Status
Your examiners have a high status in the viva for several reasons. They have titles. They have experience. They have roles in the viva (and before it) that gives them authority. You have a high status in the viva for...
Daily viva help for PhDs
Your examiners have a high status in the viva for several reasons. They have titles. They have experience. They have roles in the viva (and before it) that gives them authority. You have a high status in the viva for...
Your examiners have better, more important things to do than search your thesis for errors. It’s important – for the viva, and for any corrections – that they identify mistakes, but that’s not their focus. It’s much more useful to...
Don’t be. After years of research and months of writing, it could be hard for you to see someone else’s point of view. But it’s easy to imagine your examiners will see things differently to you. Maybe they have a...
Once you know their names, check them out. It’s useful to check recent publications to get a sense of their own knowledge and research focus. It’s useful to follow that up with a look at their staff pages to see...
Your examiners have to reach a decision, but it may be that they don’t agree on everything. It could be that one likes a particular idea or experiment or conclusion in your thesis and the other doesn’t. It may be...
Make a quick list, five things you wanted to do during your PhD, but didn’t. Perhaps you had wanted to explore a certain topic, but didn’t, or maybe you wanted to attend a conference but couldn’t. Why not? Examine your...
No questions, no viva, no PhD. That’s fundamental, but there are many reasons for particular questions in the viva. Your examiners might ask you that question because they need you to make something clearer. Maybe there is a typo and...
It’s only recently, when reflecting on my PhD, that I realised my research niche wasn’t my topic. It wasn’t skein invariants of knots, or two-variable polynomial properties of three-dimensional links; that was my topic, but my niche was edge cases...
Your examiners are an important part of your viva. Spend some of your viva preparation time exploring who they are and what they do. Check their recent publications to get a sense of their research but you don’t need to...
It’s a waste of your examiners’ talent and everyone’s time if they just pore through your work to find clunky sentences or spelling mistakes. They will find some probably, because very few candidates get no corrections, but that’s not what...