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Month: November 2017

Nathan

Three Acts

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In short:

  • Beginning: ideas and talent…
  • Middle: work and wondering…
  • End: knowledge and skill…

However you feel in the middle of the PhD, you’re in the right place for fortune to find you. You started and people agreed that this was a good path for you. When you finish you’ve necessarily built up a body of research and skill to match.

If you’re reading this at the start of the PhD, you’re supposed to be here. If you’re in the middle, hang in there. If you’re near the end, congratulations. Keep going. You can’t get to where you are just by being lucky. You can’t finish a PhD by accident.

Nathan

Jargon-busting

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Whatever field you explore for your research, you will have terms that others can’t easily understand. There may be terminology that you can’t easily understand. I built up shorthand in my head, “OK, so a genus 2 mutation is like a donut with two holes. But not quite.”

Yeah, not quite…

When you come to read through your thesis, either when you’re finishing it up for submission or when you’re reading to prepare for the viva, make a list of terms that you find. Make notes about what these all mean. Be certain of your jargon. Break it down for yourself and you’ll be able to explain it better to others.

Nathan

Questioning Your Bibliography

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At the back of your thesis is a great big list of articles and sources that have helped your research. It can be massive. I’ve asked a lot of people about the size of their bibliography, and I regularly get answers in the region of two to three hundred papers. Someone once told me that their bibliography would have over 800 references!

Your examiners will likely have some questions for you about your literature review and bibliography. While you can’t predict all of them, you can still ask yourself some questions to help your preparation:

  • What are the top ten or twenty papers that have been useful to you?
  • Which papers have been most inspiring to you?
  • Have you cited your examiners, and what did you make of their research?
  • Which papers in your bibliography are most highly regarded?
  • What three or four categories could you group your bibliography in to?

Several hundred papers can be difficult to manage in your head. Questions can help to break that mental map up into something more realistic. These are a start, and are fairly generic. You know your research better than me, so think: what other questions might help?

Nathan

Making The Cut

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My thesis could be described as a collection of six chapters that all explored different niches in my field of maths. I have a couple of appendices that contain summaries of results and listings of computer code. It’s all self-contained and linked and good.

And still, nine years later, I have a folder with bits and pieces of at least three other chapters. Projects that didn’t end up getting finished. Ideas that fizzled out or didn’t come together. Every now and then I think, “What if…?” It would have been nice to adapt some of the techniques that I used to get one more result. It would have been cool to just push that bit further and classify one more type of mathematical object.

Except: there’s only so long to do a PhD. There’s only so much space in a thesis. There has to be some sense that Result A is worth more than Result B, that Potential Chapter X is a more powerful contribution than Potential Chapter Y. Your thesis is finite. You have to stop somewhere.

What doesn’t make the cut in your thesis?

Make a list of the half-projects and the maybes that didn’t quite make it. Make a list of the reasons why. Make a list of what you would need to do to take them further. Your examiners might not pick this thread up in the viva, but you’ll build up a good summary for yourself.

Leave it in a good enough state that one day you could pick it up and keep playing with it. If you’ve got plans to do this already, in your post-doc, in your spare time, that’s good. But if passing your PhD is your exit from academia, leave some notes just in case you want to explore later on.

You never know when inspiration will strike.

Nathan

Responsible

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What are you responsible for in your viva? I get a lot of questions about expectations for the length of the viva, or types of questions, what examiners do, and so on. I don’t get a lot of questions about expectations of the candidate. What do your examiners expect from you?

  • They expect you’ll be prepared.
  • They expect you’ll be ready, willing and able to discuss your research.
  • They expect you’ll be ready, willing and able to discuss your field.

You were responsible for doing your research. You were responsible for getting the thesis done. You can easily meet your examiners’ expectations on the day.

 

Nathan

Your Opinion

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It matters. You might not have a final answer. There might not be a final answer.

But if you’re asked a question in the viva and all you have is a thoughtful idea, supported by an argument and reasons… Well, great!

Your opinion counts. Don’t be afraid to offer it.

Nathan

Shadows

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A shadow can be bigger than the object that casts it. Depending on the light, the distance, the angle, it might not be clear what the object even is if you only look at the shadow. Edges can be blurred, and perfectly normal things can seem scary from a glance at a shadow.

When you look to find out more about the viva, are you looking at the viva itself, or a shadow? What you see might depend on another’s experience, on the rules of your institution, on how you’re feeling that day about your research, and on many other factors.

Make sure when you find out about the viva that you get as full a picture as possible. Look for more than shadows. Build up more than simple impressions. Then you’ll be able to prepare well.

Nathan

A Good INTRO

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I used to be petrified of public speaking. I would only give talks during my PhD when I absolutely had to. I was always concerned that I would forget something, make a mistake or be asked a question for which I had no answer. I was even nervous about being too nervous!

Then I started a business where I had to present all of the time. My fears went partly because of regularly being in situations where I had to present, but also because I went out of my way to explore ways to give talks. I liked to find out about how to structure talks, particularly the beginnings. I knew that if I could get that right I’d feel good about the rest of the presentation, whether it was ten minutes or two hours.

A few years ago, my good friend Dr Aimee Blackledge shared an effective tool for starting talks with me. The tool is, fittingly, called INTRO and is an acronym to provide structure for the start of a presentation:

  • Interest: start by sharing something that will grab the audience’s attention, a fact, an image, a joke.
  • Need: say why what you’re going to talk about is important. Why does it need to be addressed?
  • Title: share the title of the talk.
  • Range: say something about how long you’ll speak for, what you might cover and how you want to handle questions.
  • Objective: close your introduction by sharing what your goal is with speaking. Is there something you want the audience to do as a result?

I really like how it helps start things off but also leads to a good overview. There’s a nice logic to it, and done well it can be a great start to a presentation. I think the five prompts also give a great format to create a summary of your research when it’s time to prepare for the viva.

  • Interest: how did you become interested in your field of research?
  • Need: what need does your thesis address?
  • Title: what is your thesis’ title, and why?
  • Range: what does your thesis cover?
  • Objective: what do you hope that someone would know, think or do after reading it?

Give INTRO a try when you next prepare a talk, see if it helps. Try it too when your viva is on the way to help break down what your work is all about.

Nathan

Rehearsal

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The mock viva is generally valuable because of the kind of practice it provides. Your supervisors might have some clear ideas about what a mock should be like. But if you think about it, the mock is a sort of test run for later success.

So think: what do you need to succeed?

  • Are you looking for certain types of questions or a particular focus for the discussion?
  • Do you want practice or pressure?
  • What kind of feedback would be most useful from the experience?

Think about what might help you. Everyone has different needs. It’s not wrong to think about how you can make the most of the opportunity.

Nathan

Coming Attractions

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I went to the cinema recently. The movie was excellent, but even before that I was getting excited because of the trailers for other movies coming soon. The new Star Wars movie, Murder On The Orient Express – I’m not even that interested in seeing the new Justice League movie, but I watched the trailer and thought, “Wow!”

Here’s an odd question for you: what trailers have you seen for the viva?

Have you seen any? If not then maybe you’re not sure what it’s going to be like. I meet a lot of people who are confused or uncertain about the viva. That’s how I was, I didn’t really know what it was about.

I meet plenty of people who have seen bad trailers for the viva: they hear it’s really long, that the characters are unfriendly and harsh, that it’s an exhausting but necessary experience you have to go through.

I thankfully also meet candidates who have caught a trailer for the viva which leaves them intrigued or excited. It’s the end in an epic story after all, and they’ve seen the other parts. They’re looking forward to this final part to see what happens.

Movie trailers are awesome because when they’re done well they make us excited and compelled to watch the film. They tell a tale that leaves us hungry for more and hyped for the time when we get to experience the full story. Of course, you don’t really see trailers for the viva, but there’s a lot of word of mouth. Your supervisors, your colleagues and friends, post-docs, there are lots of people who can tell you about what expect. There’s no reason to be ignorant about the viva format when there is so much help nearby.

What would be an awesome trailer for your viva?

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