Engaging With Criticism
If your examiner tells you they don’t like something in your thesis you have options: You could say sorry, and do whatever they say as a result. You could stare them down, insist that you’re right, and see what happens....
Daily viva help for PhDs
If your examiner tells you they don’t like something in your thesis you have options: You could say sorry, and do whatever they say as a result. You could stare them down, insist that you’re right, and see what happens....
I’ve heard these three words used so many times to describe what a PhD needs to produce. I’ve said them myself thousands of times in workshops! But what do we mean when we say these words? What are we getting...
About six weeks ago I watched as a dozen children almost went to war in my living room. The reason? Pass The Parcel. It was my daughter’s fifth birthday party, and she’d insisted on playing a lot of games, including...
Imagine your thesis is an iceberg. You can see it floating in a sea of knowledge. Big and beautiful, possibly dangerous! A hazard for other ideas, crashing and crushing, but approached carefully you can study it. Someone can think about...
A thought: you and your examiners are more similar than you are different. Similar: all researchers, all interested, all capable, all talented, all there in your viva for a good reason. Different: they have more experience than you, you have...
Why didn’t Achilles wear a boot? If you know there’s a problem, wouldn’t you try to address it? If you know you have a weak spot, wouldn’t you at least try something? For example, I knew my background knowledge on...
There’s a lot of light cast around during the PhD process. You shine a light on a topic you found, and create more when you write your thesis. You brighten up your thesis when you prepare for the viva. Your...
In Jenga, whatever your intentions, you might knock the tower down at any moment. Your actions or a misplacement by the last player might make things so unstable that the tower can only fall. It’s tempting to think of the...
Outside of the usual typos and copyediting, my biggest corrections were to rewrite two chapters. They followed a similar flow, two case studies using a process I’d developed. My examiners were happy with the result, but not with how it...
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....