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Tag: viva presentation

Nathan

Slide Deck Prep

Daily Post

You might need slides for your viva if your examiners ask you to prepare a presentation. It’s not a common experience, but it does happen.

If you need a presentation then prepare carefully: think about what your examiners need to know, what they might need to see and how you can best summarise what you have to get across to them. Your supervisors and possibly your friends and colleagues can be valuable in helping you to know what you have to include and what you have to do.

If you need a presentation then you would have to practise. Don’t simply copy and paste old slides together and rely on old memories. Rehearse your presentation if you’re asked to prepare one for your viva.

And if you’re not asked then you don’t need one! Simple as that.

 

Although, if you’re not asked for a presentation for your viva, putting together a slide deck could still be a helpful way to bring your thoughts together.

A few bullet points on each topic. A few images that help you remember. A logical sequence of information to organise your thinking. Something simple to scroll through and refresh your memory on the days leading up to your viva.

If you’re not asked for a presentation then you don’t need one – but you might still get help from making a slide deck. Simple as that.

Nathan

Fifteen

Daily Post

What should I include in a 15-minute summary of my thesis?

The candidate asking me this had been prompted by their examiners to prepare a presentation to start their viva. This isn’t a common situation, but it’s one way to begin the viva. I can’t remember what I said in the moment that I was asked – it was towards the end of a three-hour webinar – but remembering it today I’m struck by several thoughts.

Fifteen minutes isn’t very long to summarise a thesis, so it pays to be concise. It helps to rehearse. It helps to think things through. And the question, as asked, is worth interrogating: should isn’t helpful. There are lots of things one could do.

Here are fifteen points and questions to reflect on if you were asked to prepare a fifteen-minute presentation for the viva:

  1. Why did you want to do this research?
  2. Why did the research need doing?
  3. What were the main methods you used?
  4. What literature supported the approach that you took?
  5. What makes your work an original contribution?
  6. What are you proudest of in what you have done?
  7. What was the hardest problem you overcame?
  8. What can you explain simply in the space of fifteen minutes?
  9. What can you not explain in the space of fifteen minutes?
  10. Given that your examiners have read your thesis, what do you need to re-emphasise in a presentation at the start of your viva?
  11. How does your work make a difference?
  12. How has your work made a difference in you?
  13. What do you need to start your presentation by saying?
  14. What do you need to conclude your presentation with?
  15. What can you safely leave out of your presentation?

Even if you – like most candidates – are not asked to prepare an opening presentation, reflecting on many of these questions could be useful before your viva!

Nathan

Giving A Presentation

Daily Post

I love little quirks of language. We often use the verb give in connection with a presentation. It makes me think of gifts and presents – a present-ation!

Sometimes PhD candidates are asked to prepare a presentation to start the viva. If we consider the presentation as a gift you’re giving, then perhaps it makes sense to think of it like other gifts we might give.

  • Be sure it’s wanted. Your examiners will probably have some expectations of length and content. Either ask them or ask your supervisors for what is required.
  • Spend an appropriate amount. You invest time rather than money in this gift: a little preparation and practice will help. You don’t need to spend a lot to have something right for the occasion.
  • Upcycle previous gifts! A presentation for the start of your viva will not be the first time you have presented work from your thesis. Look at past talks and notes. Draw from them to make something to share with your examiners.

Gifts give something to the giver and the receiver. The person or people receiving have something they didn’t have before – in this case, examiners have information and a sense of who the giver, the candidate, is and what they have done.

As the giver, you give yourself permission to be proud of what you’ve done; you give yourself a good starting point for the viva; you give yourself a useful element of preparation and a confidence boost.