You Are Here

Tag: thesis

Nathan

Who Is It For?

Daily Post

Your thesis is not written for your examiners. You have to write it for your PhD and your examiners have to read it to examine you. It’s not written for them – the goal is to make a contribution to knowledge.

You don’t learn about viva expectations so you have a template you’re trying to complete. You’re learning more so that you can prepare well. You’re not trying to meet some ideal for your examiners.

Your prep is not done for your examiners. It’s for you. You want to be at your best, ready, refreshed, feeling confident – but that’s not for them. You want to to feel ready for you.

Remember to keep the focus where it needs to be for the viva.

Nathan

Limits of Annotation

Daily Post

Annotating your thesis as part of viva prep can help create a more useful resource. Making things easier to find or easier to see can help your viva run smoothly.

There are so many options open to you: bookmarks, Post-it Notes, highlighter tabs, highlighter pens, pencil, ink, red pen, green pen, writing in the borders, the margins, the header and footer and between the lines…

And you can add short summaries, break down jargon, have sentences at the top and bottom of every page and colour code anything and everything you can think of…

But don’t.

There’s a limit of how much you can usefully add before your annotations become confusing. There’s a limit of how much you can add before it becomes a time-sink for you, rather than an effective use of your time.

So don’t do everything. Start with some limits. Explore what you might need. Make a list. Decide on how you will usefully add things.

Then do the work. Cross things off your list until you’re done.

Make a useful thesis by setting some limits on your annotation.

Nathan

The Outtakes

Daily Post

I’m curious about outtakes in movies – the scenes that didn’t make it in or alternate versions of scenes that did.

Sometimes outtakes are shown as bloopers: the moments when things went wrong or when someone laughed. It’s helpful to see outtakes because it reminds you that however impressive something looks in a movie it’s taken time and effort to achieve that.

Your thesis will have outtakes too. Sections that aren’t included. Perhaps a whole chapter that just doesn’t fit. You’ll have loose threads you cut or ideas that had to be left out because of the space or time you had available.

As interesting as movie outtakes can be their existence also serves to remind us of something else: that there’s a reason that they were not in the finished film. They didn’t fit. They didn’t work. They were just people laughing, and as funny as that might be to see it doesn’t tell the story.

It’s the same with your thesis. You might second-guess yourself, or doubt if you have enough in your thesis at some point but remember: if you left something out of your thesis there is a good reason.

Remember what those reasons are and you can strengthen the reasons for including the work that you have.

Nathan

Do Chapters Get Equal Focus?

Daily Post

Yes and no.

Every chapter in your thesis will be read by your examiners. Everything will be considered.

In reading it though, examiners may find things they particularly want to focus on in their thinking and then in the viva. There may be elements they need to spend more time on. You may have chapters about difficult, tangled-up topics. You could have results that rebut long-held beliefs. Some chapters might just mean more to your discipline, to the thesis or to you.

Yes, all your chapters will be considerd, but in the viva some may have more time spent on them than others.

And that’s OK!

Nathan

What Have You Forgotten?

Daily Post

I believe it’s worth reflecting on this a little before the viva.

What have you forgotten?

Perhaps you can’t know for sure. You’ve had to edit out papers, ideas and references that didn’t fit. You forgot them, to concentrate on what mattered.

Perhaps there are details that elude you sometimes; if so, what can you do make them more memorable or to summarise them?

Perhaps you view the question as an almost-irrelevance, a nonsense. How could you remember what you’ve forgotten?

I think it’s useful to remember that however much you have forgotten, accidentally or so you could focus, there must be so much more that you remember by the end of your PhD. You have a lot of knowledge, which doesn’t mean simply knowing more: you know more of what you need.

What have you forgotten? What do you remember? What do you know?

Nathan

Making An Impression

Daily Post

A question from a nervous candidate, “What should I wear for the viva? I want to make the right first impression on my examiners!”

Except that’s not the first impression. Your examiners’ first impression is your thesis. They get their first impression long before they meet you in the viva.

Wear something that helps you to feel confident: there are far more important questions to grapple with than what should you wear.

What have you written? What did you do? What does it mean and why does it matter?

And what impression do you hope your thesis will make?

Nathan

Implications

Daily Post

Whatever else your thesis has – ideas, opinions, theories, hypotheses, results, conclusions – it has implications.

  • What might someone else do with your work?
  • How might they be inspired?
  • What questions do we now know to ask?
  • What questions do we know are foolish?
  • What does your thesis mean?

Thoughts in these areas could be rich for useful viva preparation – and relevant topics for conversation in the viva.

Nathan

Gaps & Holes

Daily Post

At the start of your PhD you have gaps: the things your research seeks to address.

At the end of your PhD you have holes: the things you didn’t get to, couldn’t show or don’t know.

Both need some of your viva preparation time. Reflect on the research gap to better share it with your examiners. Explore the holes so you can talk about them confidently in the viva.

Your thesis and research are more than gaps and holes, of course, but both will matter in the viva.

Nathan

Strengths & Weaknesses

Daily Post

Your examiners will want to talk about the strengths of your work in the viva. They’re there to talk to you about your contribution. Spend time in your prep thinking about what makes your work strong. How is it new? How does it make a difference? What makes it good? Why does it matter?

Your examiners might want to explore weaknesses. They might want to unpick clumsy sentences that don’t express what you had hoped. They may want to ask about limitations. The potential for improving on your research could be a rewarding topic of conversation. What could you do differently? Are you sure you’re right? Why?

Spend a little time thinking about your weaknesses. Spend much more time reflecting on your strengths. The background assumption for the viva is there is something valuable in what you’ve done – be ready to talk about your strengths!

Nathan

Favourite Failures

Daily Post

I have failed many times.

Three years ago I spent a lot of effort and time developing an independent viva preparation workshop. I found a great venue and booked it three times upfront. I spent a lot of time and money making resources, promoting the events, and I got a lot of attention from people who said it was a great idea. Dozens of people expressed interest in going.

Then only four people came to the first session.

Only one person came to the second.

I cancelled the third session a few days before it was due to happen. No-one was signed up. Months of work and thousands of pounds. The idea just didn’t connect. It wasn’t what people wanted, or maybe I didn’t find a way to explain what it was.

In any case, my independent viva preparation workshop project had failed.

I remember during my PhD I spent months of time (thankfully not thousands of pounds) on calculations to prove something I thought was true. Hundreds of hours, hundreds of sheets of paper and in the end, I didn’t get the answer. I couldn’t find the answer. I couldn’t show that I was on track or that I had gone wrong.

I had failed in my research.

For some time, in both cases, I felt bad. I had failed, I hadn’t done what I set out to do.

But in both cases, I realised, I didn’t have nothing. For my PhD, I still got a chapter in my thesis. I was able to show the limits of calculating things in a certain way. I was able to improve on what was known previously. I didn’t have a final answer, but I had some new questions. I couldn’t tell you what happened in every case, but I was able to show some new examples.

My independent workshop idea didn’t work. That’s OK. It pushed me to do more and do better. I made lots of new resources, was able to share them, and started thinking about different ways I could deliver the session in universities. Ultimately that failure lead me to doing this daily blog. If I hadn’t explored the independent session, this blog wouldn’t be here.

Now, all of this isn’t simply looking for silver linings, or making lemonade from life’s lemons: it’s honestly reflecting that failures can still lead to later wins. Just because something didn’t work out the way you wanted, doesn’t mean you’ve got nothing.

So think: what didn’t work out in your PhD the way you wanted? What did you get even though you didn’t get the victory you were perhaps looking for? How could you communicate that to your examiners?

How can you convince yourself too?

1 2 3 … 5