The Unread Notes
Ahead of my viva I wrote in my thesis margins to simplify jargon. I checked my maths to convince myself I was right. I found an unclear explanation and rewrote it so it made more sense to me. I wrote...
Daily viva help for PhDs
Ahead of my viva I wrote in my thesis margins to simplify jargon. I checked my maths to convince myself I was right. I found an unclear explanation and rewrote it so it made more sense to me. I wrote...
There are so many pages in your thesis. The pages contain the best of your research, told as well as you can; they hold facts and/or figures, opinions and conclusions, details and digressions and everything that you think is needed...
I’ve shared a lot of thoughts on the importance of writing summaries as part of viva prep. They can be a useful way to explore an aspect of your work. They can help to focus attention and simplify complicated ideas....
The writer Cory Doctorow once described a great way to open a story: begin with a person, in a place, with a problem. These things hook the reader’s attention; they want to know more about the person, where they are...
In my Viva Survivor sessions I cover a lot of different topics, including a good half an hour on practical steps to take between submission and the viva. Here’s the 1-minute version! Read Your Thesis. No excuses, don’t skim, read...
Reflection is useful in many areas of life. It takes time though, and good reflection takes a lot of time. You can start small. Try taking three words, just three associations you have with whatever you want to reflect on....
Each year I finish my blogging by sharing some of my favourite posts over a few days. We’ll start my annual round-up with my favourite posts from 2019 on the subject of viva prep. Every PhD candidate will need to...
To date I’ve written five “Top Ten Top Fives” posts! These are preparation icebreakers useful for getting started with valuable viva preparation. I have ideas to do more in the future, but for today here are links to those first...
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...
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...