Daily viva help for PhDs
No PhD candidate gets to their viva or passes because they are lucky.
When we reduce the situation to the simplest terms, a PhD candidate submits their thesis and succeeds in the viva because they work hard and enough of that hard work pays off.
PhD success is not a lottery. You have to work hard. When you do enough, fortunately you find what you need.
You have an opportunity during viva prep to make your thesis as useful as possible for you. Thesis annotation doesn’t just mean writing notes in the margins. Perhaps using colour could help, for example:
These suggestions are just to start your thinking. There’s a lot more you could do when you consider the specifics of your thesis and the information in there.
How could you use a little colour to help your viva prep?
Viva preparation is a big part of getting ready. It takes time for a candidate to make sure their thesis is ready and that they feel prepared to sit down and talk with their examiners. Lots of practical tasks and a little planning can make a big difference.
Building up confidence is an important task too. In some ways it’s even more important than the practical tasks that go into prep. It’s not enough to sit down and read your thesis or have a mock viva: you have to feel that you are ready. You have to find your confidence by reflecting on your journey.
While viva prep and confidence building are essential, exploring them often means that we overlook the hardest part of getting ready for the viva – and the one that every candidate has completed.
The hardest part is doing the work of a PhD candidate for years. The hardest part is laying the foundations for study, exploration and development. The hardest part of getting ready for the viva is the thousands of hours of work, invested over hundreds and hundreds of days when you show up.
You need to spend a few weeks getting ready, preparing your thesis and yourself, and reflecting on why you are good enough to succeed in the viva. Don’t forget that the hardest part of your journey to the viva and to success is already behind you.
The viva isn’t the top of the mountain. It’s not the hardest challenge, the last thing to do or the most difficult conversation. The stakes aren’t raised to such a height that you are risking everything when you talk to your examiners.
Prepare for the viva, rehearse, remember what you’ve done to get this far.
You’re not at the top of the mountain: you’re already working your way down the other side. Tread carefully, but with confidence. You’ve done the work and are more than capable of doing what you still need to do.
A few loose thoughts…
Viva regulations are impersonal.
They give structure. Section 2, paragraph 3, check appendix 2A.
Regulations say yes and no. They specify and describe: this is a pass, this is a fail.
But viva outcomes are not a binary. Most people pass, but they pass in different ways. Most people pass with minor corrections, but all corrections are unique, in the same way that all candidates and their theses are unique.
Universities offer multiple outcomes that are passes – no corrections, minor corrections, major corrections and more. Typically there’s only one real category of failure, something that the vast majority of candidates don’t experience.
When considering viva outcomes, the point that stands out to me most is that every candidate has to find the meaning and the value in their success. Rules and regulations don’t care: you do.
What does your PhD mean to you?
What’s going to keep you going while you finish and have your viva?
And how will you celebrate your success when you find it?
Because there are typos in their thesis and passages that need editing.
That’s it! That’s all! Enough said!
OK a little more… 🙂
Writing a book is hard. Proofreading is hard. Combining these both in a project with a word count in the tens of thousands means the resulting thesis will likely have mistakes that need correcting.
Some thesis corrections are simple. A missed or misspelled word is obvious when spotted.
Some thesis corrections are subtle. They take patience to see and consideration to correct.
Some thesis corrections are style-choices. Examiners might feel something is needed and usually their requests are followed.
Remember that all thesis corrections are requested with the goal of making the thesis better. Most candidates get asked to complete corrections. Expect that you will too, get them done when you’re asked and then you’re done!
Looking in a mirror shows things reversed. Looking in a spoon shows things distorted. And reflecting on research doesn’t automatically reveal everything we want or need.
With all of that in mind, perhaps the best thing you can do when when reflecting on your research for viva preparation is to reflect a lot.
Ask lots of questions. Create lots of small summaries. Find many different ways to look at what you’ve done, how you did it, why you did it and what happened.
A reflection is never perfect, but by exploring different perspectives you will find more than if you just looked back one time on one aspect.
In a few months it will be five years since I first published 7776 Mini-Vivas – a little game to play and get practice for the kinds of discussion you might face in the viva. I’m going to do something special to mark five years since I made it, but I don’t know what yet!
Since making 7776 Mini-Vivas I’ve made a small printed version, adapted it in several ways and occasionally shared other posts here with particular question sets. You can use it as a reflection tool, as conversation practice and as a means to rehearse key questions or ideas.
Take a look at 7776 Mini-Vivas if you haven’t already; explore the resource and think about how you could use it to get ready for your viva. I’ve been thinking about ideas for variants on the concept a lot lately. If you’re looking for more fun ways to use it, here are six:
How else could you use the idea of having a mini-viva or two to help you get ready?
If you feel worried about any aspect of your viva, ask yourself why first. For example:
“I feel worried about the discussion…”
Why?
“I’m worried I might forget something important…”
When you know what’s behind a worry you can start to do something about. You could reflect and think of possible steps to take. Continuing the example, possible next steps could be:
These are all possible steps to help. Individually they might not be solutions to the problem, but they could move someone closer to feeling better about the worry. When you have possible steps, you then have to do something.
When faced with a worry about the viva, follow three steps:
Why is this a worry? How could I do something? What will I do?
It’s worth remembering, when you’ve submitted and you’re working towards your viva day, that it might not have gone this way. Despite the associated nerves and negativity that people attach to the viva, having one is not guaranteed.
You might have decided to stop pursuing a PhD. Circumstances, particularly during the last three years or so, might have made continuing with research impossible. Things might not have worked out with your supervisor, financial pressures could have been too great or your research ideas might have not developed.
But instead you did the work. You solved problems and overcame challenges. Things worked out enough. You submitted your thesis and now it’s not the case that you have to have a viva – you get to have a viva.
It’s work. It’s a challenge. It matters so it might make you nervous. But it’s a really good thing.
You get to have a viva. Remember that.