You Are Here

Year: 2025

Nathan

Too Busy

Daily Post

If you are too busy to prepare for your viva then you need a plan. Sketch one out at submission. Just a sketch. Can you spread the work over a month? What could you do in thirty minutes per day over three weeks and maybe an hour or so each day in the week before your viva?

If you are too busy to prepare for your viva then you need help. So ask for help! Talk to your supervisor, your friends, your family and make sure they know what you need with plenty of notice. Ask early so that anyone you live with can give you space and time to get ready.

If you are too busy to prepare for your viva then you need to make your working situation as good as you can. Get your materials together. Always know in advance what you will do with a chunk of prep time. Make yourself comfortable and perhaps find rewards for getting things done.

If you are too busy to prepare for your viva then you need to change how you feel. Reflect on and explore your progress to help you realise just how much you’ve done and just how proud you can be. Build up your confidence for the viva.

 

If you’re busy you still have to prepare. You can make a plan and make it nice but it’s still work. There are no shortcuts but equally it doesn’t have to be stressful.

If you’re busy: make a plan, ask for help, remove friction and build your confidence.

Nathan

More & Different

Daily Post

There is always more work you could have done. There are different questions you could have asked. There are other ways you could have approached your research.

More and different do not mean better.

They’re just more or different.

As you prepare for your viva, work to find the confidence to acknowledge alternatives but support what you did. Explore and explain the choices you made, easy or difficult, and build the certainty that what you’ve done is enough.

Build your confidence that you are enough.

Nathan

Satisfaction

Daily Post

What do you need or want from your viva for it to be a satisfying experience?

  • You might want to talk about certain topics. You might want to hear your examiners’ opinions. You might want those opinions to be good!
  • You might want your viva to be a certain length or to proceed in a certain way. You might want certain questions or the absence of specific questions.
  • What do you need to know? What might you need to do? Who might you talk to in order to feel happy about your viva before you have it?

And what, of all of these wants and needs that you perceive, is within your control?

If you pin the satisfaction of your viva on things that are out of your control then you can only hope that it will be a good experience.

Think carefully about what you need and want from your viva and don’t rely on hoping that it will all go well.

 

PS: for more than hope of viva success take a look at next week’s 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva webinar on Wednesday 24th September. An hour of viva confidence plus a catch-up recording and pdf guide to getting ready. Full details at the link!

Nathan

Check The Timings

Daily Post

The length of your viva doesn’t matter for the most part.

There’s an obvious exception: if the amount of time that you are in the viva could have a negative physical, mental or emotional consequence for you then you need to explore what measures could be put in place via your Graduate School or Doctoral College to make sure the viva is fair for you.

That aside, while there are trends and patterns, vivas generally take as long as they need to. Aside from being tiring if they’re long there are no greater likelihoods of negative outcomes based on viva length. Rather than try to make it be quick it’s better to just prepare and engage as well as you can.

 

Viva length is a distraction. Better timing-related questions to ask are:

  • What paperwork do I need to submit ahead of my thesis submission and when do I need to do that?
  • When after submission will I be told the date of my viva?
  • How much notice will I be given?
  • When do I need to declare if I have reasonable adjustments that need to be addressed?
  • How much time is given for different kinds of corrections?
  • If there is any more post-viva paperwork when does that have to be completed by?

One more timing-related question: when will you celebrate your viva success?

 

PS: if you’re looking for more ideas about expectations that are worth focussing on then please check out The Expectations Issue, my latest curated collection of Viva Survivors help.

Nathan

Prep Powers

Daily Post

What viva superpower would you like?

It might be nice to have Mega-Memory and have perfect recall of every piece of information. Would you prefer to have some kind of Precognition, able to hear your examiners’ questions in your mind hours ahead of time? Or perhaps you’d like Invisibility to hide from questions you don’t want to face?

 

Of course, you won’t be superhuman as a result of viva prep – but you don’t need to be.

Prep helps you to be ready. Building confidence helps you to be certain.

You don’t need to be superhuman but if you can find confidence you have a superpower: the ability to understand what nervousness is and what it means. Your viva is important and you want it to go well. That’s all.

Nathan

Choose Your Highlights

Daily Post

There’s a lot you could highlight in the text of your thesis as part of viva preparation. You could highlight:

  • Key questions you have found answers to;
  • Essential references you want to make stand out;
  • Quotes that help you to explain something;
  • Key numbers that make sense of data;
  • Important pages or sections you want to be able to find.

There’s a lot you could highlight. It’s your choice to decide what matters most and where to direct your attention.

 

The same is true when it comes to the things you highlight from your PhD journey. What are the highlights of the years you have spent working on your research and thesis? What do you want to remember? Where will you choose to put your attention?

What you choose to highlight makes a difference to your preparation and your confidence for your viva.

Nathan

Webinar Reminder

Update

In brief: I have an upcoming date for my 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva session on Wednesday 24th September 2025 and registration is open.

 

7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva is a 1-hour confidence boost for the viva. I explore why candidates can know what to expect, how that helps them and what they can do to help themselves.

When you register to attend you also get access to a four-week catch-up recording after the session and will receive a pdf copy of my 101 Steps To A Great Viva guide.

Here’s what past attendees say about 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva:

  • “Thanks, really helpful session that’s helped me feel confident about the viva!” – University of Edinburgh PhD candidate
  • “Thank you so much this was very helpful – I have my viva on Monday and feeling a bit more confident now :)” – Liverpool John Moores University PhD candidate
  • “Thank you for such an engaging and helpful session!” – University of Liverpool PhD candidate

I’m running 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva live on Wednesday 24th September 2025 and registration is open now.

 

And save the date: my 3-hour comprehensive Viva Survivor session will run live on the morning of 3rd December 2025. Registration will open on Wednesday 1st October.

Thank you for reading!

Nathan

Nathan

Know Your Whys

Daily Post

Why did you want to do a PhD?

Why was your research worth pursuing?

Why do you believe your methods are sound?

Why did you keep going when you faced obstacles and setbacks?

Why does your thesis have a significant and original contribution to knowledge?

Why do you feel capable as a researcher in your field?

 

When you know your whys you have a foundation to respond to most questions at your viva.

Nathan

Again & Again

Daily Post

How many challenges have you overcome?

The viva is one more.

It’s not trivial. It’s not easy.

It’s one more.

It’s not the biggest challenge. It’s not the hardest challenge.

It’s one more.

Prepare for your viva when the time comes and remember: you can only have got this far by overcoming difficult challenges. You can do this too.

Nathan

Steps To Finishing

Daily Post

There have been many times in the last six months I’ve thought “I’ve finished!” when I’ve been working on an issue of Viva Survivors Select. I’ll be sure I’m done and then remember, oh wait:

  • …I have to create jpegs of all the pages for promoting it.
  • …I have to create a new page in my Payhip store for it.
  • …I have to remember to promote it!
  • …oh, and I’m not even close to any of those because I just remembered that I didn’t do a final proofread…
  • …and I still need a nice public domain image for the bottom of page 13…

 

I’m getting better at mapping out all the stages so I don’t get ahead of myself. While doing so I’m reminded that this is not so different from the closing stages of a PhD journey. There’s a lot of steps you need to check off so that you can finish your PhD.

  • Write your thesis.
  • Definitely finish your thesis!
  • Submit your thesis – having checked the regulations as well.
  • Prepare for your viva.
  • Have your viva.
  • Do your corrections.
  • Have your corrections checked.
  • Submit your final version of your thesis – having checked the regulations for this again as well.
  • Wait for graduation.
  • And probably go to graduation too!

The viva is set up as the end of the PhD, but there are lots of steps to finishing before you’re really, truly done. Don’t lost sight of the end. Don’t forget that you will get there one day.

 

PS: and one more step might be to check out The Expectations Issue, the latest issue of Viva Survivors Select, newly out this last week!

1 2 3 4 … 29