Daily viva help for PhDs
This isn’t finished, but here are some thoughts that I’ve been knitting together for a long time… Good viva prep is personal. It responds to the needs of a candidate. Good viva prep is effective. It takes only the time...
You can’t press a button and feel ready for your viva, but you can decide that that’s your destination. You can’t just arrive there, like a science-fiction teleporter, but you can know where you want to be and act to...
There are many actions, big and small, that you can take to improve your readiness for the viva. Placing a sticky note at the start of each chapter can help you navigate your thesis more easily. Taking half an hour...
What’s the minimum amount of viva prep I can get away with? There are no bad questions in webinars, no stupid questions, but there are questions that surprise me! What’s the minimum? A core set of tasks perhaps –...
When you start to prepare for your viva, make a list of what you will need to feel prepared. Ask yourself: What practical materials do you need to help you get ready? How much time do you have to invest?...
Keep a tally of your viva prep. Every day you do something to help your preparations, big or small, make a mark. One mark per day, not one mark per task. Watch as the number of marks build over time....
Where peers are your friends, colleagues, acquaintances and whatever other titles you can think of! Ask about their vivas. Ask about their experiences. Ask what they know about the viva. Ask them what they did to get ready and if...
You could have many things to do when you’re getting ready for your viva – work, family life, responsibilities and obligations – and viva preparation might not break into your top ten time commitments. It won’t help to be stressed....
Or, a handy guide to the scope and scale of various viva preparation activities! Small Tasks Downloading regulations for your institution. Putting a sticky note at the start of each chapter of your thesis. Bookmarking the staff pages of your...
You have an opportunity during viva prep to make your thesis as useful as possible for you. Thesis annotation doesn’t just mean writing notes in the margins. Perhaps using colour could help, for example: You could underline typos with red...