Daily viva help for PhDs
If you’re concerned about saying the right thing at the viva – or worried about saying the wrong thing – then invest time before then in finding the words to share your research.
Write summaries to draw out key points. Review literature that has helped your work. Take time to rehearse with your supervisor or with friends.
The last part helps a lot. You can’t find the words by only worrying and thinking. You have to talk, because that’s what you have to do in the viva.
Before your viva, work to feel more confident rather than less nervous.
The importance of your viva doesn’t change: you feel nervous because it matters.
Your confidence levels can increase though. You can reflect on your experiences. You can remind yourself of the successes you have created throughout your PhD. You can be sure of the improvement in your ability and knowledge. You can remind yourself that you did the work.
Work to feel more confident and you can feel less of the impact of nervousness.
Every so often I’m asked the following sorts of questions by future viva-havers:
My response to these questions and the hundred-and-one similar questions I’ve been asked is, “Maybe!”
I solved equations in my viva. I was stood at a chalkboard, sketching diagrams, showing how they were connected and demonstrating the algebra that underpinned my work. But if you weren’t a mathematician you wouldn’t expect to do that.
Are there visual ways of representing what you’ve done? Are there clearly defined processes that show how to do what you did? Then perhaps you might be asked to sketch something in your viva.
You can ask friends, colleagues and supervisors: in fact, they are the best people to ask.
Do you need tools, equipment or resources? Might you be asked to demonstrate something? I don’t know – but you know someone who will. Ask them!
There are regulations for vivas created by each university. There are expectations for the viva, general patterns of experience, that can be observed in the stories that graduates tell. There are norms we can derive from more considered inspection of stories with a departmental community.
These three aspects give a lot of certainty about the viva experience. Every viva is unique, but none of them are a great unknown.
And yet: questions are asked that can’t be anticipated. Corrections are requested that went unseen before submission. Opinions are suggested that have never been considered. And circumstances sometimes change, from simple logistical room switches on the day to last-minute changes to video vivas due to illness.
Expect the unexpected. You can’t discard the rules and patterns of experience. Embrace them, learn from them, but also remember that you have to expect that you won’t know any question until it is asked.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be prepared. That doesn’t mean you won’t be ready.
Learn about the range of possibilities. Rehearse to build your comfort for being in the viva. Expect the unexpected.
Candidates don’t choose examiners. For all the good ideas you might have about this person or that person to examine your thesis and you in the viva, you don’t choose them outright.
Your supervisors choose your examiners. They might ask you for your ideas and they might respond positively to your suggestions but they don’t have to. They are responsible for nominating the academics who will examine you.
Your university has to approve the nominations. They have to check the details of who your supervisor selects to check they are suitable. There are criteria that examiners have to satisfy.
And after all of this two people have to say yes.
They can say no if they’re busy. They can say no if, for whatever reason, they feel it doesn’t seem like a good fit for them to be your examiner. They don’t say yes to tick a box. They don’t say yes because they know your supervisor.
When your examiners are confirmed then you can prepare. You can make a choice at that stage to be ready to talk to them at your viva.
That’s the choice you make.
As you prepare for your viva think about a Situation where you did something well. What was the Task that you were trying to accomplish? Was there a goal you were aiming for or a problem that needed a solution?
Whatever the circumstances, what Activities were you engaged with? And when you had finished what were the Results of your work?
Reflecting on a story where you describe the Situation, Task, Activities and Results helps to create a useful narrative for exploring your capability with others. It can be a big help for job applications, interviews or pitching yourself.
Reflecting on a STAR can also help a lot with building confidence. It’s a foundation of knowing that you are good enough.
And you aren’t limited to one story. Find as many as you can and build a constellation of stories that you can look at when needed, to show yourself that you are good.
Cite examiners in your bibliography before you consider them for examiners.
Cite examiners because their work is relevant.
Cite examiners because you’ve used their results, conclusions or ideas in some way for your own research.
Don’t cite people if their work doesn’t connect. Don’t select examiners then look for ways to crowbar their research into yours. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you can only be examined by academics whose work is prominently in your bibliography.
There are more important reasons for considering academics as potential examiners than whether or not they feature in your bibliography.
There are better reasons for citing someone’s work than you’re thinking about them as a potential examiner.
In your viva your examiners are, essentially, presenting you with a challenge.
Your examiners want to have a conversation about all of these things. Given the level that you work at, given the work that you’ve invested and given the outcome you’re working towards – and what that means – this is a challenge.
But only a challenge.
Just one particular situation that you need to rise to, after a long series of success at responding to challenges throughout your PhD. Your viva might be difficult. You might be nervous. But that only makes the viva a challenge, nothing more.
What can help you be ready for it? Who can you turn to for support? And what have you learned throughout your PhD journey about rising to challenges?
An important expectation for the UK viva is that it is private. Members of the public don’t attend and you’ll never have an audience present while you talk with your examiners.
Two examiners, one internal and one external, is the typical situation at the UK viva. It’s possible to have more, but rare. It’s possible to have an independent chair as part of your viva process, but they’re not an “audience member” either.
Your supervisor could attend, with your permission, but even then they are not like an audience member. They can only observe, they can’t participate like an audience member at a public thesis defence.
The UK viva is a discussion, not a presentation, not an open forum. It’s closed, and even if there are others present – chairs or supervisors – they’re not the audience.
A mock viva or mini-viva is like a prototype for the real thing you’ll experience.
A prototype never has all of the features of the final product, but it helps one to get a feeling for what it will be like. Whether you rehearse with your supervisor or with friends, make some time to engage with viva-like practice before your viva.