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Month: April 2026

Nathan

Limited Times

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You had limited time to research. You had limited time to write your thesis.

You’ll have limited time after submission to get ready for your viva. You’ll have limited time to take advantage of support from others and limited time to do the prep work you need to do.

At the viva you’ll have limited time to share your contribution and demonstrate your capability.

Another way to look at all this is “enough”.

For the work you needed to do you had enough time to get it done and enough time to write a thesis that was good. You have enough time to prepare and enough time to get help. At your viva you’ll have enough time to think carefully and enough time to respond to the discussion as it happens.

Time is limited at all stages of a PhD but there’s enough to succeed.

Nathan

What You Know

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For your viva you can know what you did.

You can know what you thought about doing.

You can know why you didn’t do those things.

You can know what support your supervisor and others provided.

You can know what you decided was worth knowing.

You can know about the references that make a difference to your work.

You can know about your plans, how they changed and how you achieved your goals.

You can know why you did the work.

You can know what you wrote.

You can know what to expect at the viva.

You can know who your examiners are and what they do.

You can know what you need to do to be ready for your viva.

 

You can’t know everything. You’re not expected to anticipate every question. You can’t have read every paper. You can’t have photographic recall and you don’t need to. You don’t need to have thought about everything ahead of the viva.

What you know is enough.

Nathan

Hope & Belief

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It’s wrong to hope for confidence at your viva but right to believe you’ll succeed.

Confidence is cultivated: you don’t just cross your fingers and hope for it. You have to do something to change how you feel.

Believing you’ll pass is sensible: the statistics show that the overwhelming majority of PhD candidates who submit a thesis succeed at the viva. It’s reasonable to believe you’ll pass too.

Don’t hope for confidence – build it up. Don’t worry about passing – work towards it.

Nathan

Impossible Vivas

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A viva with no questions is impossible.

Equally impossible: a viva with all the questions!

It helps to recognise ahead of meeting your examiners…

  • …you won’t know how many questions you’ll be asked;
  • …you won’t know what questions you’ll be asked;
  • …you won’t know what the start of your viva will be exactly;
  • …you won’t know what they’re thinking about as they manage their side of the discussion.

And none of these things make the viva impossible for you.

You can’t be asked every question. You won’t be asked none. You can’t know what you will be asked. Rather than guess you can rehearse and prepare for being there. You can know what it’s like to be at the viva by practising. You can prepare to respond by having a mock and doing things that help you consider your work again.

There are a number of impossible scenarios for the viva. Your own experience will be much more manageable.

Nathan

A Few Thoughts On AI Viva Prep

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As the capability of AI services has grown over the last few years I’ve been asked more often about what I think about using AI to help viva prep. I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few months about how it could be useful. Here’s where I’m at so far.

 

Let’s start with a key point: good viva prep is always an active and engaged process.

To get ready for the viva a PhD candidate needs to think, consider and engage with their work. They need to read their thesis well, annotate it, create summaries and more. They need to rehearse with other people to prepare for the reality of being in the viva.

You could upload your thesis into your AI service of choice and ask for a summary – but the value of creating a summary is that YOU think and focus. It’s not simply about having a list of bullet points: YOU have to create them.

You could ask an AI service to prompt you with questions based on your thesis – but the value of being asked a question in rehearsal is that you respond to it in real time in the way that you would in the viva.

Put simply, the value of viva prep is that YOU do the work.

There are no common viva prep tasks or activities that I think can be directly helped or improved by having an AI in the loop. As you get ready you need to think a lot to benefit from the work. You can’t offload that to something else. You need to do the thinking.

 

I’m not anti-AI. I’ve used an AI service for over a year to help me curate the Viva Survivors Select series from the blog archives. It’s been helpful to ask an imperfect-but-enthusiastic digital intern to help me explore the 3000+ posts I’ve written – and it has got lots wrong while trying to help me and doesn’t always do as I ask. Services improve but limitations remain.

So let me add a small qualifier to what I think so far: given what I understand about AI services and how they generally work – and given what I know about viva prep from over fifteen years of hands-on work in this area supporting PhD candidates – I don’t currently think there is a good use case for AI in effective viva prep.

But who knows what the future will bring?

Nathan

Options For Prep

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Good viva prep has core activities: reading your thesis, making notes, creating summaries, checking papers and rehearsing for the viva. Every candidate needs to do these sorts of things and every candidate needs to consider how they will do them.

What are your options?

How someone prepares depends on many things:

  • How much time do you have between submission and your viva?
  • How busy are you? (or how pressured is your time?)
  • What do you need to do to get ready?
  • Are there special factors to take into consideration for your viva and viva prep?
  • And what preferences do you have for organising yourself, taking in information, annotating your work and getting help from others?

There are many possibilities and so many options generally for getting ready for the viva – even if the work itself builds on a few core activities.

Consider your options for prep when you get to submission. Sketch a few plans and see what fits best. Make sure you’re covering the core activities and meeting your needs.

That’s your best option.

Nathan

Time To Shine

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The viva is your time to shine. You can show the best of your research, your PhD experience and your capability as a researcher in your field.

At the viva you have time to shine. You don’t need to rush and you don’t need to rapid-fire responses. You can pause and think and be careful in how you discuss everything with your examiners.

You have to be ready for the time you’ll shine. Getting ready means being prepared practically but also knowing that vivas take time. Two to three hours is fairly typical. What do you need to be ready to discuss your work for that long?

The viva is your time to shine. Be ready for it.

 

PS: it’s almost time for Viva Survivors Select 09 to shine! The next issue of my viva help zine is coming next Wednesday 15th April 2026. Twenty of my favourite posts from 2025, two new pages of viva help including a new viva prep game and all original artwork by me. Do look out for the release announcement next week and if you get help from the Viva Survivors blog do consider picking up the issue.

Cover for Viva Survivors Select 09, The 2025 Issue, April 2026 - by Nathan Ryder Cover shows a red game piece/pawn looking at a wall with twelve calendar pages with various tally marks.

Nathan

“I Might Have A Problem”

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The five words that start you on a path to resolution. They work in all kinds of situations in life and help a lot with getting ready for the viva.

Many viva problems start with feeling that something is wrong. A gap in your expectations, an issue with your thesis, a delay to some part of prep – any one of these could make you feel that things aren’t right.

They might not be a problem. The only way you’ll know for sure is if you stop sitting with the feeling and say, “I might have a problem.”

Then you can do something else: you can explore the situation, ask for help, check something or simply take steps that move you towards feeling better.

  • If there’s a gap in your expectations you can ask someone or read something that will tell you more about what vivas are like.
  • If there’s an issue with your thesis you can read more, think more or talk with your supervisor to see if you have a problem or not. If you don’t, that’s great! If you do then you’re a step closer to sorting it out.
  • And if there’s a delay to your prep work then you move on: what can you do next? How can you make it up? There was a problem but you can work past it.

Given all the problems you must have overcome during your PhD journey you can deal with any situation that occurs during your viva prep – so long as you’re willing to admit that you might have a problem.

Don’t simply sit with the discomfort of feeling something’s wrong. Work past it.

Nathan

Resting Questions

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Rest is an essential component of the viva prep period.

Almost every kind of question that might help someone unpack practical prep they need to do for the viva could also help them rest:

  • What activities help you to feel prepared/rested?
  • Who can help you prepare/take some rest ahead of the viva?
  • When will you prepare/rest in the weeks between submission and your viva?
  • What will you do first to prepare/rest after submission?
  • What will preparation/rest help you to feel for your viva?

Good rest is a part of good viva prep.

Nathan

Good Outcomes

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Good viva outcomes follow a long series of good actions by you and other people.

You can’t control what other people do. You can take responsibility for what you do as you get ready – and remember what you have done on your PhD journey so far.

So, very simply: what are you doing and what have you done that puts you on track for a good outcome at your viva?

(it’s a lot!)

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