one which is “perfectly written”.

A less helpful reading could be that a thesis is perfect when it is submitted – and that if someone receives corrections there must be a terrible problem or situation.

It’s important to know what corrections are. A typo. A passage that requires editing. An update. A change of structure to a paragraph or a reframing of ideas. Corrections are requested when there is something needed to make the thesis better – but only because the examiners recognise the value of the contributions within the thesis.

Corrections are one more step in the PhD process, not a sign of an imperfect thesis, nor a sign of a problem with your work.

Nathan

Viva Surprises

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I can’t imagine that many people reading this would want to encounter surprises at their viva.

  • A question that you’ve never considered.
  • A piece of feedback that makes you freeze.
  • A suggestion that you really don’t want.
  • A realisation that you’ve been discussing your work for two hours and not noticed the time pass.
  • A change to the viva process that’s different from what you expected.

Maybe that’s the key. There are so many fairly well-known expectations for the viva – not to mention regulations – that when something different does happen it can feel like it must be “wrong”. A viva surprise doesn’t have to mean a problem for you though; it’s not automatically beyond your ability or outside of your comfort zone. A surprise is just an event that you weren’t expecting, but is here all the same.

For any viva a candidate has to be ready to meet the expectations they learn about – and be ready to respond when something outside of those patterns happens.

(Because what else can you do?)

Nathan

Slowly

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There doesn’t need to be rush in viva prep.

Before you get to submission, sketch out a plan. Think about your life, commitments and responsibilities. Plan your prep so the work gets done. Bit by bit. Day by day. Slow prep is much better than racing to pack it all in at the last moment.

No-one has to sprint through their viva.

Listen to each question. Take your time to consider what you will add to the discussion. Ask questions. Check your thesis. There’s no race to get it over and done with. Some vivas are short but no viva has been made better by trying to get through it quickly.

Take your time with prep, take your time with your viva. Slow and steady will take you to success.

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