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Month: September 2023

Nathan

Viva Views

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Your viva is a lot of work, both in prep and on the day.

Your viva is one day at the end of a thousand or so.

Your viva is likely to be a difficult but not insurmountable challenge.

Your viva is an event that you can feel nervous and confident for.

Your viva is yours and yours alone, unique compared to every other that’s gone before.

Your viva is similar to many other vivas that have happened (and will happen in the future).

Your viva is not the end of the PhD, but you’re getting close.

Nathan

Not A PhD

Daily Post

For over a decade Viva Survivors has been geared towards the PhD viva and helping people get ready, but PhD candidates aren’t the only postgraduate researchers who have a viva.

What if you’re doing an EngD or an EdD? Or an MPhil? Or an MScR? Or you’re researching towards another collection of letters?

How do the hundreds of thousands of words on Viva Survivors (and the resources, and the podcast archive) apply when you’re not doing a PhD viva? What changes? What stays the same?

I don’t know – or at least, I don’t know everything.

 

The basic principles of viva prep hold. The ideas of getting ready and building confidence based on your success and development hold.

But the regulations will differ, at least a little. Viva expectations might differ because the general experience of an MScR viva, for example, might not be quite the same as a PhD viva.

But still there is help out there and on Viva Survivors.

Whatever your research degree, read the regulations for your institution. Whatever you’re working towards, talk to people who have gone on the journey before you and ask them questions about what their viva was like. Take time to think about what you need to do to prepare, plan your prep and then get it done.

Whatever you do, ask for help. Whatever you do, take time to get ready. Whatever you do, share what’s helped with others when you’re done.

Then go on and do something even better, because your research degree is only one step in the journey.

Nathan

Words Count

Daily Post

What’s the upper or lower word count for my thesis?

This is an interesting question. Sometimes it’s asked in a purely practical way: someone wants to know what the regulations say. The best response I can give is suggest they read the regulations for their university and check with their supervisors for any department-specific advice.

Sometimes it’s asked because there is a deeper question waiting to be asked. Perhaps how short can my thesis be? Or maybe will my examiners prefer a long or short thesis?

These are also interesting questions, but I’d follow up with questions of my own: why do you want your thesis to be short? and why are you writing your thesis for your examiners?

Here are some better questions about words to consider as you finish writing and start preparing for the viva:

  • What terminology do you need to refresh yourself on before the viva?
  • What can you do to practise sharing your work with your examiners?
  • What words matter in your work?
  • What words or sections do you need to highlight in your thesis?
  • What words would you use in a good summary of your thesis contribution?

What words could you use to describe what you do well as a researcher? What words stand out when you think about what you’ve accomplished over the years of your research?

Nathan

Believe It Or Not

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If you believe your examiners will be fair with their questions then you’ll be more likely to try to engage with them, rather than suspect a trap or harsh comment.

If you believe you can get prepared during the submission period then you’ll be more likely to feel ready when the time comes.

If you believe the mostly positive stories about viva experiences that you hear and read then you’re going to act as though your viva will be a mostly positive occasion too.

 

What have you heard about the viva? What do you believe about it? And how does that help you (or not)?

Nathan

One More

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One more hour of reading could help you to remember that key piece of information that’s slipped your mind.

One more conversation with your supervisor might boost your confidence for meeting your examiners in the viva.

One more look through your thesis with a highlighter in hand might show you that detail you’ve been missing – or the typo you’ve missed so far!

 

One more of any of these might be one too many things though: there is a practical limit of how much prep you can do and how much prep you need to do.

The viva is only one more day when you have to show up and do things you have done many, many times before.

Nathan

Aware, Not Expert

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It’s good to know about what your examiners do but you don’t have to know all about them to be prepared.

At a minimum, if you don’t know much about them you can read a few of their recent papers in the weeks leading up to the viva. Then you can get a sense of who they are, what they do and what they spend their research time on.

It could be you already know this before you submit your thesis. If their work has been part of the background for your research then you might be more familiar than I’ve outlined above – and of course that’s fine too!

And similarly, it’s enough for them to be familiar with your area of research if it doesn’t correspond to everything they know and do – your examiners don’t need to be experts in your thesis focus in order to be good examiners for you.

Nathan

The Questions You Want

Daily Post

Take ten minutes to write down any questions you really want your examiners to ask.

Take twenty minutes to write down keywords for each question to capture ideas of what you might say in response.

Take thirty minutes to sit, think and maybe write about what this is telling you.

 

It’s common for PhD candidates to have a sense of questions they don’t want to be asked in the viva.

Flip that feeling. What do you want to be asked?

Or, perhaps when you reflect, what do you want to share with your examiners? What would you say? And what does that mean?

Nathan

Running Updates

Daily Post

Updates need to be installed.

How do you feel when your computer gives you that notification?

Updates need to be installed. It’s not a suggestion. It’s not something you can do if it sounds good. It needs to happen. Maybe not immediately, but in the near future.

And yet despite the need, your computer will probably still work fine without them; it will still turn on, fire up, navigate to Viva Survivors for the latest post – but your computer will be better with the updates installed.

 

Thesis corrections are like a software update.

Your thesis needs corrections probably. You’ll be notified of what they are. You won’t have to drop everything but you will need to do them. Maybe not immediately, but within a matter of weeks. You’ll be told what they’re for. You’ll be told why they need to be done. And your thesis might be fine without them in some cases, but it will be better when they’re done.

 

Software updates can be inconvenient, so you might want to do them at the end of a day or at the weekend. They appear without warning sometimes – which is where the comparison to thesis corrections breaks down!

It’s very likely you’ll need to complete corrections after your viva. So likely that it’s worth checking the regulations in advance to learn the timescale involved. So likely that it’s worth looking in your diary and marking out a few times, in the first instance, when you could do some of the work involved.

Computer updates appear without warning. Thesis corrections can be expected.

Nathan

Vivas Have Structure

Daily Post

Every building has multiple blueprints or plans. On one plan are the walls, but another diagram shows where pipes and cables go.

If you compare building plans for different buildings you’ll notice similarities and differences, but look closer and you’ll see common structures.

Certainties for what you would find.

 

Vivas are based on regulations, expectations and norms.

  • Universities set thesis examination regulations.
  • Expectations rise from the general stories in academic culture.
  • Your department finds norms, the “good practice” ways of the viva.

All three give the viva structure. Every viva is unique because every thesis and candidate are unique but vivas tend towards patterns of experience.

You can make predictions and have expectations of what your viva will be like. You’ll have to wait until viva day to know exactly what it’s like.

Every viva is unique – but that doesn’t make yours a big unknown.

Nathan

Between The Lines

Daily Post

Perhaps when you annotate your thesis to get ready for the viva you won’t strictly write “between the lines” – but you will need to consider what things mean and draw something out.

Maybe you’ll spot a keyword or two that could be highlighted. Or a sentence that stands out or needs a note in the margin for clarification.

As you prepare you’ll probably want to write a summary or two as well. You’ll consider a section and “read between the lines,” capturing the big ideas or points in a few sentences.

There are a lot of words in your thesis. You don’t need to remember them all to succeed at your viva, but carefully reflecting on what’s there, looking between the lines, is a valuable investment of time as you get ready.

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