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Month: March 2026

Nathan

Who Knows?

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If you and your examiners all know about something then you can talk with the same reference points.

If you know something and your examiners don’t then you might have to explain something to them so that you can have a fruitful discussion.

If your examiners know something and you don’t then you will benefit from being ready to ask questions so that you know more and can respond to their questions.

Neither you nor your examiners can know everything! There might be topics or questions where no-one knows the truth and none of you have given much thought to it previously. That doesn’t mean you can’t take the opportunity of the viva to use what you do know to consider and discuss.

Whatever you or your examiners know or don’t know, because the viva is a conversation you have space to think, ask questions, offer ideas and make the most of the opportunity.

 

Inspired by thinking about the Johari Window model!

Nathan

What’s The Point?

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Find ways to explore and explain what your work is all about.

  • Summarise your work by writing a page or a paragraph or a sentence about each chapter. The differing scales give you different ways to think it through.
  • Take opportunities to rehearse how you describe your research. You’ll say something different to a casual friend compared with a departmental colleague.
  • Read recent and relevant publications to give more context to how your work matters and relates to your discipline.

There’s a limit to how much you can do for viva prep. The more ways you find to consider the point of your work the better you will become at responding to questions about what it means and what it does.

You don’t need to know everything or have it all worked out but you can build up experience for explaining why your work matters.

 

PS: I’ll dig into these topics a lot more at my live 3-hour Viva Survivor webinar on Wednesday 25th March 2026. You’ll get four-week access to a recording of the session and follow-up materials too. There’s more information at the link but please get in touch if you have any questions or want to know more. Thanks for reading!

Nathan

No Tricks, No Traps

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That’s what you can expect most of all from your examiners. They’re not there to ask awkward or difficult questions to catch you out. Their questions are always asked with real purpose. They want to hear what you think, what you know, what you understand and what you can do.

They don’t want to catch you out. They don’t want to haze you or break you. They don’t want to find the edges of your capability and test you that way. Every question they ask is an opportunity for you to demonstrate what you can do. Every question is one more chance for you to keep going and keep showing what your research is all about.

No tricks, no traps – just opportunities to shine.

Nathan

The End Of Your PhD

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First, be practical. Read the regulations. What do they say about corrections, final submissions, fees and forms? Know what you have to do for graduation, the timelines are for getting things done and understand how that fits with you. If you have an office space or desk then make sure you know when they need you gone so that you’re not stressed with moving things out!

In short: read up, check details, make lists and plans and get things done.

 

Second, be emotional. What does the end of your PhD mean for you? How have you grown? What have you done? And how do you feel about all of this? The end of the PhD is likely to be a huge change: a different role, a different task, a different status and maybe even a different purpose.

Or possibly a missing purpose, at least for a while. I remember very clearly a sense of “What now?” for months afterwards.

“What do I do now?”

 

There are practical and emotional aspects to the end of your PhD. The viva isn’t the end, it’s the starting pistol: you really are working towards a finish line now.

That involves work and emotional energy.

You might not know how you’ll feel about it until you get there but you can at least start the work of preparing yourself for when it arrives.

Nathan

Could & Should

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You could arrange a mock viva for ten days before your viva. Or a week. Or not have one at all.

You could cover your thesis in sticky notes to make things stand out. Or underline instead. Or use a lot of highlighters.

You could plan for all your prep to be a concentrated two week burst of activity. Or you could give yourself the space to do it over a less-pressured month.

You could search around on the internet for advice on how to get ready or you could ask your friends what they did.

You could do a lot of different things to get ready for your viva. There are nearly endless possibilities for how a person could approach it.

You should make sure that you’re aware that you have options for how you get ready for your viva and then do what you need to do to meet your needs and circumstances for getting ready.

 

PS: Looking for more viva prep ideas and information? Then check out my live 3-hour Viva Survivor webinar on Wednesday 25th March 2026! You’ll also get four-week access to a recording of the session and follow-up materials too. There’s more information at the link but please get in touch if you have any questions or want to know more. Thanks for reading!

Nathan

From A To B

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A thesis represents the end point of your work but it isn’t a diary. It doesn’t show the steps you took every day. It doesn’t record every thought you had, every paper you read and every idea you turned over.

You need your thesis for a lot of reasons but to be ready for your viva you also need to spend a little time reminding yourself of the real journey you took, how you got from A to B.

How did you make choices for your directions? How did you change plans when you came up against obstacles? And what does all of this mean now?

 

PS: I’ll be reflecting on the PhD journey at my live 3-hour Viva Survivor webinar on Wednesday 25th March 2026 and thinking about what this means for the viva, among other things. You’ll get four-week access to a recording of the session and follow-up materials too. There’s more information at the link but please get in touch if you have any questions or want to know more. Thanks for reading!

Nathan

Prep Time Is Valuable

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There’s not a lot of viva prep time compared to the rest of your PhD.

The work you do has an impact on how ready you feel for your viva.

Scarcity and impact make your prep time really valuable.

Refresh your memory, reflect on your work, rehearse for your viva and rest. The last point matters more than people tend to think.

Prep time is valuable.

Nathan

Expecting Corrections

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When I share viva expectations with PhD candidates I emphasise that they can expect some corrections.

Most candidates get asked to complete some after the viva. They’ve not failed. They’ve not missed something. They’ve not been careless or lazy or ignorant.

Writing anything is hard. Writing a book is really hard. Writing a book for the first time – which is something that the vast majority of PhD candidates are doing when they produce a thesis – is really, really hard!

Corrections, for the most part, are a chance to make small improvements for accuracy and clarity. They are, relatively speaking, only a little more work in the weeks after the viva. It makes sense to check the regulations of your institution to get a sense of how much time you’ll have to complete them. Check to see what the formal process is like. Talk with others to see the scale of corrections they received.

And above all expect that you’ll have some to do when you’ve finished your viva.

One more step.

Nathan

Personal Prep Plan

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Every candidate has to read their thesis, make notes, talk with their supervisor, find a way to rehearse and so on to get ready for their viva.

Every candidate has a unique thesis, PhD journey, set of personal circumstances and an interconnected web of needs and preferences for how they do things.

So viva prep has to be personal.

 

There are big picture things that every candidate has to do – but they have to do them in the best way for themselves.

When you get to submission make a list of the things you need to do then sketch a plan for how you might get them done. Pay attention to your needs and preferences and meet them as well as you can. This will help the work to get done.

Make your prep personal.

 

PS: Looking for more viva prep help? Then check out my live 3-hour Viva Survivor webinar on Wednesday 25th March 2026 where I’ll talk about this and a lot more. You’ll also get four-week access to a recording of the session and follow-up materials too. There’s more information at the link but please get in touch if you have any questions or want to know more. Thanks for reading!

Nathan

Valuable Work

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It’s a PhD expectation that you will have made a significant and original contribution to research.

Your work is valuable – so as you prepare, reflect:

  • Who will value your research?
  • What does your contribution add to knowledge?
  • Which journals might find your results and conclusions valuable?
  • What might your particular examiners find valuable?

The last question isn’t necessarily the most important but it is relevant because you’ll be talking with these two people for hours.

If there is something they might connect with then it makes sense to think about who they are, what they do and what they might really want to know – then rehearse how you might share that with them.

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