Getting Ready If You’re Busy
I had a luxury of time to prepare for my viva. I didn’t have a job or a family, so I treated my prep as a continuation of my 35-to-40 hours per week routine. Most candidates won’t be in that...
Daily viva help for PhDs
I had a luxury of time to prepare for my viva. I didn’t have a job or a family, so I treated my prep as a continuation of my 35-to-40 hours per week routine. Most candidates won’t be in that...
A viva prep idea that seems apt for summertime: use postcards to make notes about key reflective questions for your research and thesis. Get half a dozen different postcards (choose your images carefully). Use half of each one to answer...
You could plot out minute by minute when you are going to do your viva preparations. When will you read Chapter 4? How will you make notes for various sections? Which colour highlighters will you use to encode different associations?...
My favourite notebook: a tiny Moleskine, 64 pages, each smaller than a typical postcard. Many years back I bought a dozen in a sale and I’ve been hooked ever since. I use them for special projects, which got me thinking…...
I started this blog almost a year ago. I’ve written over 300 posts in that time. Over 50,000 words. I have to check my records constantly. I have a spreadsheet with every post listed by date, and often when I’m...
Doing a PhD and writing a thesis is like finding your way to the centre of a maze. You might have some ideas about how to get there when you start, but it will still take work to make it...
I love Post It notes. They’re like joyful paper. They can break big ideas up into smaller thoughts. They can help group disparate thoughts into larger concepts. They label. They highlight. They’re so so useful for viva prep. Put a...
Last year I chatted with a PhD graduate about their viva prep. In her department they encouraged final year students to give a seminar about their PhD. As the viva approached they would deliver a talk summarising their research and...