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Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2023: Reflections

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If you read through any handful of posts on Viva Survivors you’ll come across a reflection. With the work that I do supporting postgraduate researchers – and having done this for a very long time now – I like to reflect, look for patterns, look for connections and try to find interesting ways to explore what the viva is all about.

You’ll read many more reflections on the viva, viva prep and everything related in 2024 – but tomorrow look out for my favourite short posts of 2023.

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Reflections

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We continue the review of the year today with some of my favourite reflections about the viva.

I like these sort of posts, though I don’t tend to write them every day. They often involve noticing something about the viva that is odd, or connecting something of the viva with something in the wider world. And sometimes, as with the first post on today’s list, they involve telling a story:

  • The Red Button – a little story with a big point.
  • Two Pictures – a post about communicating the picture of your research that you see, to someone who can’t see what you see.
  • Map, Compass, Landmarks – a little reflection on how we think about what to expect for the viva.
  • The Same, But Different – contrasting in-person and video vivas.
  • Worry – where do you give your focus when you worry? How does that help?
  • Fuses & Feelings – thinking about what trips us up and what we can do about it.

Stop. Breathe. Think. Reflect. What’s standing out about your year? What do you notice about your PhD journey? And what does that mean?

Tomorrow: some of the shortest thoughts I’ve shared this year!

PS: the Viva Survivors blog celebrated five years of daily posts earlier this year! To mark the journey so far I wrote and published “Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology” – a curated collection of the best of the first five years. If you’re looking for viva help then this blog is and always will be free – if you want to support the blog and get an awesome book as well, then take a look at the options at the link. Thanks!

Nathan

Tomorrow’s Story

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Tomorrow is the best time to start building your confidence for the viva – assuming you didn’t do it yesterday and you’re busy today.

Tomorrow, take five minutes to write down a few thoughts about something that you’ve achieved in the course of your PhD. Capture a result, an idea, a paper, a chapter, a skill that you’ve developed, a knowledge-based competence – something you’ve done that has helped you get to where you are.

And keep going every day. Five minutes of reflection every day, building up a short story collection of the last few years. A collection of little story fragments that point to you being good at what you do. A story that, when combined, shows you can be confident you’re ready for your viva.

Nathan

Other Perspectives Help

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I spent a long time indoors over the last six months or so. When I ventured back out again I decided I was going to explore my home town. Walk up and down roads I didn’t know. See every path of the lovely park I would normally walk through briskly. Me and my daughter would wander around making up stories about fairies and it was a lovely way to get back into the world.

One day a few weeks ago we were walking along when she called out, “Hello Little Pixie!” and then kept on walking.

“Who are you talking to?” I asked, and she pointed back to a tree stump next to the path, a tree stump I’d passed without a second glance.

There are little fairy houses all around the park. I must have walked past this tree stump a dozen times in the previous month and never noticed a little friend waving to us. I needed my daughter’s perspective to see it.

As you prepare for your viva, consider when you might need someone else’s perspective – not when you might benefit, but when you might need another point of view.

Consider:

  • What questions could someone else ask to help you prepare?
  • What experiences could a PhD graduate share with you to help set your expectations?
  • What feedback from a friend could help you to communicate your research better?
  • What perspective could someone bring to help you see your work a little differently?

That last one could be really helpful. Your examiners might have nothing but praise for your work, but they will still see it differently to you. Find help from other perspectives to help you feel confident for your viva.

Nathan

Four Mini-Vivas To Kickstart Your Viva Prep

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A year ago I first shared 7776 Mini-Vivas, a resource to create useful summaries, reflections and conversations as part of viva prep. I love seeing people share the resource, and I continue to tinker with it to find other ways to share it.

Today, I’m simply presenting four mini-vivas for you to use. You could write the questions out on a sheet of paper and give yourself thirty minutes to an hour to write down some notes. You could give them to a friend to structure a conversation. You could record yourself talking about them and listen back afterwards to reflect.

All four could help you to reflect on what you’ve done for your PhD and what it means – two areas of conversation that are sure to come up in your viva.

Mini-Viva 1

  • What is your main research question?
  • How do you know your methods are valid?
  • How is your work related to your examiners’ research?
  • What questions have you been asked about your work previously?
  • What’s the impact of your work?

Mini-Viva 2

  • What are the three brightest parts of your research?
  • What influenced your methodology?
  • How did existing literature in the field influence you?
  • How can you be sure of your conclusions?
  • What do you hope others will take away from your thesis?

Mini-Viva 3

  • How would you define your thesis contribution?
  • Where did you find support in the existing research for your methods?
  • What were some of the challenges you overcame during your PhD?
  • How would you summarise your main results?
  • What publications do you hope to produce?

Mini-Viva 4

  • Why did you want to pursue your research?
  • How would you describe your methodology?
  • How did your supervisor help shape your research?
  • How can you be sure of your conclusions?
  • What are you taking away from your PhD?

Remember to leave some time to come back to your reflections, whether written or recorded, to review what you think and see if more ideas come. You could also ask yourself “Why?” after most of these questions to prompt deeper reflection.

There’s another 7772 possible mini-vivas from the resource – you probably don’t need to use all of them as part of your viva prep!

Nathan

Six Songs For The Viva

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Something different for a Bank Holiday Monday!

I’ve made a YouTube playlist, six songs that make me think about the viva, about getting ready, the end of the PhD and all of the feelings that swirl around. My reasons for these picks are below, but note that as this playlist is on YouTube, if you do click through there might be adverts between some songs and they have nothing to do with me!

The Final Countdown, Europe – I think this is the first thought that comes to people when their viva is near. The days and weeks leading up feel like a ticking clock to something momentous.

Happy, Pharrell Williams – this is my secret wish for everyone going to their viva. I’d like everyone to go to it feeling good about talking to their examiners.

My Way, Frank Sinatra – part of the viva is talking about what you did, how you did it, why you did it. While the viva isn’t quite the end of the PhD it has a feeling of “the final curtain”. Hopefully not too many regrets, hopefully not sombre or sad. Hopefully you can stand proudly and say you did it your way!

Make Your Own Kind Of Music, Mama Cass – this is a very particular thought for the viva. Some candidates worry that examiners will tell them that what they’ve done isn’t right or appropriate. Worry that there won’t be an answer or a way to explain yourself is real, and there isn’t a silver bullet answer. Perhaps the best thing you can do is work to be as confident as you can in explaining your research. You’ve gotta make your own kind of music/Sing your own special song…

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), R.E.M. – people forget the words in the title’s brackets! The viva might feel like the end of your world, you might be worried – but you can be fine, and you most likely will be fine!

Blackbird, The Beatles – “you were only waiting for this moment to arise…” When you get to the viva, you don’t need anything other than who you are, what you can do and what you have done. You were only waiting for the day to come when you could demonstrate who you’ve become.

I’d be very interested to know what songs make you think of the viva. Let me know if you have any bright ideas!

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2018: Reflections & Summaries

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To finish 2018 I’m sharing my favourite posts from the last year. Today we’ll take a look at several posts on the topic of reflections & summaries. It’s useful to take a step back from your research and your thesis and think about what it all means. If you can then create a concrete resource from that – a written summary, a list of points or a mindmap – then you’ve made something valuable.

I hope these posts help you reflect on your research as your viva approaches. I’m really quite proud of 7776 Mini-Vivas and if you’ve used it do drop me a line to let me know what you think! And do share these “best of” posts over the coming days, retweets are always welcome!

Nathan

Looping Thesis Reflections

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I like Pat Thomson‘s recent post about looping. In it she describes a useful writing method to quickly expand on a topic, then reflect to distil down, before expanding again. It seems like a nicely structured approach to get yourself started on a topic, or begin exploring new ideas.

It strikes me that it would also be really neat for reflecting on your research as the viva gets closer:

  • Pick an aspect of your work and just write freely about it for fifteen or twenty minutes.
  • Then take some time to reflect: What have you been writing about? What are you getting at?
  • Summarise your reflections in one sentence.
  • Now use this sentence as a starting point for a new period of writing.
  • Reflect and repeat until you feel satisfied.

I like Pat’s idea of reading through and thinking about everything that’s been written at the end too. An hour or so of writing and reflecting in this way could do a lot to get you exploring your thesis in a new way at the end of your PhD. A neat method for shaking off the cobwebs and seeing what else is in your work.

Pat’s a very generous academic, and shares brilliant ideas every week on her blog. I’d recommend you take a look at her past posts because I’m sure you’ll find something useful!

Nathan

Changing Focus

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If I’m working from home then I love to walk my daughter to nursery to start my day. After I’ve dropped her off, I’ll often continue my walk near the River Mersey.

The view from the promenade looks towards Liverpool. I often take pictures of the city from the same spot on my walk.

Some days I focus on the beach…

…other days I’ll look up to the sky…

…and sometimes the sun shines just right and I capture something truly beautiful.

Changing my focus just a little can make a big difference. It’s the same city in the distance, but a little to the left, a sunny day or the tide being in can mean a radically different picture.

When you’re preparing for the viva, take time to look at your thesis in new ways. Ask yourself questions you’ve not considered before. Make summaries to tease out certain kinds of information. Reflect on what you’ve done and look from a different perspective.

You might see something interesting.

You might get some new ideas.

You might just see something beautiful.

Nathan

Unstuck Thoughts

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I’ve been using questions and prompts to unstick my thinking a lot lately, like the question I mentioned in the recent Easy Viva Prep? post. I have a lot of projects and ideas I’m developing, and all have challenges or problems with non-obvious solutions. It’s hard to see something new sometimes, when you’re so used to looking at it in a certain way.

The same goes for a long research project, like a PhD. Here are seven prompts to help you explore your research ahead of the viva. Use these to start some positive unpicking through free-writing or reflection:

  1. The most simple way to explain my field to a lay-person is to say…
  2. The most influential paper I’ve read during my PhD is…
  3. The most difficult conclusion I reached in my research is…
  4. The best thing about my thesis is…
  5. The hardest thing I did during my PhD was…
  6. The best feedback I got was when…
  7. The best way to explain my contribution is…

Dig deeper with any of these prompts by asking yourself “Why?” after you answer. See what thoughts you can shake loose.

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