101 Steps To A Great Viva (June 2023)
101 Steps To A Great Viva is a 24-page A5 zine to help postgraduate researchers as they prepare for their PhD viva. I share 101 actions that any PhD candidate can take to help them get ready for and have a great viva.
Created during a successful Kickstarter campaign in May 2023, 101 Steps To A Great Viva is my attempt to get someone to think proactively about their viva: what can you do to put yourself in a good position? What will you do?
I cover the viva from expectations to preparation, confidence-building to engaging with examiners. I’m extremely proud of the result and very grateful for the support I had to make it a reality.
101 Steps To A Great Viva is available in print for £7 including UK-shipping. You can order it from here and only here: there are very limited quantities available after the Kickstarter and I don’t have plans to print more at this time.
101 Steps To A Great Viva is only available in print with UK-shipping – but it is also available as a pdf here!
Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology (May 2022)
Since April 2017, I have published a new post every day with the aim of helping PhD candidates feel ready for their viva. To celebrate five years of daily blogging, I’ve collected my favourite writing from almost 1800 posts and created Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology.
Keep Going collects posts about viva expectations, viva prep and examiners, as well as:
- reflections on the PhD journey and confidence;
- practical steps for getting ready for the viva;
- thoughts on what it really means to survive the viva.
Over 150 posts from five years of writing, carefully curated and edited to be a valuable guide for every postgraduate researcher with a viva in their future.
The first print run of 50 copies are available directly from me for £12.99 including UK-only shipping. To add a little extra, each order also comes with two new micro-zines adapted from Viva Survivors posts: Twenty Steps To A Better Viva and The Many Mini-Viva Micro-Zine!
To order a print copy of Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology and the two micro-zines use the drop down link below and pay via Paypal. I’m unable to ship outside the UK at this time.
The Viva Prep Handbook (out of print)
The Viva Prep Handbook was published in July 2016. It was a concise guide to preparing for the viva, around 3000 words long in an A5 zine format, aimed at providing an overview of practical preparations for busy PhD candidates.
It was taken off sale and became out of print during the pandemic – but I’m very interested in making more helpful zine-format guides!
Fail Your Viva (out of print)
Fail Your Viva is a short book on viva preparation, first released in 2013. It is packed with tips and tools for effective preparation. It is available as an ebook in the Kindle Store and via Payhip. I created a print run of 100 copies in 2016, but those are all gone now! A print-on-demand edition may be created in the future, but it isn’t a priority at the moment.
All gone, for now!