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Nathan

Hope Helps…

Daily Post

…but actions help more.

It’s good to hope you pass your viva and it goes well. It’s not wrong to hope that your examiners have nice questions for you. It’s pretty understandable to hope you get no or few corrections.

After that you have to do the work though, just as you have for the rest of your PhD.

Prepare well. Read up on expectations and who your examiners are. Be prepared for the real possibility of making corrections to your thesis after the viva.

Hope that your viva is a good one – then work towards being at your best for the viva.

Nathan

Where You Prepare

Daily Post

For viva rehearsal activities you might need to meet others in offices, seminar rooms or cafés. However, for most viva prep you’ll likely be working by yourself. What kind of space will help your viva preparation?

Think about your preferences. Think about the practicalities of the situation. When will you do the work? How quiet do you need it to be? What resources do you need? Consider your options and choose the one that will work best for you. Can you do something to meet your needs even more?

Where you prepare can make a difference to how you prepare. Make a good space for where you’ll do your viva prep.

Nathan

Final Words

Daily Post

The viva is not the only time in your life when you will have a big, important conversation about your PhD. It might be the final time though and it will be your only viva. As you prepare, take some time to think about how you can get as much as you need to from the experience.

  • How would you like your viva to conclude?
  • Are there specific questions you want to hear from your examiners by the end?
  • Is there an opinion you’d like to make sure you take time to ask for?

You might not be able to direct your viva but there are aspects you might be able to influence. If you have questions, make a list and take them with you so you remember to ask them.

Nathan

In The Frame

Daily Post

Pause, think, respond.

That’s how you engage with a question or comment in the viva. You pause in order to think and you think in order to respond well.

Pause and Think: Are your examiners clear with their question? Do you know what they are asking or needing you to speak about?

Think and Respond: Be calm and clear as you respond. Are you responding to their question or comment directly? If not, how are you reframing that?

If you can’t respond directly to a question then you need to think about how you can still engage with it. “I don’t know” and exploring why you don’t know is a good response. Trying to steer away and talk about something different is a bad response.

Pause and think to fully understand how a question or comment is framed. Think then frame your response well so your examiners can clearly understand you.

Nathan

A Changing Why

Daily Post

Why did you want to do a PhD?

Why did you want to explore the topics or projects you did?

Why did you keep going even when your PhD journey was hard?

Why did you want a PhD still when you were finishing?

Your examiners might not ask you directly about why you’ve been doing a PhD, but motivations are worth reflecting on before your viva. The reasons you started and kept going might change.

It helps to remind yourself why you did all this work, either to help with sharing things with your examiners or to keep you motivated for the final weeks of your PhD.

Nathan

Thinking In Advance

Daily Post

Creating summaries as part of viva prep helps you to gather useful thoughts. A summary is a chance to focus and gives you space to think in advance of the viva.

Write an overview of your thesis and you bring together a lot of helpful information.

Make a list of what you’re most proud of and you highlight ideas to share with your examiners.

Prepare a summary of your research methodology and you bring together valuable points.

Do any or all of these, or create any kind of summary, and you’re not creating a script to read from in your viva. You’re doing some of your thinking in advance though: you’re helping yourself to pre-consider topics you might need to engage with when you meet your examiners.

Nathan

Fear Of The Unknown

Daily Post

There are two steps to removing fear or worry about unknown aspects of the viva.

The first step is to try to accept that your viva will be an unknown in some ways until you experience it. You won’t know how long it is, you won’t know what questions will be asked and you don’t know how you’ll feel until you’re there.

The second step is to build up a reasonable sense of the general expectations before you get to the viva. Read your university’s regulations, learn about other viva experiences and ask your colleagues about their recent experiences. These different aspects can fill in many of the blanks you might have.

You can have a good sense of what happens at vivas. This is a massive help both practically and emotionally, even if you can’t know the exact details of your viva until it’s your time.

Nathan

No Shame

Daily Post

I’ve sensed the worry and the shame behind many PhD candidates’ questions about the viva.

  • If only I’d done more, I could have worked harder…
  • If I knew then what I know now I wouldn’t have made that mistake…
  • Ugh…
  • The stupid pandemic made it go wrong and now I don’t have what I wanted…

Could someone do more or different than what you’ve done for your PhD? Perhaps.

Should you feel ashamed or nervous or in any way bad because you haven’t done more or different to what you’ve done? Absolutely not.

Remember that you couldn’t have got this far with your PhD journey unless you had done something right. Not just one something. A lot of somethings. You have got this far because you did the hard work and enough of that hard work brought success to you.

Maybe you could have done more or different to what you’ve done.

Maybe, but taking time to think about that is probably a distraction.

If it helps, be aware of the alternatives, but focus on what you did and who you became – because more than anything that’s what your examiners will want to talk about at your viva.

Nathan

Show Them What You Know

Daily Post

At your viva you’re expected to explore your significant original contribution with your examiners, tell them about your PhD journey and demonstrate for them that you are a capable researcher.

Which is simple to understand but sometimes difficult to do!

You have to show your examiners what you know. Show them what you understand. Show them what it means.

Whatever their exact questions are you know the topics they will be interested in. Part of the challenge is being ready and able to respond well, whatever the question might be.

By the viva, you’ve done the work. You’ve done the prep. Take a deep breath and show them what you know.

Nathan

Always Something You Can Do

Daily Post

These words sum up part of my general philosophy for PhD candidates at and before their viva.

There is always something you can do.

Before the viva if you feel nervous, anxious or worried, there is always something you can do to improve how you feel. If you are concerned about a particular aspect of your research and how to communicate it then will be something you can do to help yourself.

If you don’t know something about the viva process then there is something you can do, someone to ask or regulations to read. You can always do something to help your preparation, even a little more, right up to the moment you go to your viva.

In your viva, whatever happens, there is always something you can do to engage with the discussion. There is always something you can do to help how you’re feeling in that moment. There is always something you can do to respond well.

You can pause. You can think. You can take a sip of water. You can ask for a break. You can ask for clarification. You can write a note. You can work something out. You can check your thesis.

And you can be brilliant. That’s what you have to be to get to your viva.

There’s always something you can do – and actually there is a lot you can do to help yourself, whatever the situation.

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