Asking Your Examiners
The viva is not a question and answer session or a quiz. It’s a conversation. Your examiners will lead because this is a conversation with purpose, but there’s a place for you to ask questions too. First, you can ask...
Daily viva help for PhDs
The viva is not a question and answer session or a quiz. It’s a conversation. Your examiners will lead because this is a conversation with purpose, but there’s a place for you to ask questions too. First, you can ask...
What’s the final thing you need to do before submission? What’s the final piece of information about your examiners that will help you feel better about them? What’s the final thing you need to know about the viva? What’s the...
In the UK there have to be at least two examiners, one internal and one external. Both are important. It’s not true that the external has the final say or is senior to the internal. Both will have read your...
In your viva you might be able to handwave some details. To have time to explore the truly important aspects of your work you might want to skip past tricky things, or make a short point that captures something big....
After the viva most candidates will be told to complete corrections. For most, corrections will be simple things: amending spelling mistakes, making ambiguous sentences clearer, breaking up long and clunky paragraphs, and so on. While no candidate wants to get...
It’s not necessary for every PhD candidate to cite their examiners in their thesis. It might be helpful for you in particular to have cited your examiners. Or rather, who you have cited might have an influence on the list...
The simplest way to describe your role in the viva is that you are there to engage with your examiners’ questions. Whatever the question is – easy, hard, expected, unknown, hoped-for or unwanted – engage with it. There’s space for you to...
I like things to be just right. I’m not fussy, I’m particular. Which means I’m never satisfied by Christmas selection boxes: a collection of chocolate bars in one festive package. My grandmother would say, “You mustn’t eat them all at once or...
I’m thinking back to this time last year. In the UK there were various permissions extended to allow families and friends to meet over Christmastime- -and then there weren’t. Very quickly plans were changed, compromises were reached and make-do decisions...
Maybe they’re nice. Maybe they’re a bit unknown to you. Maybe they have a special interest in your research area. Your examiners might be experts. They could be among the many people you’ve cited in your thesis. Maybe they know your...