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Tag: create summaries

Nathan

Finding Questions

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Where did your research questions come from?

How did they develop over time?

How did your reading change the questions you asked during your PhD?

Where will your examiners’ questions come from?

What do you expect you will be asked? Why?

What do you hope not to talk about? Why?

 

Reflecting and creating summaries helps you think ahead for your viva. Rehearsing helps you to find words in the moment and be ready for the conversations that you’ll have at the viva.

Explore how you found your research questions in the past and also consider the questions that could be coming your way in the future.

Nathan

It Didn’t Work

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A failure or setback in your research doesn’t have to be a terrible source of stress for your viva. For any problems you faced, take a little time in your preparation to reflect and make notes:

  • Why was there an issue?
  • How did you attempt to resolve it?
  • What was the result of your efforts?

If something didn’t work then understand why and decide on how you might explain this to your examiners. If something didn’t work you need to prepare for talking about it.

Then, more importantly, remember what did work and explore how you would talk about that with your examiners.

You have to be ready to talk about problems- but it’s more important to talk about your success.

Nathan

Summary Success

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Creating a summary of part of your thesis or research is a big win for viva prep.

A summary is an opportunity to gather your thoughts. You can take a little time to focus on something that matters.

A summary is a small project to make a helpful resource. You benefit from the mental effort to get it done and again by having something to refer to afterwards.

Take time to create a few summaries during your viva prep period. Think about what really matters in your work and what you might need to focus on in your viva to get started.

Nathan

Thinking In Advance

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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

1 Page, 3 Questions, 30 Minutes

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A thirty-minute thought-gathering task for viva prep!

Take a single sheet of paper, divide it into three parts and write the following questions, one in each part:

  • Why did you want to do your research?
  • How did you do it?
  • What was the result of all your work?

Then reflect and capture your thoughts for each of these questions. Why did you want to do this? How did you do it? What was the result?

Thirty minutes of thinking and writing won’t give you every single detail of years of research and the many pages in your thesis.

Thirty minutes of work will give you a good overview of what you work means, how you got it done and why it’s a valuable contribution to your discipline.

Nathan

Capturing Thoughts

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There are lots of posts on this site that encourage creating summaries or making lists. This isn’t because your examiners need to see them or expect you to quote from them in the viva.

Creating a summary is an opportunity to capture your thoughts on a topic, whether that’s the broad details of a research method or the key points of your examiners’ recent papers.

A summary or a list helps put your thoughts into words. If you have any topics, ideas, results or research that you need to make clearer as you prepare then take an hour to write a summary. You’re not crafting perfect paragraphs to quote: you’re finding words to help you think clearly.

Take a little time during your viva prep to make notes, write summaries and break down key information.

Nathan

7 Summary Starters

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Writing a summary of your research, or some part of it, is useful for viva prep because it gets you making abstract ideas more concrete. It can be tricky to get started when faced with a blank page or a new text document. Sometimes the simplest way to start writing a summary is to answer a question:

  1. What got you started with your research topic?
  2. What was the paper or book that really hooked your interest?
  3. How would you describe your thesis contribution?
  4. What’s important about your thesis/research?
  5. What papers have been most helpful for your research?
  6. What has surprised you about your research?
  7. How has your research changed during your PhD?

If you use these questions, don’t just think about them, write down some thoughts. You don’t have to write perfect paragraphs, but capturing your ideas will help your thinking in the long term.