You Are Here

Tag: examiner expectations

Nathan

Burst Your Bubble

Daily Post

You’re in a bubble.

How could you not be? You’ve read lots of papers and done lots of relevant work and now you’ve written a book! You’re in a bubble, thinking what you think and knowing what you know and life is fine.

Now here come your examiners. They want to talk to you. They need to talk to you. They’ve been reading what you wrote and they have questions. They have comments. They have opinions and until you speak to them you won’t know what they want to discuss.

You can make some educated guesses, but those will be from inside your bubble. They’ll be based on what you did, what you know and what you wrote. Good guesses, but limited.

Unless…

Unless you burst your bubble by reading your examiners’ recent publications. You can take a little time before your viva to get a sense of who they are, what they do and what they think. You can find out a little more information, become more well-informed and see if there’s anything else you need to know to be prepared for your viva.

Being in your bubble has served you well, but you need more to be ready for your examiners.

Nathan

Pre-empting Questions

Daily Post

You can’t know what your examiners will ask you at your viva.

You can have a good idea of what topics they will be interested in. You can make reasonable guesses. You can expect certain lines of questioning. You can look at past patterns, vague or clear, from what others tell you about their experiences.

And while all that is useful it is still very different from knowing what questions you are going to be asked.

It’s important to prepare for the viva – and necessary your focus doesn’t skew towards pre-empting particular questions. Don’t prepare only for questions you want, questions you expect or questions that you simply have a hunch about.

Prepare for the discussion by engaging in discussion. A mock viva could help set the tone and help you to find the balance between expecting topics and being prepared for questions that arise from what you’ve done.

Nathan

Flaws & Problems

Daily Post

After submission it’s likely that your thesis will have flaws. It’s possible that your thesis may have problems too. Both of these have the potential to be talked about in the viva and have consequences for corrections afterwards.

Flaws are simple. A flaw is relatively simple to spot through careful reading and obvious with hindsight. It’s the spelling mistake that gets overlooked and corrected, or an alteration to a diagram or table that provides clarity. You might find it or your examiners might; a flaw could be frustrating but it’s not a challenge to fix.

Problems are complicated. A problem might not be obvious at first glance. A problem could need exploring or explaining; it could have a simple solution after conversation removes confusion. The biggest contrast with a flaw is that a flaw is definite: something needs to be changed. That might not be the case with a problem. A problem could exist in the mind of a candidate or examiner – something has been read and interpreted one way when the truth is something different.

Flaws are found and fixed simply. Problems are perceived and pondered on carefully.

Neither flaws nor problems should get in the way of success at the viva. Read your thesis carefully in preparation, make notes if you need to, then be ready to talk in your viva about the amazing work you’ve done, as well as the flaws and problems that need addressing in some way.

Nathan

“Not Like I Thought”

Daily Post

It’s one of the most common things people say about the viva.

I believed my examiners would grill me but instead we just talked about what I had done…

I thought I would go blank but it was just good to be discussing my research…

I expected that I would be there for hours and hours, but it was all done by 1pm…

In my experience there is a massive mis-match between what PhD candidates generally expect from their viva and what happens when they meet their examiners. Typically, this is because the candidate expects it is going to be far more dire an experience than it actually is!

It’s good that vivas tend to work out well, but it would be better if people went to them knowing more of what to expect and thus get ready in a more positive frame of mind.

So what can you do? Don’t just listen to the person on the internet. Talk to your friends. Talk to your colleagues. Talk to your supervisors. Read the regulations. Read blog posts and articles describing real experiences. Through all of this try to arrive at a good, positive idea of the viva that is ahead of you.

Nathan

Good Practice

Daily Post

Academics have a sense of what is right when they come to examine a thesis. This is underpinned by regulations but also informed by what they believe is the right way to do things. These beliefs are a mix of their previous experiences and those of friends and colleagues. This then leads to common situations like:

  • Vivas beginning with simple opening questions;
  • Vivas structured around the flow of information in the thesis;
  • The length of a viva being typically in the two to three hour range.

Good practice builds in communities. Colleagues in a department talk now and then about the vivas they have been part of and this also produces “ways of doing things”. This leads to departments that regularly ask for prepared presentations to begin a viva or let a candidate know to expect a certain length.

Good practice isn’t good as opposed to bad! It helps to know that there is a history, a process and a way of doing things that helps the viva – and helps the candidate.

The viva is not a great unknown and so can be prepared for.

Nathan

Not Exclusive

Daily Post

Your thesis is not written only to pass the viva, or only to live up to your examiners’ expectations. That’s worth keeping in mind as you write it, but also as you prepare for your viva.

To share your contribution you have to write it for whatever audience you imagine will be interested and receptive to your research. To share that with your examiners in the viva, you might have to know a little about them and what they do. You might need to prepare and think about the language you would use to explain something in a discussion – as compared to how you might express it on a page.

Remember that most candidates are asked to complete corrections of some kind: while that request will come from your examiners it is never simply to satisfy them. They are asking either because they have found simple mistakes that can be amended simply, or because they think a change is needed to help your thesis be the best it can be now that it is going to be finished.

Your thesis will be studied, examined, questioned and probably changed by your examiners. But it’s not for them – at least, not exclusively.

Nathan

An Absence Of Publications

Daily Post

An infrequent-but-troubling question at viva help seminars is “What will my examiners think if I don’t have any publications by the time I have my viva?”

Or worse, “Can my examiners fail me if I don’t have any publications?”

Examiners might ask or might know if you don’t have any publications. They could ask you why not, and there could be many reasons you could offer:

  • I’ve been focussed first on finishing my thesis, but have plans to publish…
  • I’m exploring publishing a monograph after I’ve completed my PhD…
  • I don’t want to publish papers based on my PhD because…

An examiner can have opinions and expectations on what is the right way to do things. Everyone’s allowed an opinion, but in the viva an absence of publications cannot count against a candidate. The thesis and the work done to produce that is being evaluated.

Other publications could be seen as a good thing, but the absence of them can’t be taken as a negative.

More than anything, prior publications are a confidence boost for a candidate. If you have some then you have a little more support for feeling that things will go well because others have accepted your work.

But if you don’t have publications, it’s likely that you’ve invested your time in other ways – not bad, just different – and have taken other steps to show yourself (and your examiners) that you are a capable researcher.

You don’t need publication to pass your viva.

Nathan

A Simple Introduction To The Viva

Daily Post

The viva is an oral exam at the end of your PhD. Typically two examiners study your thesis and prepare for a discussion with you centred on your work and ability as a researcher.

You’ll have plenty of time to prepare. Vivas happen to others all the time, so there’s lots you can learn about the process. This helps you prepare too.

Through all of this you can be ready for the time you’ll spend talking with your examiners. Viva candidates most commonly pass their viva.

You will too.

Nathan

Five Questions About Your Examiners

Daily Post

When you’re certain of who your examiners will be for your viva, ask five questions about them.

  1. Have you cited either of them in your thesis?
  2. What do you know of your internal’s recent publications?
  3. What do you know of your external’s recent publications?
  4. How well do you know them by reputation?
  5. Given their interests and research, what do you think they might want to explore from your thesis in the viva?

Of course, these questions invite other questions. If you’ve cited them, how have you cited them? What connections exist between your work and theirs? If you read their recent papers, what is familiar to you? What might you need to know more of?

And so on, and so on – but you don’t need to exhaustively check your examiners. Knowing a little about them helps you to engage with them in the viva.

Ask yourself a few questions about who they are, what they do and what all that means. That’s enough.

Nathan

Perspective, Not Perfection

Daily Post

As part of your viva preparations, make sure you have researched your examiners’ most recent publications. For both external and internal, take a look at their last two or three papers. Get a sense of their interests, the methods they use and the questions they have been considering.

Compare that with what you’ve done. Look for commonalities and differences, and build an idea of what that means for you, your work and your viva. Are there questions you might anticipate? Are there topics in your thesis that you might have to explain to them because they might be outside of their knowledge base?

Read your examiners’ recent papers to gain perspective. You don’t need to become perfectly aware of everything they have ever done or everything they currently do.

A little work will help.

1 … 4 5 6 7 8 … 14