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Month: March 2018

Nathan

Review Review Review

Daily Post

I started this blog almost a year ago. I’ve written over 300 posts in that time. Over 50,000 words. I have to check my records constantly. I have a spreadsheet with every post listed by date, and often when I’m thinking of a title I have to doublecheck I’ve not used it already.

Last week I wrote a post and was super-proud of it…

…until I realised that it was very similar to a post I had written the week before, only slightly better! (which is something at least)

I review the blog all of the time. I’ve recently started a project to make themed posts easier to find. I’ve started at the beginning and am adding tags to posts to make ideas easier to search for. Hopefully I’ll be able to put them into useful categories.

Doing a PhD you have to review your ideas and progress all of the time. Are you on track? What’s left to do?

Writing up you have to review what you’ve done and how you can communicate it. What works? What do you need?

Preparing for the viva you have to review… everything! Start at page 1. Made notes? Review them. Used key papers? Review them. You don’t need to remember everything, but you do need to feel sure about what you think.

If you’re doing something important – like a PhD, like the viva – then the review never stops.

Nathan

First Questions

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There are lots of ways your examiners could begin your viva, lots of questions to start the discussion.

It could be “how did you get interested in this topic?” or “how would you summarise your findings?”

Maybe they’ll ask “what’s your most important result?” or “why did you decide to follow this line of enquiry?”

Or maybe they’ll simple ask “how are you feeling today?”

There are no trick questions in the viva, especially with whatever your examiners ask first. The first question is likely to be something you’ve thought about before; you can’t guarantee what it will be exactly, but you can be sure it’s something you can answer.

Nathan

No Bad Cops

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The strangest viva myth I’ve been asked about is whether examiners take a “Good Cop/Bad Cop” approach. It really puzzles me.

I can’t wrap my head around the idea. Which one is supposed to be the bad cop?

Your internal? Someone who has to make sure that the viva is fair according to the rules of your university? Someone that you likely know?

Your external? Someone who has been singled out for certain reasons by your supervisor (often in conversation with you)? Someone who often has particular interest in what you’ve done?

They’re not trying to trick you. They’re not trying to trap you. It’s not a routine. It’s not how they do things.

They’re professionals. Like cops, yes, but with a much different agenda. They’re there to examine, not interrogate.

I don’t know that you would call either examiner a good cop – but neither of them is a bad cop.

Nathan

Talents and Skills

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There are two main outputs from a PhD programme: a thesis and a person.

It’s easy to see what’s new in a thesis perhaps; less easy to see how a person has changed. Take time to explore your qualities as you get closer to the viva. A useful resource might be Vitae‘s Researcher Development Framework. It is partly a breakdown of all of the skills and attributes that an effective researcher might have, but there are lots of supporting tools for making sense of them too.

What can you do now that you couldn’t before your PhD? How are you now more skilled? And what are you going to do with your talents and skills when your PhD is over?

Nathan

Everest

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The viva is often framed as the top of the mountain after an epic climb. It’s taken a long time, a lot of work, but finally you reach the summit of your PhD. Some people take the story even further, “it’s all downhill from here, hahaha…”

I think it’s more accurate to see your thesis submission as the summit. The viva comes a little later. The viva is talking about the climb, how you did it, what worked, what didn’t and maybe how it compares to other climbs.

While you’re up at the summit though, pause, look around. What’s on the other side of your PhD-mountain? Where are you going to go next?

Nathan

Flip It

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Instead of wondering if your thesis is good, first ask yourself what you look for in a good thesis. What do people generally want?

Instead of worrying about what questions your examiners might ask, start by thinking about what questions would be in your mind when you first pick up a thesis. How would you start to unpick a large book of new research?

Instead of hoping you’ll be ready for your viva, ask what you would need to feel ready. What would you need to have or be to feel confident on viva day?

Whenever you encounter a doubt, flip it around. What can you do about it? Got an idea? Go do it.

Nathan

Amazed

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Doing a PhD and writing a thesis is like finding your way to the centre of a maze. You might have some ideas about how to get there when you start, but it will still take work to make it through. You can go down wrong paths, get lost, but with time and effort you’ll get there.

Preparing for the viva is finding your way back out of the maze. It takes less time, but you have to check your way as you go. Just because you made it in, it doesn’t mean you know the shortest way back. You can still get lost. But you have a lot of experience to draw on now.

Describing the maze is the viva. How it looks. How you got there. Why you decided to walk it in the first place.

Walking back out of the maze will help you make sense of how you got in. Checking back over the twists and turns will make explaining the route to someone else a much easier task.

Nathan

Lightbulb Moments

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What were your lightbulb moments during your PhD? When did you find yourself getting something, suddenly, maybe inexplicably, like someone just flicked a switch? What was happening? What had you tried already? How did you make that connection?

Last year, I wrote about a real lightbulb moment during my PhD. It’s no exaggeration to say that this idea, when applied, helped me to write three chapters of my thesis. It was a tiny result that allowed many others. It came to me like magic.

But it wasn’t.

It was work.

It came after weeks of exploration. Lots of failed attempts. Dozens of diagrams, calculations and notes that went around and around. And then the answer came, after work has made it possible to see the connection.

Sometimes results or ideas in research seem to come out of nowhere. Conclusions jump out from a sea of ideas and data. They’re a product of work, not luck.

Look back over your PhD before the viva. Find your lightbulb moments, then deconstruct them. How did you get to that moment when the light came on?

Nathan

Necessary, Broccoli

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Necessary and broccoli are my two word nemeses: two words that I can’t reliably spell correctly. It bugs me. It frustrates me. It’s not every day that I have to write about vegetables, but necessary is… essential. Spellcheck can sort me out when typing, but I’m often writing longhand on a flipchart in front of twenty people. I don’t want to mess up.

Lately I’ve just been thinking “one C, two Cs” to help me remember. It’s not perfect. For the most part I’ve got my frustration under control. Necessary and broccoli are two little blips that I can deal with. While I can’t always remember how to spell those words, there’s a lot more that I can do – a lot more I can do really well.

I remember preparing for my viva. My mind drifted to all of the little things (and some big) that my examiners might focus on. I can remember the frustration on my part, “Why didn’t I do X? Why don’t I know Y? When will I ever understand Z?”

After spending so long working on something and wanting it to be good, it’s easy to focus on things that you could do better. It’s hard not to wonder what examiners will make of flaws, blips and rough edges in your research or your practice. Maybe there are ways to make X, Y or Z better, but if those are the things you focus on you’ll just lead your mind to doubt.

So what can you do? Focus on your strengths first.

Start a list of things that are great in your research. Results, writing, presentation, style, your ideas, your insights, your passion, your supervisor, that one meeting that one time where you made a great observation, whatever you can find.

Don’t dismiss weakness, but don’t let that be the guide. Every time you come to do some viva prep, take out the list, quickly read it, then see if you can add one or two more things.

You’ve done a lot of great work to get you to the viva.

Necessarily.

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