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Year: 2023

Nathan

Plan For The Unexpected

Daily Post

Plan your viva prep. Take a sheet of paper when you submit and spend ten minutes thinking about how you would space out the work that you need to do.

When will you start? Will a month investing an hour most days be enough to manage what you need to complete? Or is it better for you – your life, your preferences, your needs – to focus and invest more over a shorter period of time, say two weeks?

There’s no right or wrong time period to take for viva prep.

Whatever you decide, give yourself some wiggle room in your plans. Give yourself a margin of error, because something will go wrong. An unexpected emergency. Something you forgot in your diary. Or a thing you didn’t notice in your thesis that needs a little more thought.

Plan your viva prep – but expect the unexpected!

Nathan

Recognise Your Strengths

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As you prepare for your viva, take an hour to think about how you have changed during your PhD journey.

What can you do better now than when you started? What have you learned how to do? What methods, processes or tasks do you feel confident performing?

Your capability doesn’t have to be limited to things that are directly connected to your research. You could know that you are good at managing a project. You could see clearly that you are a good presenter or communicator.

Reflect on your journey. No-one can get to submission and their viva by being lucky. Recognise your strengths and realise that you have come so far by being and becoming good at the many things you do.

Recognise your strengths and remember that you are going to pass your viva.

Nathan

Time And The Viva

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“How long is the viva?”

It’s the number one question I have been asked in over twelve years of doing work related to the viva.

The most appropriate response I feel that I can give is to say that two to three hours is quite common; consequently it helps a candidate to be ready to talk and focus for that length of time.

The quickest response is to say that I don’t know and the person won’t know until their viva!

Perhaps the truest response would be that it doesn’t matter in the big picture: a viva takes as long as is needed.

And one more response: it may take hours but it might not feel like that. You could be so engaged and deep in conversation that the question of how long it is taking just slips away.

Nathan

Help!

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There’s a lot of help available for your viva.

The secret is to ask for help before all you can think is “Help!”

  • Your supervisor can answer questions, offer opinions and put your mind at ease.
  • Friends can listen, share their experiences, support you and wish you well.
  • Family and loved ones can help make a space for you to get ready. Perhaps they won’t know what you’re going to be doing at the viva exactly, but they can still support you.
  • Your institution can offer resources, signpost the regulations and perhaps offer sessions or materials to help you feel ready.

Don’t leave any of this to the last minute. Don’t let stress, doubt and worries build up.

Ask for help. Don’t wait for “Help!”

Nathan

One Day, Not Day One

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The viva is a single day when you have to rise to the occasion – but not the first day of the journey that you’re on.

Your viva could be difficult. You can expect to be challenged, but that challenge – discussing your research, your thesis and your ability as a researcher with your examiners – is not the first challenge of your PhD.

It’s not the tenth or even the hundredth.

The viva is one day you have to meet a challenge and succeed. By that day you have a lot of experience of doing just that.

Nathan

The Wild West Viva

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Stereotypes of 1800s western towns are often invoked when it seems like “anything could happen” but that’s really not the case for your viva.

  • Regulations have to be kept to, and can be known well in advance by everyone involved.
  • General expectations for the viva are created by past experiences and the stories people share.
  • You can’t know questions in advance but you can anticipate what might be discussed.
  • You don’t know the outcome until it’s over, but you can have a reasonable belief in success.

Examiners can’t do what they want. Vivas aren’t random or subject to the whims of fate. Read the regulations for your university and ask your friends and colleagues about their experiences. All of this is far more helpful than focussing on the unknown aspects of your viva – or worrying that your examiners might strike you down at high noon!

Nathan

Up Your Sleeve

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You don’t need to be magical to do well in your viva. You don’t need a hidden card with notes up your sleeve or to be able to divine your examiners’ questions before they ask them. You don’t need to be able to perform feats of wonder to astonish all onlookers.

You only need exactly what every good magician has: the right skillset, knowledge and practice.

You can develop all of these over the course of a PhD journey.

No magic words. No hidden talents. Nothing up your sleeve.

You are more than capable of producing what you need at your viva.

Nathan

Saying Why

Daily Post

Sharing why your research is important is a natural topic of conversation at the viva. Saying why can sometimes be tricky. There are so many factors that you might want to share and so many different ways you might have expressed yourself in the past.

In preparation for talking in your viva, perhaps take a little time to reflect and gather your thoughts. Perhaps make some notes or write a summary. The following questions could help you to explore the “why” of your research:

  • Why was it necessary or important to explore the topic?
  • What were some of the unknowns when you started?
  • What did you not understand? (what do you still not understand?)
  • What are the boundaries of your research?
  • Can your work be applied in other ways?
  • What are the benefits of your work in this area?

Sometimes asking “Why?” is too hard. It’s one word but a big question.

Using other questions to reflect can be a valuable way to break past that barrier. Reflecting on several questions can be a helpful way to respond to “Why?”

Nathan

The Chair

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It’s not good or bad to have an independent chair at your viva.

Independent chairs are not examiners. They’re often a senior member of staff from your institution who is mostly acting as an observer. In your experience of the viva, it will be like having a teeny-tiny audience making notes. They won’t ask you any questions about your work.

They might ask examiners to move on from a topic if they think enough time has been spent. They might ask if anyone wants to take a break. But really their job is to observe and ensure that your viva is a fair process.

Not every viva has an independent chair. They’re sometimes used if an examiner has less experience. They’re sometimes used as a kind of quality control, checking that vivas are held in a fair way. Some departments or universities always use independent chairs because that’s what their regulations say. An internal examiner can take on some of these responsibilities, which is why independent chairs are not a universal part of the viva experience in the UK.

The best thing any candidate can do is find out in advance what the situation might be for their viva. It’s not good or bad for you: it’s just something to be aware of and something to consider as you prepare for your viva.

Nathan

It Doesn’t Matter

Daily Post

Lots of things matter about the viva and how you succeed at it, but lots of thing really don’t.

It doesn’t matter if you have typos in your thesis, not really. Do your best to proofread and eliminate them, but be prepared to complete corrections after the viva.

It doesn’t matter if you missed a “key” reference from your field. You might have to think about it. You might have to talk about it. But how many more things have you read?

It doesn’t matter if your examiners are experts or not – and it doesn’t matter if you have cited them or not. Whoever your examiners are, they will be professional, they will be prepared and they will be ready to examine you.

It doesn’t matter if your viva is two hours or three hours or longer, except in terms of how tired you feel and whether you need to do something to prepare for that investment of time and energy. Long vivas don’t lead to more corrections.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re nervous. It might not feel comfortable and it could be distracting, but recognising that your viva matters, i.e., being nervous, won’t stop you from succeeding. Work to build your confidence and you’ll see that nervousness is just one more detail of your viva experience.

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