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Month: August 2023

Nathan

Disarming Distractions

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I need to remove distractions so that I can focus on my writing and projects.

I have to turn my email software off. Same for social media. I make sure I have drinks on my desk so I can’t use the excuse of getting up to avoid work. I wear noise-cancelling headphones and only listen to music without speech or singing.

And I always sit down with a plan so that I’m not distracted by debating with myself about “the best thing to write”!

 

When you focus on viva preparation think about the situation where you’ll be doing the work. What can you do to remove distractions? What can you do to create peace, quiet and calm for yourself?

Perhaps you need to tell people to leave you alone or give you space. Maybe you need to put headphones on or shut a door. Gather your resources first so that you aren’t tempted to get up and get more things.

And come to your preparations with a plan. Don’t decide what you’ll do in the moment, decide in advance to get rid of distractions.

Nathan

Reflecting On Your Research

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What are the best parts of your work?

What are you most proud of?

What was a challenge that you overcame?

And what do you like to share with others about your research?

The viva is not a platform for you to simply proclaim the greatness of your research and writing, but it helps to go there with ideas of what really matters. Reflecting on your research before the viva helps to boost your confidence for talking about it with your examiners.

Your examiners don’t expect you to have all the answers. They don’t want you to read from a script or parrot sentences you’ve learned. They want to hear your most considered thoughts.

Take a little time in your viva preparations to consider what your work means and what you can share about it. What do you want to emphasise to your examiners? What matters?

Nathan

The Right Stuff

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For your viva you need the right people in the right place at the right time.

What makes your examiners right for you could make them wrong for anybody else. You may have the opportunity to suggest names, but however they are selected they will have the right characteristics to be good examiners for you.

Only the right amount of progress can make a candidate right for writing up and their thesis right for submission. Your thesis doesn’t have to be perfect: in fact, in order to be right there probably has to be a lot of material left out.

Right? Does this all make sense? A lot of things need to be a certain way in order to create viva success: not perfect, just “right”. Fit for the purpose. Meeting the standard.

Good enough.

More than anything, these two words can emphasise that you’re doing the right thing when you go to your viva. You’ve worked enough, learned enough, done enough and are good enough.

Right?

Nathan

Rest Days

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Rest days are important features of a viva prep plan. There’s not so much to do for viva preparation that you have to be working non-stop. It helps to take a break. Allow your mind to consider things from afar and mull over ideas.

Also: just rest.

Take time off from looking at your thesis, thinking about your examiners and wondering what will happen at your viva. It could help to look ahead and plan your rest; tidy up your responsibilities so that you can really take a break.

More than anything, take time for yourself: the knowledgeable, capable and hard-working researcher with their viva in the near future.

Sounds like someone who could use a day off.

Nathan

Boss Music

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Video game music has come a long way from my childhood in the 1980s. Beeps and boops have been replaced by orchestral compositions that rival classical composers and the biggest movies. The scale, variety and sheer power of some video game scores is astonishing.

I really like it when music for boss battles is different to the general music and soundscape for the rest of the game. Some games use different music for different bosses, usually with great significance – and some even distinguish different phases of the same fight!

(this piece of music from the sublime Hades springs to mind)

Examiners are not the final bosses of your PhD journey and you’re certainly not there to fight them! But one connecting element between them and video game boss music is that there is a change of pace. A different challenge. More focus. More urgency. A greater need to do well and a limited circumstance to do it.

You already know everything you need to know. You’ve completed many challenges to get to the viva. As you prepare, breathe and think, “What else? What am I bringing to this? What else do I need?”

And as music is a fantastic catalyst for action and emotion, consider what music could help you as you prepare. What could you listen to in order to feel calm? To feel happy? To give you focus? What could you listen to and feel more confident?

(this piece of music from the sublime Hades springs to mind!)

Nathan

Look For Connections

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A small part of viva prep is to make sure you have a little familiarity with your examiners’ work.

You might read that and think, “Of course I know about my examiners! I cited them ten times!” That’s not always the case. It may be that your examiners have been chosen for other reasons. Perhaps they are in the same field but you didn’t need to know about their work to do your research.

As you prepare, make sure you know about their work. Just a little. Look at their last two or three papers. Get a sense of what they do, what they know and what they have focused on recently as researchers.

In particular, look for connections between their work and yours. What are the common methods? What are the common themes or interests? When you reflect more on this, what is it likely that they would be familiar with as they come to read your thesis? Is there anything you need to know more about them and their work to feel ready for your viva?

You don’t need to be an expert in your examiners and their research. A little work to explore the connections between you and them will be enough to help you be ready for your viva.

Nathan

Find A Guide

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Imagine a service on the internet or app on your phone: at the press of a button and by answering a few questions you could be connected to a PhD graduate who could tell you all about their viva.

They would be someone who had completed their PhD in the last few years. They couldn’t have done the same research as you, but would have either a similar knowledge base or common understanding of terms and methods. You could ask them about their prep and their viva. What did they do? What worked for them? What happened? How did they feel?

You could unpick expectations by learning about their experience. In thirty minutes you could get a good sense of the sort of thing that happens at vivas in your research area. This app or website wouldn’t give you a perfect understanding but rather a good idea.

How much would this app or service cost? How would it work? I don’t know!

But that’s OK. You don’t need it. You can already get the same outcome today already.

Think about who you know from your department: who could you ask who has recently completed their PhD? Who do you know who has relevant experience and information? Who could be your guide to what to expect at your viva? Who could share ideas of what could help you to get ready?

Nathan

A Small Word

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Viva.

We can say doctoral defence and thesis examination, but those four letters are enough. Two syllables capture a lot of meaning: it’s the end, an exam, requires prep, carries a lot of emotional significance and a certain degree of mystery.

There are questions in a viva and questions about the viva. There are experiences that lead to expectations and regulations that require reading-up. It’s the final big thing of a PhD but not the end.

Viva is a small word that looms large for a PhD candidate. Figure out what it means to you, what you need to know and what you need to do to be ready for yours.

It’s a small word but not a small thing.

Nathan

“No Corrections”

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“No corrections” is a possible outcome for candidates at their viva. Not for many: it seems to be the case for around 10% of UK PhDs. You can hope you get this outcome, but that’s about it.

“No corrections” is like finding a coin on the path as you walk down the street. You had to go that way anyway and this is a nice extra thing you weren’t expecting.

“No corrections” doesn’t mean that a thesis is perfect.

“No corrections” doesn’t mean that someone’s PhD is better than someone else. It’s just one of the outcomes.

“No corrections” does mean that a candidate will have less work to do after the viva than someone asked to complete minor corrections.

And as it’s much more likely to be asked to complete corrections after the viva it’s worth planning ahead: check your diary, think about your other commitments in that period and explore how you would get the hypothetical-but-likely work done.

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