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Author: Nathan

Nathan

Ten More Top Fives

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Earlier this year I shared a list post, Top Ten Top Fives, that had ideas on how to get started with thinking about the viva and viva prep. A simple setup, prompts to get ideas flowing and start making notes.

Today seemed like a good chance to add some more prompts:

  1. Top Five Academics Who Would Be A Good External!
  2. Top Five Tips You’ve Heard For Viva Prep!
  3. Top Five Expectations For Viva Day!
  4. Top Five Questions You Think You’ll Be Asked!
  5. Top Five Help Requests You Can Make!
  6. Top Five Questions For Your Supervisor In Preparation!
  7. Top Five Challenges You Overcame In Your PhD!
  8. Top Five Annotations You’re Going To Make In Your Thesis!
  9. Top Five Unanswered Questions From Your Research!
  10. Top Five Things You’ll Do To Celebrate Passing Your Viva!

There’s inertia to overcome with thinking about different aspects of the viva. A little nudge, a good prompt, can get things moving.

Nathan

A Haiku About Nerves

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The viva matters:

Importance and nerves travel

Hand-in-hand with you.

 

(for more viva-related haiku, click here)

Nathan

Looping Thesis Reflections

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I like Pat Thomson‘s recent post about looping. In it she describes a useful writing method to quickly expand on a topic, then reflect to distil down, before expanding again. It seems like a nicely structured approach to get yourself started on a topic, or begin exploring new ideas.

It strikes me that it would also be really neat for reflecting on your research as the viva gets closer:

  • Pick an aspect of your work and just write freely about it for fifteen or twenty minutes.
  • Then take some time to reflect: What have you been writing about? What are you getting at?
  • Summarise your reflections in one sentence.
  • Now use this sentence as a starting point for a new period of writing.
  • Reflect and repeat until you feel satisfied.

I like Pat’s idea of reading through and thinking about everything that’s been written at the end too. An hour or so of writing and reflecting in this way could do a lot to get you exploring your thesis in a new way at the end of your PhD. A neat method for shaking off the cobwebs and seeing what else is in your work.

Pat’s a very generous academic, and shares brilliant ideas every week on her blog. I’d recommend you take a look at her past posts because I’m sure you’ll find something useful!

Nathan

Before, During, After

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Before, you could be nervous. During, you’re engaged. After, you’re relieved.

Before, you can practise. During, you’re doing it. After, you’ve achieved.

Before, you’re the candidate. During, you’re the expert. After, you’re Dr Somebody, PhD.

At different times you can think and feel and do and be different things.

At all times around the viva, at the end of your PhD journey, you’re where you’re supposed to be.

Nathan

What’s In A Name?

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Most commonly it’s “the viva” but I’ve also heard people refer to it – the event, the exam – as thesis examination, thesis defence, defending your thesis and of course the full viva voce.

I’ve also heard people call the viva, for various reasons: the interrogation, the End, the final hurdle and “I can’t even say it, I’m just dreading it!”

All of these people are talking about the same thing, but all from different personal perspectives. Whatever label they attach, whatever word they use, influences and reinforces how they think about it.

If you label your viva as “my interrogation” then I can imagine you won’t be looking forward to it. “Thesis examination” is quite neutral, neither hot nor cold. If it’s “the End” it’s possible you’re not being negative about it, but maybe you are. The label – the name – you give to your viva, influences how you think about it…

…but you can change the name. It’s a choice. So if you feel negative about it now, perhaps finding out more about the viva can change that feeling. Getting better expectations – both of the event and how you could be prepared – can help you to find a better name for it.

It’s OK if you just name it “the viva.” It’s fine if you call it something else. But the name always means something.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is: pick the most helpful name that you can.

Nathan

A Viva Prep Sandwich

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Heard of the feedback sandwich?

It’s when you tell someone something good about their presentation/book/paper/whatever, then offer something constructive or negative, followed by something good. Good-“bad”-good.

A feedback sandwich – it has another name, but this is a polite sort of blog…

This good-“bad”-good construct got me thinking about viva prep, and I wonder if there’s a useful sequence we could follow when getting ready for the viva. As a series of activities, maybe something like the following would be useful.

  • Start with something that digs into something good about your work: say, reflecting on the value of your contribution or exploring ways that you could continue your work.
  • Follow that with something trickier, more difficult or potentially negative: how do you know your methods are valid? What might your examiners or someone else find contentious? What about your work could be “wrong”?
  • And finally consider something else about your work that’s good: take a positive step to annotate your thesis well, ask yourself some more reflective questions or make notes on the papers that support your thesis.

A viva prep sandwich, of sorts.

And perhaps tastier than the feedback sandwich, because you get to decide what it is made of?

Nathan

Ten Questions For Pre-Viva Nerves

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It’s understandable to be nervous, anxious or scared about the viva. It’s not just any other day of your PhD.

You can be nervous, and hope that it doesn’t affect you too much, or you can be nervous and think about what you can do to make things better. Here are ten questions to help you unpick and cope with pre-viva nerves:

  1. How nervous do you feel on a scale of one to ten?
  2. In what ways are your nerves getting in the way of your prep?
  3. What do you think lies at the root of your nerves?
  4. What could you do to make yourself feel one bit less nervous?
  5. What will you do?
  6. How many positive things can you think of to boost your confidence?
  7. What ones do you think you could try in the next seven days?
  8. What ones will you try?
  9. What are you feeling most anxious about the viva?
  10. What are you going to do about it?

“I’m nervous” or “I’m anxious” isn’t enough. You can’t stop there. You have to work past worry I think, not be stopped by whatever barriers are going up. It’s easy for me to just say that, but if you’re in that place you have to do something about it.

I hope these questions help. Take a look at the following tagged themes on the blog too – worry and viva anxiety – there may be something useful among these posts for you.

Nathan

The Best Viva

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Not just a good viva: the best.

Make a list of all of the conditions of the best possible viva for you. However long it is, now make another list of the things you could do to help it turn out that way.

You can’t control everything, so try to stop worrying about the things you can do nothing about. There are plenty of things you can do to help yours be the best viva for you.

Make your lists and get to work.

Nathan

Using Lists Of Viva Questions

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There’s a simple, foolproof, two-step process for getting lots of potential viva questions:

  1. Google “PhD viva question list”.
  2. Take a look at the results.

Not every question you find from these results will be relevant. Some you can discard, some you can refine, some you will see connections that you could make more specific for your research.

Ask your supervisors, ask your friends and colleagues to see what they think. What questions are likely? What might they say? What do they want to ask you and how are they prepared to help you?

The goal is not to prepare an answer for every possible question: that’s an impossible task. Instead get a sense of what can come up. Through exploration you can become certain you are capable of answering questions in the viva.

Nathan

Use Your Acknowledgements Page

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The acknowledgements page of a thesis is a lovely opportunity to be thankful.

Thank your supervisors for all they’ve done.

Thank your family and friends by name.

Thank your funders if you have them.

Thank anyone who has really helped.

Looking back at mine, and at others I’ve seen, the acknowledgements page is a time capsule. A little slice of a time when you were someone else. I’ve not stayed in touch with many of the friends who helped me through my PhD. That page reminds me of who I have to be thankful to, and who made a difference.

Say thank you.

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