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.
Look for the good stuff in your thesis. You might find typos or mistakes. These are good to know about, but it’s far more important to look for the contribution.
Look for people to help you get ready for your viva. Look for the right people: ask early for help, be clear and make sure you ask people who can really help you to get ready.
(and when you can be someone who offers help to others getting ready)
Look for expectations about the viva. If you’re not sure what to expect take the time to find out more. Again, ask the right people the right questions and you’ll find what you need to get a good sense of the viva.
For so much of the viva and viva prep, you have to see things clearly. And to do that you have to take the first step and look.
It’s possible to make well-educated guesses about the questions you’ll get at your viva. You know a lot of the material your examiners will want to talk about. Even if you can’t speculate on specific questions you can have a good understanding of themes that might come up.
Any question at the viva is being asked for a purpose: your examiners might want to know more, understand something more clearly, explore around a topic, check your thinking or generally move the discussion forward.
Any question at the viva is being asked with the expectation that you will respond. You listen, pause, breathe, maybe check your thesis, maybe make a note, think a bit and then talk. You need to add to the discussion. Give more evidence that you are a capable researcher.
And don’t forget that you can ask questions at the viva too. Any question you have for your examiners is fine. Seek their opinion, ask for clarity and explore what you need to – but keep in mind that your priority has to be making sure that you engage with what they are asking.
Examiners: two academics who accept the opportunity to examine your thesis and you. They have training, they prepare, they plan and they’re ready to do what’s required. They want to do the job well. They only take the role on if it seems interesting and right for them. They’re at your viva for a good reason, even if some of their questions might seem difficult.
Observers: a category that covers two particular sub-classes, the Independent Chairperson and your Supervisor.
The Candidate: that’s you! How would you describe what you can do and what you’re there to do?
It’s OK to hope that your viva will go well…
…but remember that you can do more than hope.
You can do a lot more than hope that you will be ready for your viva.
Mistakes are a natural part of the PhD process.
They might happen by accident or through ignorance. You might make a mistake and learn from it. You might make a mistake and be confounded by it. You might have a mistake and not realise it. It could be inconsequential like a spelling miskate mistake or require a fundamental change to your thesis conclusions.
(thankfully, the latter is very rare!)
Mistakes are a regular part of the PhD and so talking about them in some form at the viva is almost guaranteed. There’s no set formula for responding to mistakes, but perhaps the closest thing might be to consider:
Anyone can make a miskate mistake. It’s what you do as a result, depending on the situation, that matters.
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.
It helps to listen to PhD stories and experiences. It can be very useful to hear about how someone prepared for their viva, what they did and how it helped them. Often it can be enlightening to know that someone else had a good viva and the reasons why.
Advice can give options and stories can give directions but you have to take responsibility in applying the relevant points to your own circumstances. If you feel that following someone else’s advice and ideas seems like it is going to be the wrong approach for you then you’re probably right.
Ask for advice. Listen to stories. Apply the best of it all to your situation to help you be ready for your viva.
A short break when you submit your thesis can help to clear your head and change gears.
A short break during viva prep helps you to take necessary steps to relax.
A short break during the viva can allow you to gather your energy and restore your focus.
A short break at the end of the viva is for your examiners to have a final chat – and for you to wonder what they’re going to say when they call you back in!
Short breaks help with lots of stages of the viva process. Perhaps decide in advance what you might do for that final short break so that you’re not simply worrying while you wait.
The opening line to Anna Karenina is often translated in English as:
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
I think about this a lot when I think about bad vivas.
The vast majority of vivas are “fine” – which means some complex combination of fair, challenging, rewarding, enjoyable, tiring, rigorous and a host of other descriptions. Most candidates will be fine at their viva, however challenging the questions or tiring the process.
We can’t pretend bad vivas don’t happen though.
Good vivas are good for similar reasons. They’re attended by candidates who have done the work. They’re facilitated by examiners who have training and have taken the time to get ready. The vivas are conducted according to regulations and expectations.
Bad vivas are bad for wildly different and unique circumstances. A hard PhD journey. A thesis that doesn’t meet expectations. A candidate who hasn’t been appropriately supported. An examiner who doesn’t care. A candidate unwilling or unable to engage with the viva.
Good vivas are good because they follow the overall patterns of the PhD journey done well. Bad vivas (and possible viva failure) result from unique negative circumstances.
Bad vivas happen and we can’t pretend that they don’t. But you also can’t believe – at least not with compelling reason – that you might have a bad viva.