The Shape Of Your Thesis

You don’t need to memorise your thesis to be well-prepared for your viva. You’ll have it with you in the viva, annotated in whatever way suits your needs, and you can consult it whenever you need to.

To get ready for your viva you need to read your thesis and re-appreciate what you’ve done.

• Do you have a single project or lots of smaller projects?
• Does your thesis share a big book-length project or a collection of papers?
• Is your thesis “different” in some way: do you have a creative work, a portfolio or something else entirely that isn’t typical for many candidates?

Whatever you have, take time after submission to read it carefully. Again, you don’t need to memorise what you’ve done but it will help to refresh your memory and appreciate the shape of your thesis.

Make sure you know the flow of information and ideas in your work as you’ve presented it.