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Nathan

Nine Noes For The Viva

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No way your thesis is perfect.

No expectation it should be either.

No chance you’re not an expert in your research.

No way to predict exactly what will happen in the viva.

No excuse for not having expectations either (there are lots of people who have had them before!).

No examiner has lived through doing your research.

No possibility you got to submission without doing something good.

No way you can do the work without being talented.

No chance you’re not ready when the viva comes around.

Nathan

Another Bank Holiday

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If you’re writing up your thesis, you can take a day off.

If your viva is soon, you can take a day off.

If your viva is done and you’re working on corrections, you can take a day off.

Rest and relaxation is required, not a nice little bonus if you get around to it.

What you’re doing is important.

So take a day off.

#takebreaksmakebreakthroughs (with thanks to Dr Kay Guccione!)

Nathan

Before You Know It…

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…you’ll be done.

It’ll all be over. Your PhD, your viva, the corrections, all done.

Make the most of your opportunities now. Take the chance to reflect and see what it all means.

And realise that you now have many more opportunities before you than you had before.

Nathan

Three Challenges

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Three challenges for the PhD candidate.

First Challenge: believing that you don’t need to have a photographic memory about everything connected with your research and your thesis. Your examiners don’t expect you to know every possible thing. They expect you to have done the work, done some prep and be a talented researcher in your field. You can show them this.

Second Challenge: recognising that the viva is not the hardest thing you will ever do, and not even the hardest thing you will do as part of your PhD. It’s a couple of hours, talking with experts about your work, and it matters, of course – but so does the thousands of hours of work that’s gone into producing your thesis.

Third Challenge: accepting that the viva, in most cases, is a reasonably enjoyable experience. Some vivas are tougher than others, with more difficult circumstances. It doesn’t follow that yours will be.

Notice that none of these challenges are faced in the viva exactly, but in the expectations for it. Rise to meet them and the viva itself will seem less worrying.

Nathan

Thesis Commentary

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Can you summarise each page in your thesis in ten words or less?

You have plenty of white space at the top of each page, so you can if you want to. It wouldn’t take long, assuming you’d read your thesis since submission, and were generally familiar with it. A minute to think and capture the flow of your research.

300+ words, maybe tables, a diagram, ideas, all compressed into a few words to help you when you return to the page again in your prep or the viva.

Taken together, all of these words would create a director’s commentary for your thesis. A DVD extra for your research. You help yourself when you write the commentary – reflecting, thinking – and help yourself later when you come back to it. A little helpful commentary for you.

There’s plenty of white space at the bottom of each page too. If the top of the page summarises the flow of your work, maybe there’s something useful you could put at the bottom as well. Highlight a key reference? An idea that’s important? What you think of it all?

You don’t have to fill the margins of every page to prepare well for the viva, but a little thought and a few words can be really helpful.

Nathan

Mental Stretches

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Sanderson’s Second Law Of Mathematics:

“The mind is a muscle and must be exercised.”

My high school maths teacher had this written on his classroom wall, along with two other “laws of maths” he claimed as his. They’ve resonated with me a lot over the years. You only get better at something intellectual by doing it. It’s not enough to have done some work in the past, you have to keep going, stay sharp and look for new ways of thinking.

That’s the main point of viva prep. You can’t just rest on your laurels when your thesis is done. You have to stretch, keep your mind in shape. Exercise for your brain: small exercises to test your skills and knowledge.

Nowhere near as much work as you’ve done before, but enough to keep you thinking, remembering, honed and ready.

(Sanderson’s First Law Of Mathematics: “A lazy mathematician is a good one.” The Third: “Mathematicians think in pictures – so use them!“)

(Let’s stick with the Second for viva prep…!)

Nathan

Explore

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There’s a mindset of exploration in viva preparation.

  • Exploring what you did: not simply reading your thesis, but digging into it.
  • Exploring what it means: reflecting on what you think now.
  • Exploring recent literature: updating what you know and what might matter.
  • Exploring your examiners: what they know and do.
  • Exploring the possibilities for the viva: what might or might not happen.

If you’ve done the work for a PhD, being an explorer is probably second nature to you. You’re good at exploring; to prepare well for the viva you just need to continue using skills you already have.

Nathan

Hours & Hours & Hours

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There’s lots of hours spent on a PhD, but different ranges depending on the stage you’re at:

  • Five to six thousand to do a PhD.
  • Twenty to thirty in prep for the viva.
  • Two to three for a viva is quite common.

Each of these matters.

Your research and your talent develops over a long period; after that it doesn’t take much to get ready to defend your thesis.

And not too long at all to discuss the important things with your examiners.

Nathan

Three Things Come Not Back

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I remember my first lecture at university. Before Dr Gould started telling us about complex numbers he shared an old proverb he thought would help us as we started our degrees:

Three things come not back: the said word, the sped arrow and the missed opportunity.

He then urged us to make the most of our opportunities while we were at university, not to let things pass us by. I’m fond of this saying. It’s stuck with me for almost twenty years, and it resonates with me for viva advice too.

Think before you speak: pause before you answer a question. Make the most of your opportunities in the viva, both to show what you know and get ideas and insights from your examiners.

Thankfully there’s usually not any arrows flying around!

Nathan

Answers On A Postcard

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A viva prep idea that seems apt for summertime: use postcards to make notes about key reflective questions for your research and thesis.

Get half a dozen different postcards (choose your images carefully). Use half of each one to answer a big picture question like those below:

  • How did I get interested in this topic?
  • What’s my key contribution?
  • What are my three main results?
  • What is my methodology?
  • Who is my research important to?
  • What are my three most important references?

Use the other half, where one would typically write an address, to capture a few keywords, an extra short note or perhaps an important reference or two.

Done!

There are three useful elements here. First, the answer in a small, restricted space gives a concise reflection. Second, a few points or helpful things that jump out. Finally, the image of the postcard to build memory associations.

Index cards are often used to help with revising something, but I’ve never come across postcards. What do you think? Useful or not?

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