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Month: January 2026

Nathan

Their Focus

Daily Post

The two academics who examine you and your thesis at the viva are first of all focussed on doing the job well. They are taking on the responsibility of being examiners and do it carefully.

Your examiners, internal and external, are focussed on exploring your contribution, discussing your PhD experience and examining your capability as a researcher. While they have a big picture focus they have their own work and ideas as well. Taking a little time to understand what they do as researchers can help you to think about how they read your thesis and what they might want to talk about, what they will understand and so on.

 

One more way to grasp their focus is to remind yourself of your focus. Whatever you did during your PhD and whatever you’ve presented in your thesis is the focus of the viva.

Nathan

Every Viva Has A Start

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The start of your viva can be prepared for even if you don’t know exactly how it will begin.

There are many questions people suggest are typical for the start of the viva:

  • Can you tell us why you wanted to do a PhD?
  • What attracted you to this area?
  • How would you summarise your main project?
  • Can you start by giving us an overview of your thesis?

Assuming these questions and similar are typical you don’t need to prepare scripted responses. They are the kinds of questions that connect with topics you’ve talked about many times before. They’re asked to be a good opening, something to ease you past any initial nervousness and into the main discussion.

Some examiners ask candidates to prepare presentations to start the viva for the same purpose. They always do this with plenty of advance notice and clear expectations in terms of length, purpose and logistics.

There are lots of possible starting points to a viva. You can be prepared even if you don’t know which question will start yours. More importantly, you can decide how you want to start your viva and take steps to be ready.

 

PS: got questions of what to expect from the viva and yourself? You’ll find a lot of answers and ideas in  Viva Survivors Select Volume 1, which released this week! Volume 1 is my complete collection of helpful viva zines from last year: eight issues, 165 posts from the archives and lots of new resources – and available at an introductory offer price until 31st January 2026!

Nathan

Perfectly Impossible

Daily Post

You can’t be perfect for your viva.

You can be prepared.

You can be polished.

You can be practised.

 

Also: you don’t need to be perfect.

You have invested years of work into practical research in your field, into reading and building your knowledge and into writing your thesis. You’re not perfect but you are very good.

Your examiners expect good, not perfect. You can clearly demonstrate by this stage that you are good.

 

PS: if you’re looking for more ideas of what to expect from your examiners and the viva then do take a look at Viva Survivors Select Volume 1, which I released yesterday. This is my complete collection of helpful viva zines from last year: eight issues, 165 posts from the archives and lots of new resources – and with an introductory offer price until 31st January 2026!

Nathan

Viva Survivors Select Volume 1

Daily Post, Update

It’s my birthday! Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me and so on and so forth!

I like to do something fun on my birthday and as I’m in charge of this little kingdom on the internet I can do that 🙂

 

Last year I released eight issues of Viva Survivors Select: my curated collections of writing from the Viva Survivors blog archives on expectations, viva prep, building confidence and more. Each issue also contains several pages of new resources: reflections on the viva, my experiences and original games to help with getting ready for the viva.

Viva Survivors Select was a lot of fun to make and share and I’m looking forward to making more issues in the coming months. Today for my birthday I’m doing two fun things:

First, I’m happy to announce the release of Viva Survivors Select Volume 1, a complete collection of 2025’s eight issues in one helpful bundle. This bundle has a reduced price of £15 instead of the combined £24 for the eight individual issues of viva prep, thoughts on examiners, reflections on the PhD journey and helpful resources.

Cover image for Viva Survivors Select Volume 1: a cairn next to a river, a stack of stones carefully arranged

Second, as it’s my birthday I’m reducing the price even more until the end of January. Viva Survivors Select Volume 1 will be £12 until 31st January 2026. That makes each issue in the bundle half price. If you’re looking for viva help, thoughts about the process or ideas for what you can do to be ready for your viva this is a great bundle of help.

…oh go on, one more thing! If you buy the Viva Survivors Select Volume 1 bundle before 31st January then a little popup will offer you my Kickstarted publication 101 Steps To A Great Viva for free!

 

Anyway, it’s my birthday and I want to do something fun 🙂 If you think Viva Survivors Select Volume 1 might be helpful then take a look. If you think it might help someone you know then please share this news. And if you have questions then please get in touch.

Thanks for reading – I’m off to celebrate being halfway to 90!

Nathan

Nathan

Fair

Daily Post

What’s fair or unfair at your viva?

  • Is it fair to be asked questions at your viva that you’re not expecting?
  • Is it fair if your external examiner does something different to you?
  • Is it fair if your internal examiner was the only person available?
  • And is it fair if either of them expresses a different perspective to some part of your research?

What’s fair or unfair at your viva? And is “fairness” a useful thing to focus on?

Worrying about what questions might come up or whether your examiner is the best choice is at best a distraction. Instead, bring your focus on to what you can do and what you did.

Is it fair that your examiners have to examine you after a short amount of preparation compared to your years of work?

Nathan

The Vines

Daily Post

Imagine all of the preparations and planning for a big presentation to be like a jungle canopy full of vines. As you present your talk you are Tarzan or a video game character racing through: swinging from tree to tree and whenever you leap or reach out there is another vine to grab and swing you forwards.

With sufficient prep and planning you can’t get lost or go wrong. You can find key messages and ideas that stand out to you. There is always something to reach for. There are alternate routes and shortcuts you can take if you need to.

I’ve shared over 500 viva sessions now, both in seminar rooms and over Zoom; I’m not perfect but I’m pretty certain when I come to present. If someone asks a question then I have a vine to reach for. If there’s a technical issue then I can find a way to get back on track by reaching out for something else.

I have a plan. I have notes. I have slides. I have practice and rehearsal and more. These are my vines. I can reach out when I need to and be back in motion.

 

The jungle vines are a nice metaphor for a presentation or workshop, but they work well for being ready for the viva too. The years of work creates vines for you to reach for when you meet your examiners, but so does all of your viva prep:

  • Writing summaries creates vines.
  • Reading your thesis creates vines.
  • Annotating your thesis creates vines.
  • Talking about your work creates vines.
  • Having a mock viva creates vines!

Prepare and rehearse well for your viva. Remember the years of work you’ve invested. Then whatever direction the discussion takes you in your viva you will always have vines to reach for to help you respond to your examiners.

Nathan

Days Of Work

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Between 700 and 800 days probably, if you’re a full time PhD candidate.

Seven to eight hundred days where you show up to do the work. Maybe some were really light on work but others were full dawn to dusk efforts.

Between seven and eight hundred days. Seven or eight hundred days of opportunities.

Probably not all of those 700 to 800 days were good. I’m sure they weren’t all bad either.

700-800 days of learning. 700-800 days of trying things. 700-800 days of moving your research forwards. 700-800 days of becoming a capable researcher.

Between 700 and 800 days of work. That’s what helps you be ready to succeed at your viva.

Nathan

Conditions

Daily Post

What conditions can you create to support your viva preparations? Think about how you can plan your prep and get support from others.

What conditions can you find that will help your confidence grow? Reflect on your PhD experiences and what your development and work means.

What conditions do you need for your viva to be a fair examination? Be sure to inform your graduate school or doctoral college if you have accessibility requirements that must be in place.

 

What do the conditions and circumstances of your PhD journey – your growth, knowledge, talent, learning and work – mean for life after the PhD?

Nathan

Greater Than

Daily Post

Years of work and learning won’t make you infallible.

It’s entirely possible to get to your viva and be faced with a question you’ve never considered before. You can forget or go blank. And you can always be asked a question that – through lack of understanding, lack of knowledge or a glitch in the moment – it feels like the only thing you can say is “I don’t know.”

Taking all of this into account, how much more likely is it that you know something?

It’s not wrong to worry about what if’s, brain freezes or feeling uncertain as you respond to an important event like the viva. You can do something about all of these through preparation and through recognising that you don’t need to know everything.

Years of work and learning won’t make you infallible – but, for your viva, what you know is greater than what you don’t.

Nathan

Unexpectations

Daily Post

There is a lot that you can expect from your viva.

If you explore regulations and viva stories you can get a good sense of what they are like. Regulations give a foundation of the process and what examiners do. Viva stories describe the pattern of experiences that candidates have.

They give a feel for vivas. As a result, you can build expectations you can work towards.

 

There is also a lot that you can’t expect from your viva.

Stories might showthe range of experiences but you can’t expect a particular viva length or a definite opening question. You can be confident of the work you’ve invested but you can’t expect your examiners to agree with you about every detail of your research.

You can know about vivas but still expect that there will be some unknowns – aspects of your viva that you cannot know until you get there.

You can expect a lot but must also expect the unexpected.

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