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Nathan

Rough Edges

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Thesis submission typically comes after many hundreds of days of work: learning, development, growth and making something. You can’t get to that point without learning how to do something well.

Perfection isn’t attainable, but viva prep is a short period of time to help you get better for the particular task of the viva. You can clean up the rough edges of your memory, smooth over common stumbles in how you explain things and be more confident for meeting your examiners.

It’s a little work, but it can help a lot.

Nathan

Viva Prep Party!

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Imagine that viva prep is an amazing party!

  • Look at your diary and think about when you’ll host it.
  • Who do you invite?
  • Do you need to invite more people so that you can be sure of enough help?
  • What supplies do you need to make sure that it goes well?
  • It’s a really long party probably, so what will happen when?
  • What do you need to do in advance to help it along?
  • And how will you maintain your own energy throughout?

Of course, viva prep is not a party but similar questions can help you organise, get help and do the work well.

That way you’re ready for the celebrations after your viva!

Nathan

Before You Finish

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Before you submit your thesis check and double-check that it says everything you want it to say.

Before your viva day take time to get ready: practical preparations and confidence building!

Before your viva begins spend a couple of moments breathing, reminding yourself that you have done everything you can to get ready and that you have done enough to pass your viva.

Before the end of your viva take a moment to see if there are any questions you want to ask your examiners.

And before you finish your PhD journey take a little time to really reflect on what the journey has meant to you.

It’s more than a book you’ve written or a piece of paper you get from your institution.

Nathan

Writing Size Comparison

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There are many scales of writing that help you prepare for your viva.

Book: your thesis. You wrote it and can read it in advance of your viva to refresh your memory. You can also take it with you to the viva to refer to (and annotate it before then to make it even better).

Page: a long summary, a cheat sheet, a list of points or typos, a to-do list and more. Your thesis has lots of pages too; annotating it could be helpful to mark some out with sticky notes or page tabs.

Paragraph: a short summary. A couple of sentences that captures an overview of your contribution. A few lines on the skills you’ve developed. An outline of a specific argument that you want to remember.

Sentence: write out individual helpful points. What do you need to remember? How else can you phrase a key idea? How could you neatly summarise a page?

There’s a lot written to get you to submission and more that you can write afterwards to help as you prepare – and perhaps we can get even smaller…

Words: Success. Prepare. Confidence. Achievement. Passed.

Nathan

Prep To Succeed

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Viva prep gives space to review and reflect, highlights important information and allows you to rehearse the kind of work you’ll do in the viva.

Viva preparation is a series of actions leading to success.

Do the work and you’ll be prepared, not perfect. You don’t succeed by getting all the right answers, but by being ready to respond to the questions and comments of your examiners.

Nathan

Key Papers

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Here’s a little viva prep activity that will probably take less than an hour.

With your thesis to hand write a list of ten key papers that have helped your research. Don’t overthink: just list whichever papers come to mind or which stand out when you glance through your thesis.

Once you have your list, take a few minutes to reflect on each paper and write a sentence or two to respond to each of these questions:

  1. Why is this a key paper in developing my thesis research?
  2. How did it help my work directly?
  3. What was the result or impact of using this paper?

In less than an hour you’ll have written clear, concise notes about what matters most in the best of your bibliography.

Nathan

Expectations & Responsibilities

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Viva expectations invite responsibilities.

  • If vivas are generally expected to take hours then you and your examiners have a responsibility to be ready for that situation.
  • If vivas typically begin with certain types of starter question then you have a responsibility to prepare for that line of discussion.
  • If vivas are discussion-based then you have a responsibility to be ready to respond to questions – and willing to share your research, your thesis and yourself.
  • If you’re expected to succeed then you have a responsibility to prepare as well as you can – while examiners work towards making the viva the right environment for that outcome.

And most generally, if vivas have expectations then you have a responsibility first to learn about them. Knowing what to expect, even if that covers a range of possible experiences, gives you an opportunity to be as well-prepared as you can.

Nathan

Trusted Perspectives

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When you’re getting ready for your viva ask people who know about vivas. Get specific help rather than general impressions.

When you’re getting ready ask people who know you for help. Ask friends about their experiences and for a little of their time. Ask your supervisors to give you their considered thoughts about your work and about the viva itself.

When getting ready ask your institution for support. Ask them for the regulations, check what things mean and learn who to talk to in case anything goes wrong.

Above all, ask the right questions of the right people. Look around widely for support, but ask people you can trust first: you can trust them either because they know you or they know what you need to know.

Nathan

A Manifesto On Good Viva Prep

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This isn’t finished, but here are some thoughts that I’ve been knitting together for a long time…

Good viva prep is personal. It responds to the needs of a candidate.

Good viva prep is effective. It takes only the time needed and meets the needs of a candidate.

Good viva prep is planned in advance. A candidate’s time is valuable and stress and rush can only hinder readiness.

Good viva prep creates greater certainty. It improves understanding of the general experience of the viva and gives greater confidence in being ready for the viva.

Good viva prep is supported by others. This happens in big and small ways, because while getting ready is the candidate’s responsibility it will be better with help.

And good viva prep is only as good as a candidate makes it – so make yours good!

Nathan

Make A Choice

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You can’t press a button and feel ready for your viva, but you can decide that that’s your destination.

You can’t just arrive there, like a science-fiction teleporter, but you can know where you want to be and act to move in that direction.

If you want to be ready for your viva, what could you do?

Without diving into a blog with over 2000 entries or asking your friends or listening to a podcast or picking up an ebook or two, what could you do? What small (or big) steps could you take to being ready?

What will you do?

Make the choice to be ready for your viva. Then start getting ready. There’s work to do, but it doesn’t have to be more complicated than saying, “I’m going to do this.”

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