Daily viva help for PhDs
The viva is not a race, a quiz, an interview, a trial or an ordeal.
When your examiners ask a question, you can take your time.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Take a beat to check you understand the question or comment. Take a beat to think about how you’ll respond.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Then speak – unless you need more time to think, in which case take more time to think.
The viva is not a race.
When you read through your thesis to get ready for your viva ask yourself, what’s missing?
When you make a plan for viva prep, take a short break, review it and ask yourself, what’s missing?
If you write a summary of your methodology, or of your examiners, or a cheatsheet of key points, take time at the end to reflect and ask, what’s missing?
As you pause and get your thoughts in order to respond to your examiners, take an extra beat and consider, what’s missing?
At any of these points you might reflect and conclude that nothing is missing! And that’s fine.
Still take that little moment, whenever it is, to ask what’s missing? – make that extra little effort to do your best.
PS: If you’re looking for more things to add to your viva prep plan or just more things to reflect on then do take a look at the Viva Help Bundle, still half price until Friday as a result of my little birthday sale!
The viva isn’t an interview, a quiz or trial by (verbal) combat!
The viva is a discussion. Examiners prepare, ask questions and make comments to facilitate a discussion. They need you to talk so that they can gather evidence to justify the decisions they’ll make about you, your thesis and your viva’s outcome.
So what does it mean to engage with their questions?
Engaging with questions at the viva means treating each one like an opportunity. Every question is asked for a reason.
Every question, essentially, is asked to give you a chance to say something about your work, your thesis or yourself.
Anyone can make a mistake.
If you find one before your viva, in your research or your thesis then – after taking a deep breath and not panicking – reflect on the following three questions:
Reflect on these questions and make some notes. If you think you need to then discuss the situation with your supervisor. That will probably be enough to help you feel ready for talking about it in your viva if you need to.
And if a mistake is brought to your attention in the viva (or if you make one in the viva) then the three questions above will still be helpful.
Deep breath, don’t panic, think and respond.
At the viva you are invited into a discussion.
Of course you’ll respond to little questions for clarification and confirmation, but the overall drive of the viva is towards conversation.
It’s not a quiz or game show where the fastest answer wins. Your examiners want your considered thoughts and ideas. They want substance, not surface.
Do the work. Prepare well. Listen to the question. Take your time and think. Be as clear as you can be.
Which is all to say: do your best. That’s all your examiners are looking for and all anyone could expect.
Deep questions require more than surface-level responses.
These three words were drilled into me in my former life as a mathematician. In solving a maths problem it wasn’t enough to find an answer, I had to show how I had got there. I couldn’t claim a result without proof.
“Show your working” is important for PhDs more generally, not just for low-dimensional topologists!
Postgraduate researchers show their working in their thesis, but then also in the viva. They have to explain their thinking, share the knowledge they have and demonstrate their ability.
A viva isn’t only about reciting facts. You have to show your working – but of course, by this stage, you must have a lot of experience doing that. Preparing for the viva is partly reviewing those experiences, and partly practising doing it one more time.
Show how you’ve worked in your viva – and show once again how you can do the work.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on December 12th 2021.
Are you prepared to say “I don’t know” in your viva?
There’s only so much information, knowledge and talent you can build up before your viva. You’ll have enough, but you might not have everything. Perfection isn’t required: but do you feel comfortable enough saying “I don’t know” so that you aren’t worried if you do need to say it?
To help build that comfort, and the confidence that goes with it:
I don’t know what you might have to say “I don’t know” to. You can’t know that in advance either. But you can know that it is OK.
These three simple words don’t have to define you, your viva performance or how you feel going into the viva.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on September 21st 2020.
If an examiner asks, “How would you improve your research?” they’re not trying to trick you. There’s no trap in a question like, “What would you change?”
These are honest, simple questions to get you exploring the topic of what you’ve learned through your PhD journey. They might seem like questions that could only lead to more work, but they’re looking for evidence of your commitment to learning and developing, rather than a commitment to doing more for your PhD and your thesis.
You did a lot. Now you can do better.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on June 7th 2021.
Good answers don’t just appear on the day.
Good answers to your examiners’ questions happen because you’ve done the work.
Good answers happen because you know things.
Good answers happen because you’re talented.
I think great answers in the viva come when you give yourself a few extra seconds to think…
…what else do I know?
…is that the best thing to start with?
…what did I say in my thesis?
…what did I do like this in my research?
A few seconds can make good into great, but don’t stress.
Good is enough.
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on July 14th 2018.
Take ten minutes to write down any questions you really want your examiners to ask.
Take twenty minutes to write down keywords for each question to capture ideas of what you might say in response.
Take thirty minutes to sit, think and maybe write about what this is telling you.
It’s common for PhD candidates to have a sense of questions they don’t want to be asked in the viva.
Flip that feeling. What do you want to be asked?
Or, perhaps when you reflect, what do you want to share with your examiners? What would you say? And what does that mean?
Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on September 24th 2023.