Nathan

Broad & Narrow Questions

Daily Post

You’ll find lots of broad questions about your research ahead of your viva. These are the lists of general questions that have been shared for years on websites and graduate school handouts. They’re the big questions and can be helpful in preparation and reflection as you get ready. For example:

  • Why did you explore this area?
  • How would you describe your approach?
  • What could you do differently?

These are good questions but they’re broad: they could be asked by almost anyone of almost any PhD candidate.

You’ll be asked lots of narrow questions at your viva. They relate to the topics – some of which you or your supervisor could maybe predict in advance – that your examiners could ask only of you, given your research, your experience and your thesis. For example:

  • Why did you follow the method you used in Chapter 3 over the alternate method you referenced on page 56?
  • How do you account for the gap in data that you mentioned in the second study?
  • What do you expect someone might do to develop your research further, assuming someone continued your line of study?

These kinds of questions are good but they’re narrow: they are particular only to you. They might be asked by people other than your examiners, assuming they had enough knowledge, but they could only be asked of you.

It’s likely you’ll get some broad questions at your viva. It’s certain you’ll be asked lots of narrow questions. You have to consider general broad questions in your prep to be ready for the specific narrow questions you’ll encounter in your viva.

Nathan

Finding A Way

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That’s what getting ready for your viva is: finding your way from where you are when you submit your thesis to where you need to be for your viva.

Getting ready involves viva prep – and just as every thesis, candidate and viva are unique, so too is the process of getting prepared.

There are common threads and good ideas but you’ll have to find your own way. There are practical steps you can take but you’ll also need to look back on your PhD journey to find certainty in how you got this far.

That certainty will help you find the confidence to go further. You’ll find your way.

It’s not far and you can do it.

Nathan

Share Prep Ideas

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A little request for today.

When you’ve had your viva, if something worked well in your prep then tell your friends and colleagues about it.

If you made a lot of progress because of the way you read your thesis then tell someone. If a particular annotation was helpful then share how you did it and what it meant. Or if your mock viva was good then say why.

Tell others what you did, how you planned and what helped. Don’t tell them what they should do: share ideas to give others a boost, an encouragement and an inspiration.

A little help can travel a long way in a community.

Nathan

Offering Why

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At the root of a lot of viva questions and discussions is a why.

Why did you do this? Why does it matter? Why is it helpful?

Why this and not that? Why now? Why did you choose X over Y?

It could be explicit or quiet, it could be a why you have thought about for years or a why you are finding for the first time.

As you get ready for your viva, consider all the whys you know in your preparations. Consider what happens as you rehearse and offer whys in your mock viva and other spoken preparations.

What can you do to help yourself be more ready to talk about the whys?

Nathan

Coming Soon: Viva Survivors Select 09

Update

Cover for Viva Survivors Select 09, The 2025 Issue, April 2026 - by Nathan Ryder Cover shows a red game piece/pawn looking at a wall with twelve calendar pages with various tally marks.

Coming Wednesday 15th April 2026!

Viva Survivors Select returns with the first issue of Volume 2, The 2025 Issue. I’ve curated twenty of my favourite Viva Survivors posts from last year, written two new pages of viva help and created original art and illustrations!

I had a lot of fun making Volume 1 last year – still available to buy as individual issues in my Payhip store or as a complete collection here – and I have all of Volume 2 planned out between now and November. I’m so excited to be sharing more of these zines soon.

If you find the Viva Survivors daily blog helpful then please take a look at Volume 1 and watch out for the upcoming issues from Volume 2. There is a lot of help in each issue, curated collections of posts from the archives plus new reflections and resources to help you get ready for the viva.

Look out for The 2025 Issue releasing on Wednesday 15th April 2026 – and please share this news with anyone who might need it!

Thanks for reading,
Nathan

Nathan

Five 1-Page Summaries

Daily Post

A summary is a helpful tool to use as part of viva prep. Think of one as a little project for gathering your thoughts ahead of the viva.

Summaries come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; they can bend to meet your needs and preferences. I’ve described a lot of summary ideas on the blog before – and shared a whole zine of ideas last year about how they help someone focus ahead of their viva!

Here are five 1-page summary ideas you could use to help yourself get ready for your viva.

  1. Give yourself an hour to write a list of the ten most helpful references in your bibliography. Write a sentence for each about how they helped your research.
  2. Take ten minutes to list as many keywords as you can think of that are related to your research. After a day take another ten minutes to draw lines between connected keywords and ideas.
  3. Invest thirty minutes in sketching out prep ideas. Capture any tasks or requirements for your preparation.
  4. Divide the page into three equal parts and write the following questions, one in each space: Why did I do this research? How did I do it? What is the result? Spend ten or twenty minutes writing notes and thoughts down for each question.
  5. Split the page in two. Take five minutes and on the lefthand side note down any questions, problems or concerns you have about your viva. On the righthand side, working down your list, write at least one practical step you could do to help with the item on the lefthand list.

What else could you do with a single page to help your prep?

Nathan

On Opinions

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There’s a good chance, whatever your research area, that you can be asked a question at your viva for which you have no answer. There’s a chance even that you could be asked a question for which no-one has an answer – there are simply opinions.

When you have an opinion – or are called to think and explore your opinion in the moment – it helps to pause and think a little. There’s plenty of time to do that in your viva.

  • You can check something in your thesis if you need to.
  • You can make a note or write down a few thoughts.
  • You can ask for information.

None of this is evading the question: it’s all geared towards you offering the most considered opinion you can depending on the situation.

In fact, to engage well at the viva, whatever the question, pause and think before you respond. Even if you have an answer ready, something you’ve considered and refined for years. Pause and think just in case there is a subtlety in the question that you’re rushing past in your desire to show what you know.

When you’re called on for your opinion at the viva give yourself a little time to respond well.

Nathan

Simple & Easy

Daily Post

These two words are not equivalent.

A question might be simple to understand but your response won’t be easy to unpack.

You might have a simple explanation for some of your research results but the work to get to that realisation will have been anything but easy.

And your examiners might ask some simple questions to start your viva – “Can you summarise X?” or “Why did you explore this area?” – but know that your thoughtful response will be anything but easy.

The challenge of the viva is relatively simple to explain. The work you’ll do at the viva will not be easy.

 

PS: Looking for more viva help? Then check out tomorrow’s live Viva Survivor webinar where I’ll share viva help for three hours! You’ll get four-week access to a recording of the session and follow-up materials too. There’s more information at the link and registration closes this afternoon. Thanks for reading!

Nathan

On Track

Daily Post

What might it take to convince you that you’re on track to succeed at your PhD?

If you have questions about viva regulations and the process then information is available (from many sources) to satisfy your questions. If you need to finish your thesis or research then time, work and support will help remove those obstacles. Or if you’re done with all of that but need to get ready then there’s a wealth of ideas on good viva prep.

But if you have all of this and you need confidence – something to help you feel certain – then perhaps the only place to find that help is from yourself.

You need to look back, reflect, consider and recognise how you’ve got as far as you have. You did all of that so you can do the work needed at your viva.

You are undoubtedly on track to succeed.

 

PS: I’ll share a lot more about the viva process and confidence at my live 3-hour Viva Survivor webinar this Wednesday 25th March 2026! You’ll get four-week access to a recording of the session and follow-up materials too. Registration closes tomorrow afternoon and there’s more information at the link. Please get in touch if you have any questions or want to know more. Thanks for reading!

Nathan

Who Knows?

Daily Post

If you and your examiners all know about something then you can talk with the same reference points.

If you know something and your examiners don’t then you might have to explain something to them so that you can have a fruitful discussion.

If your examiners know something and you don’t then you will benefit from being ready to ask questions so that you know more and can respond to their questions.

Neither you nor your examiners can know everything! There might be topics or questions where no-one knows the truth and none of you have given much thought to it previously. That doesn’t mean you can’t take the opportunity of the viva to use what you do know to consider and discuss.

Whatever you or your examiners know or don’t know, because the viva is a conversation you have space to think, ask questions, offer ideas and make the most of the opportunity.

 

Inspired by thinking about the Johari Window model!

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