Daily viva help for PhDs
Like nervousness, silence might not feel comfortable sometimes but it doesn’t necessarily mean something negative. In your viva a moment of quiet could be while you or an examiner checks a detail or finds the right place in your thesis....
At the viva you have to engage with the questions and comments of your examiners. You have to be a good participant in the discussion that rises from your thesis, the questions and what unfolds naturally. That’s it. You don’t...
There are no bad reasons for taking a pause during your viva. A pause to check you’ve heard your examiners correctly. A pause to get your thoughts in order is helpful. Checking a detail from your thesis is a useful...
A short pause between hearing your examiner’s question and responding. A little break to check you understand and think things through. A simple beat to get things right in the viva. Your examiners don’t expect you to rapid-fire responses to...
There’s a time frame for completing your PhD, for preparing for the viva and for engaging with it on the day. Each is measured differently of course! Years for a PhD, weeks for preparation, hours for the viva. You might...
Describing the viva’s conversation and questions isn’t as simple as picking an extreme. Questions can be tricky because of the standard of the work being talked about. Responding could be trivial because of the work that you, as a postgraduate...
The viva is a conversation between you and your examiners. They use questions to facilitate a discussion about you, your research and your thesis. They’re looking for you to demonstrate your capability as a researcher and the contribution in your...
You can’t know exactly what questions your examiners will ask, but you can have a good idea of the topics they’ll want to talk about in the viva. You can’t have a response ready and waiting for every topic, but...
In my earliest academic days I was given the following advice for structuring a presentation: tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them. “Them” in this case was the audience. Over the years...
I don’t think there’s ever a situation in the viva where you can do nothing. I can’t think of a question that could be asked that a candidate couldn’t respond to. Questions from examiners are asked to prompt discussion. They’re...