A Series of Successes
Thesis submission isn’t a final domino being knocked over. The process of doing a PhD is rarely so tidy or organised. You get to submission through success; it could be a messy sequence of events over several years, yet in...
Daily viva help for PhDs
Thesis submission isn’t a final domino being knocked over. The process of doing a PhD is rarely so tidy or organised. You get to submission through success; it could be a messy sequence of events over several years, yet in...
You need to have made a significant, original contribution with your research. Defining the standard for that is hard, but we can rule some things out. The standard is not… …producing two papers during your PhD. …having at least six...
When I was a teenager, me and a few friends liked superheroes. We bought random American comic books from this one newsagent in our home town that stocked them. This was the mid-1990s. No real internet, no way to connect...
Nervous and confident aren’t polar opposites. If you feel nervous about something – like, say, your viva – then you’re recognising it’s important. Nervous isn’t the same as being anxious or being worried, although it might not be comfortable. Nervous...
I’m still not going to reveal my secret bread recipe, but I’ll share some of the little things I’ve learned that help me bake a good loaf: Blending different bread flours gives a better flavour than just having one type....
A lot of space is given to the origins of a research project in how we think about the viva and what you might need to talk about. How did you get started? What ideas influenced your first steps? What...
Yes, you had help, you had supervision, you had supporters – but you did the work. Remind yourself as you get closer to your viva day. You showed up to do the work. You invested the time to learn more....
…you did the work. Not just the prep but all the work before that too. You did the research. You wrote your thesis. You earned and achieved your way to submission. You took time between submission and the viva to read...
You can’t be perfect: you can be good. You can know enough and do enough to be good enough for your PhD. You can show enough in your thesis and in your viva to convince your examiners that you’re good....
You can read books about the viva. You can ask your supervisors for their advice. You can talk to friends and colleagues about their experiences. Get lots of recommendations. And then you have to do something. Take all the ideas...