Daily viva help for PhDs
Details matter in the viva but you don’t need to have perfect recall of everything you’ve ever read, done or written.
Details matter but you can take your time to think about how to explain them.
Details matter but you have lots of time to focus in advance of the viva on the details that matter more.
Details matter but your examiners want more than the facts.
Details matter but you need to be able to talk about them, not simply know them.
When have you been stretched during your PhD? What projects or work have you done that was a challenge to your skills and knowledge?
I think it’s unhelpful to view the PhD (and the viva) as the most awesome and incredible challenge in the world ever™ – but it’s also unhelpful to not recognise the growth that happens through the challenges someone faces along the way.
Reflect on the challenges. Reflect on the stretches – when they happened, why they happened, what you learned. You couldn’t have got this far without becoming better. Whenever your viva is, remember that throughout your PhD you have become more than what you were at the start.
More talented. More skilled. More knowledgeable. More accomplished.
All the stretches along the way have helped you become who you are today. Remember that and be confident for the viva.
Two words I wish someone had shared with me over my PhD journey.
Presenting helps in so many ways to build someone up – both for the challenges of doing a PhD, succeeding in the viva and being more ready for life afterwards.
Presenting helps because it makes you think of your audience. To communicate you have to think about who they are, what they want and what they need from you.
Presenting helps because it encourages you to be clear. You have to really think about your message, how you express it, how you structure it and so on. This can be a real benefit for writing, for thinking and for asking questions.
Presenting helps because it makes the presenter nervous – of course, that’s not always a comfortable thing! It helps because, if you take some time, you realise that nervousness is related to the importance of what you’re saying. You have something valuable to share.
Presenting helps because it’s an iterative learning process: there’s always something to learn, something you can take away for the next time.
Presenting throughout the PhD can help you a lot. Presenting as part of viva preparation can be really useful to help explore the words you use to explain your research – and to clarify what makes your work valuable.
How would you describe an ideal examiner for your viva?
Think about the qualities or attributes that they might have. Describe their research.
There might not be an individual you know of who meets these criteria. It may be close though: someone who satisfies three or four out of five points you might write down.
Now, what could you do to share this idea with your supervisor? You can’t choose your examiners, you can’t find perfection, but can you find someone close to the ideal you have in mind?
Too often the viva is thought of as only a negative experience.
Questions, Examiners, The End, Stress, Worry, What If, Failure, The Unknown…
In advance of the viva, for many very understandable reasons, a candidate could expect it is going to be a bad experience. The viva is a necessary part of the PhD process in the UK, but also one that is a little unclear. It’s an exam so thinking about it can be a little worrying. It involves examiners and discussion – which can make thinking about engaging with the viva more than a little concerning.
The viva and the outcome really matter. The viva is important. Hypothetical questions about what might happen and worry about failure are reasonable.
You can’t simply change a negative opinion of the viva. You have to find out more. Ask friends about their experiences. Check the regulations and prepare yourself to meet the expectations you find there. You might still continue to think of the viva as hard or difficult, but it doesn’t have to be a negative experience.
Your viva is a necessary part of your PhD journey. It doesn’t have to be a bad part.
Viva prep is not the kind of work that has to be compacted into a short period of time. It can be done that way, but is probably far better to give yourself space and time to think.
Explore your situation and consider: when will you do the work? How will you do it? Where will you do it? How often will you sit down to read your thesis and when will you begin?
You can pace yourself. An hour a day. Five days a week. Four weeks. That could be enough to be ready.
Of course, you might want to take an afternoon off to do a big concentrated burst of work; you might need a few hours in a row to take advantage of a mock viva opportunity.
Pace yourself in a way that works for you. Find the space in your schedule when you can do the work and not stress yourself. Do the work in a way that doesn’t add too much to an already busy schedule.
Between submission and the viva you have an opportunity to give your thesis a makeover. Of course, it’s great as it is, but for a special occasion doesn’t it deserve a chance to really shine?
Choose your style of makeover, and create something that really works for you. There’s no right or wrong way: you have an opportunity to make your thesis more fabulous – more useful for you – for the day of your viva.
Make information stand out or easier to find. Give your thesis a makeover to make your thesis better for the viva.
Where does the time go?! Just like that autumn is around the corner, Christmas is really not that far away when you think about it and 2023 is within shouting distance!
Of course, there’s no suddenly about it. Day by day we move forward, the weeks pass, the months go by and then we’re at another mark on the calendar.
Little by little we “suddenly” find ourselves at September.
It’s helpful to keep this in mind for your viva too.
It doesn’t suddenly appear. You’re not going to suddenly be surprised by it.
It may feel like you’re all of a sudden at the viva – where did the last few years go?! – but it really is the case that you’ve worked your way to that place over a long period of time.
Day by day you work on your PhD. Week by week you find new things. Month by month you get better. Year by year you make something that sets you apart.
Remember that you don’t need to be perfect to succeed in the viva.
Remember that you will have invested a lot of time, effort and energy into becoming practised at all the things necessary for you to succeed.
You have read, you have written, you have learned, you have developed the skills for a researcher in your field and a lot more.
You’re not perfect. You are practised.
And that’s enough.
A little bit of fun to help you think about getting ready for the viva.
Think about each of the following statements and give yourself a score from 1 to 10 depending on how well you agree with them (1 being that you don’t agree with it and 10 representing total agreement):
Now reflect on the scores you’ve given. Think a score is low? Well, what can you do about that? What will you do about that? Who could help you? When will you take the next step?
Think a score is about right for you and your situation? Why? What evidence supports that? Is there anything else you could do to help?
Numbers can help you move yourself closer to being ready.