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Author: Nathan

Nathan

Options For Prep

Daily Post

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

Daily Post

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”

Daily Post

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

Daily Post

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

Daily Post

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!)

Nathan

Questions About Examiners

Daily Post

If you have questions about your viva examiners there are lots of places to find answers.

  • Consult regulations to get a real sense of what they do and how they do it.
  • Explore viva stories to get a feel for how examiners examine.
  • Ask your supervisors about your potential examiners…
  • …and ask them again when your examiners are confirmed.
  • Check your examiners’ recent publications to find out more about what they do.
  • Find their staff pages to explore their interests.
  • Talk with friends and colleagues who might know about them.

Whatever your questions about your examiners there will be a way to find out more. If you’re worried for some reason there is always a way to do something to help move past your concern.

Nathan

Who You’ve Become

Daily Post

As you get ready for your viva, consider your PhD journey so far.

  • What have you learned?
  • What have you done?
  • What have you made?
  • What can you show others?
  • What skills have you grown?
  • What talents can you demonstrate?
  • Where have you been?
  • And where are you going?

In short, who have you become?

Nathan

Prototypes, Screens & Props

Daily Post

The typical picture of the viva as imagined by regulations, stories and ideas shows three people sat around a table having a conversation.

  • But you might have something to share with your examiners: a physical prototype or prop.
  • You might need a screen to show part of your research: a computer program needs to be displayed, a video viewed or a data set explored.
  • Or you might have a model, a piece of art or something else that has to be seen live not just read about in advance.

If your research seems a little different or your viva might be atypical as a result of something you’ve made or found then check with your regulations and supervisors to find out what you do.

What are the expectations when you’ve done something a little different? What do you need with you to showcase your research at the viva?

Nathan

The Next Challenges

Daily Post

What’s next?

Whether your plans are academia or elsewhere it might be a difficult topic to talk about. Your plans might be in flux. Your plans might be sensitive and make you feel emotional in some way.

You don’t need to have a 5-year plan figured out for meeting your examiners but it might help to know how you’ll explain a little of your future plans at the viva.

You won’t be judged on them: the viva is centred on your research, your thesis and your capability. But it’s a natural topic of discussion for something like the viva.

Take a little time as part of your viva prep to think about the next challenges you’re facing – because that’s what they are. They might be smaller scale than a PhD but they’re no less daunting. If you’ve done a PhD then you are committed to doing good things well.

So what’s next? And how might you explain that to your examiners?

 

PS: what’s next for me is the new issue of Viva Survivors Select, which I’m releasing in two weeks!

Nathan

Responsibility

Daily Post

When something isn’t quite right in your research do you explain things with excuses or reasons?

Did you do something wrong? Did you forget something? Were you careless? Were you to blame?

Words matter. Be careful how you take responsibility for something. Consider why and how something happened, what you did at the time and what you could have done.

 

Remember that you can take responsibility but that doesn’t mean that you’re to blame.

And remember that if there is a problem in your research you can take steps before the viva to be ready to talk about it. Writing a summary, talking with your supervisor and thinking carefully can help you talk if the topic comes up.

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