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Year: 2025

Nathan

Your Choices

Daily Post

A big picture perspective on the viva could give three driving questions:

  • Why did you do it? (the topic of your research)
  • How did you do it? (methods and approaches)
  • What was the result? (findings, conclusions, etc)

Naturally there are many questions that could follow from each of these. There are unique questions for every PhD candidate because every candidate’s research, thesis and circumstances are unique. These three driving questions are a good starting point for reflection and all three are related to your choices.

  • It’s possible your research area was an open problem that was worth studying – but why did you do it?
  • It could be the case that there were multiple ways for someone to explore your topic – but why did you choose the approach you did?
  • Results can be open to interpretations sometimes – and if that’s true for your work why did you make the choices you did?

Choices are interesting and nearly always worth talking about or understanding. Reflect on your choices ahead of the viva.

Nathan

No Fooling Around

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No tricks, no pranks, no double-meanings and no jokes today!

You’ve come as far as you have on your PhD journey because you kept doing the work. You were good at what you did and you became better. Whatever your field you learned and explored and produced.

You get to submission by being good enough. You get to and through your viva by being good enough.

You might need to prepare a little and you might need to do something to build up your confidence, but don’t be deceived: you must be good enough if you have got this far.

And if you’ve got this far, keep going!

Nathan

Encouraged

Daily Post

What are your sources of encouragement ahead of your viva?

  • Hopefully your supervisor. They can offer guidance and evidence that you are on the right track.
  • Friends and colleagues can share their experiences to give encouragement. The viva in reality is not the horror stories that spread through researcher culture.
  • Your work can be an encouragement. Read, reflect and remember that this is something valuable.
  • Your journey can be an encouragement. You are now a more capable individual than when you started your PhD. You are more capable than your worst and most difficult days.

You’ve done the work to get you this far. You can prepare for the particular challenges of the viva.

Don’t forget to find encouragement. There are plenty of sources when you look.

Nathan

The Same Hours

Daily Post

British Summer Time started today and all of the clocks changed. For today particularly we have to hurry because there’s an hour less to get things done! And for the next few days many of us will feel like something isn’t quite right with the time.

Despite the change it’s still the same hours ahead of us. They all have sixty minutes in them. Some we’ll sleep in, some we’ll be busy. Some will take a long time and some will fly by.

The clocks changed, but you still have the same hours between now and your viva. That one small jump forward doesn’t make a great difference. What you decide to do with the time is what could make a difference to your preparation – just the same as what you have already done has made a difference to the hours leading up to now.

So what will you do? How will make the most of the hours you’ve got before your viva?

Nathan

What I Did

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I remember reading my thesis a lot after submission. Without thinking about the purpose too much I remember adding a lot of notes to my thesis margins. I would circle or mark jargon terms that I had trouble with in the hope that I would be able to remember them at the viva. I stuck sticky notes at the start of chapters to help me navigate my thesis.

I had a weekly meeting with my supervisor throughout my PhD that we continued after I submitted my thesis. Each week we talked about one chapter in my thesis. I don’t recall a particular purpose, we weren’t exploring “What might an examiner ask?” – the conversation was more general than that.

I read a survey paper on a topic my external was interested in. My supervisor thought this would be helpful because my external would want me to explain whether my work could connect up with this hot topic area. My supervisor was 100% correct in this belief!

I prepared an overview presentation of my thesis because I was asked for that by my examiners; I knew that that was how my viva would start and so that gave me something to focus on.

I also:

  • Didn’t really ask about what vivas were like.
  • Didn’t have a mock viva.
  • Didn’t check over any recent papers to see if there was anything relevant to my work.
  • Didn’t reflect on my own journey.
  • Didn’t rehearse for responding to questions.

And I knocked on my supervisor’s door with fifteen minutes to go before my viva so that I could check a definition one more time, because I had suddenly gone blank.

 

What does all this mean? I don’t know. I was very busy getting ready, but could have been more effective. I did a lot of work but with no thought about whether it was the right thing to do. I don’t think I did anything unhelpful but I know missed things that could have made a real difference.

I was ready for my viva but with a bit of thought I could have been much more well-prepared.

Nathan

What Can You Do Better?

Daily Post

A simple ten minute viva prep task: get a sheet of paper and write down three things you can do better now than you could when you started your PhD journey.

List them as quickly as you can. Pause, breathe, and write down a few words for each about how you know it’s true. For example, being able to program better because you have written code that you couldn’t several years ago. Or being a better interviewer because you recognise the sophistication of the questions you ask now compared to the start of your PhD.

If there are still a few minutes left then free-write whatever you can about what all of this means. What does being better at things mean for you, your work and – at the very least – for your viva?

Nathan

Different Kinds Of Expectations

Daily Post

Here’s a little model that I’m still working out to see if it makes sense.

Procedural expectations about the viva are what happens generally: the typical lengths, common questions, the process of the exam and so on.

Emotional expectations about the viva are how candidates might generally feel: it’s not uncommon to be nervous, it’s human to wonder “what if…?” and so on.

Personal expectations about the viva are how individual candidates feel: the particular worries, specific requirements, self-knowledge and so on.

 

Knowing more about procedural expectations can have an impact on the other two areas for a candidate: a greater sense of the process could reduce nervousness and any worries. That’s not to suggest that someone shouldn’t do something directly to improve the other areas; perhaps starting with a good foundation of understanding the process will have an impact on the other areas and mean there is less to tackle.

So, if this seems reasonable: what do you not know about the procedural viva expectations? And what are you going to do to fill that gap?

Nathan

Questions About Your Thesis

Daily Post

What might an expert make of your thesis?

What would a non-expert be able to understand?

What does your supervisor say about your work?

How much would your friends and colleagues need to know to talk about your thesis with you?

What would you emphasise in a summary or seminar about your thesis?

What points from your thesis connect with the work of your internal examiner?

What points from your thesis connect with the work of your external examiner?

 

None of these questions are typical of the viva. All could be helpful to reflect on beforehand so that you can think about what your work means, how you’ve written about it and how you might explain it to others.

Nathan

The Important Tasks

Daily Post

When someone asks me about the most important viva prep task that they need to do, I offer a lot of encouragement and I ask  a few questions.

The truest response for a lot of questions about the viva begins with “It depends…” because there are always lots of factors.

Viva prep helps someone get ready for the particular challenge of the viva. In general, it’s important to plan first to reduce stress as you prepare. It’s important to have a clear idea of your thesis and the contribution. It’s important to annotate your thesis but also important to create summaries to help you think. And it’s really important to feel confident about being in the viva – so it’s important to make time for rehearsal.

By asking someone questions I might be able to give some more specific suggestions to them. I can tailor all of the general points above to the person: everyone needs to rehearse, but a mock viva might not be the best choice for someone. Annotation is key but everyone has different needs for a well-annotated thesis.

While a lot depends on the unique situation and individual, every PhD candidate benefits from remembering that the most important tasks are the ones that have lead up to submission. Every candidate creates a unique body of work, a unique thesis and a unique set of circumstance that leads to their viva. But no candidate gets that far without overcoming challenges, learning a lot and doing a lot.

The important tasks of viva prep help someone be ready for the particular challenges of the viva. The important tasks of the PhD journey help someone be ready for facing difficult challenges in general.

Nathan

72 Hours To Go

Event, Update

In three days I’m sharing my Viva Survivor webinar live on Zoom. I do this regularly for universities and doctoral training programmes around the UK, but this is only the second time that I’m offering the session with an open registration. After the first time I got some lovely feedback in the days after:

“The session last week was so, so helpful. I really appreciated the practical guidance, which made so much sense and feels do-able and will help my confidence going into the viva. It helped that your manner in the training was calm, clear, concise, and full of empathy and understanding.”

UCLAN PhD Candidate, December 2024

 

Viva Survivor is my attempt to help PhD candidates feel like they are going to be OK at the viva. Afterwards a person will know:

  • what to expect – and what to focus on;
  • what they need to do – and know that they can do it;
  • how to engage at the viva – and know they will do it!
  • how to build confidence – and how to get started on that.

A 3-hour live webinar, a full and helpful session, plenty of time for questions, follow-up resources and a catch-up recording in case you can’t stay for the full time.

Registration for Viva Survivor is open for the next few days and the session starts at 10am, this Thursday 27th March. If you’re looking for help please do take a look – and if you know someone who might be interested do please pass this news on.

Thank you for reading 🙂

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