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Tag: getting ready

Nathan

Respond Well

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Two words that really summarise what you need to do in the viva.

Respond: you don’t have to have an answer for every question. You may or may not have an idea or opinion that’s fully formed. The viva is a discussion, not an interview, not a quiz. You respond to questions, offering what you can…

Well: …and it has to be your best thinking in that moment. Whatever you remember, know or can piece together needs to be shared clearly. You need to pause and think about what your examiners are really asking, so that you can meet the expectations of their question or comment.

Respond well. Pause, think, speak.

Nathan

Your Preferences & Needs

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Preferences are the things that we’d like, but which we could work around if needed. Preferences for your viva and viva prep might include:

  • Starting in a morning;
  • Reading your thesis with a fresh pot of coffee;
  • Knowing your external a little;
  • Having a mock viva to help you get ready.

You might have a strong preference but, for example, if your supervisor was unable to host a mock viva then you would still go on.

Needs are different. For your viva and viva prep you might need:

  • Advance notice or special arrangements for your viva;
  • Specific stationery or time to annotate your thesis;
  • Agreement that your viva will definitely be over video;
  • To not have a mock viva!

Preferences are very different from needs.

 

To begin with: what do you want for your viva? Which of these wants are preferences and which are needs?

For the preferences: what can you do to get your preferences met? Who might you need to ask for help? What could you do if a preference couldn’t be fulfilled?

For your needs: what can you do to ensure your needs are met? Who can you ask for support? How can you clearly communicate those needs to the people who need to know?

Nathan

Preparing When Busy

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You could have many things to do when you’re getting ready for your viva – work, family life, responsibilities and obligations – and viva preparation might not break into your top ten time commitments.

It won’t help to be stressed. It won’t help to rush. It won’t be a boost to your confidence if you have to cram prep work in.

So plan ahead.

At submission or in the weeks leading up to it, get a sense of your diary. You may not know your exact viva date but you will have an idea of when it will be – as well as an idea of everything else that you have in your life.

Plan. Break down the prep tasks, sketch out the timeline between submission and the viva. Give yourself breaks. Ask for help and ask for space.

Whatever you do, don’t overload your schedule to success.

Nathan

Small, Medium, Large

Daily Post

Or, a handy guide to the scope and scale of various viva preparation activities!

Small Tasks

  • Downloading regulations for your institution.
  • Putting a sticky note at the start of each chapter of your thesis.
  • Bookmarking the staff pages of your examiners.
  • Messaging a friend to go for coffee and talk.
  • Raiding the stationery cupboard for annotation supplies.

Medium Tasks

  • Preparing a plan for completing your viva prep.
  • Reading half a chapter of your thesis.
  • Working through with highlighter to mark out key references.
  • Summarising five important ideas from your research.
  • Reading regulations or stories of viva success.

Large Tasks

  • Having a mock viva.
  • Reviewing your thesis and reflecting on it.
  • Giving a presentation to rehearse key thesis ideas.
  • Writing a list of ten key papers in your bibliography.
  • Building your confidence for the viva.

There’s lots you could do to get ready. You don’t need to do everything, but everything you do will help.

Nathan

Colourful Prep

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You have an opportunity during viva prep to make your thesis as useful as possible for you. Thesis annotation doesn’t just mean writing notes in the margins. Perhaps using colour could help, for example:

  • You could underline typos with red to mark them out simply.
  • Use sticky notes to show the start of chapters or help locate important pages.
  • Apply highlighters consistently to show certain kinds of information clearly.
  • Use highlighter tabs as a colour-coding system of annotation.

These suggestions are just to start your thinking. There’s a lot more you could do when you consider the specifics of your thesis and the information in there.

How could you use a little colour to help your viva prep?

Nathan

Imperfect Reflections

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Looking in a mirror shows things reversed. Looking in a spoon shows things distorted. And reflecting on research doesn’t automatically reveal everything we want or need.

  • Gathering thoughts or summarising ideas doesn’t tell the whole story.
  • Focussing questions mean that some points have to be left out.
  • Memory can be faulty and our biases can cover up things that they shouldn’t.

With all of that in mind, perhaps the best thing you can do when when reflecting on your research for viva preparation is to reflect a lot.

Ask lots of questions. Create lots of small summaries. Find many different ways to look at what you’ve done, how you did it, why you did it and what happened.

A reflection is never perfect, but by exploring different perspectives you will find more than if you just looked back one time on one aspect.

Nathan

Mini-Viva Modifiers

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In a few months it will be five years since I first published 7776 Mini-Vivas – a little game to play and get practice for the kinds of discussion you might face in the viva. I’m going to do something special to mark five years since I made it, but I don’t know what yet!

Since making 7776 Mini-Vivas I’ve made a small printed version, adapted it in several ways and occasionally shared other posts here with particular question sets. You can use it as a reflection tool, as conversation practice and as a means to rehearse key questions or ideas.

Take a look at 7776 Mini-Vivas if you haven’t already; explore the resource and think about how you could use it to get ready for your viva. I’ve been thinking about ideas for variants on the concept a lot lately. If you’re looking for more fun ways to use it, here are six:

  1. Reverse: roll dice but then start with the last question and work backwards.
  2. Extra: for a longer mini-viva, get a second person to ask another question from each set.
  3. Keywords: take twenty seconds before responding to write down keywords to help your response.
  4. Five Minutes: take a question from each set and use them as the backbone for a five minute presentation.
  5. All The Ones: take a single sheet of paper and use question 1 from each set to write a summary of your research.
  6. And All The Sixes: take a sheet of paper and use question 6 from each set to reflect on the more challenging aspects of your PhD.

How else could you use the idea of having a mini-viva or two to help you get ready?

Nathan

What’s Your Real Worry?

Daily Post

If you feel worried about any aspect of your viva, ask yourself why first. For example:

“I feel worried about the discussion…”

Why?

“I’m worried I might forget something important…”

When you know what’s behind a worry you can start to do something about. You could reflect and think of possible steps to take. Continuing the example, possible next steps could be:

  • Highlighting information;
  • Adding notes in the margin;
  • Attaching sticky notes to key pages;
  • Writing summaries of important ideas;
  • Rehearsing for the viva.

These are all possible steps to help. Individually they might not be solutions to the problem, but they could move someone closer to feeling better about the worry. When you have possible steps, you then have to do something.

 

When faced with a worry about the viva, follow three steps:

  • Ask yourself “Why is this a worry for me?” – and dig a little deeper into what’s really wrong.
  • Reflect and think “How could I do something about this?” – find options that could help.
  • Decide, “What will I do now?” – and take action to help yourself.

Why is this a worry? How could I do something? What will I do?

Nathan

Motivations & Questions

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There are three things your examiners have to do in your viva:

  • Explore your significant original contribution;
  • Unpick the hows and whys of your research;
  • Examine your capability as a researcher.

They have to do this. There’s a lot to talk about and a lot that could be brought up through the discussion, but as a starting point, consider how you would respond to these three questions:

  • Why would someone value your research?
  • How did you solve a difficult problem in your PhD journey?
  • What can you recognise as an area of growth in your ability?

Each question corresponds to a point from above; there’s more to ask, more to say and these are just starting points. But what would you say?

Nathan

Disarming Distractions

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I need to remove distractions so that I can focus on my writing and projects.

I have to turn my email software off. Same for social media. I make sure I have drinks on my desk so I can’t use the excuse of getting up to avoid work. I wear noise-cancelling headphones and only listen to music without speech or singing.

And I always sit down with a plan so that I’m not distracted by debating with myself about “the best thing to write”!

 

When you focus on viva preparation think about the situation where you’ll be doing the work. What can you do to remove distractions? What can you do to create peace, quiet and calm for yourself?

Perhaps you need to tell people to leave you alone or give you space. Maybe you need to put headphones on or shut a door. Gather your resources first so that you aren’t tempted to get up and get more things.

And come to your preparations with a plan. Don’t decide what you’ll do in the moment, decide in advance to get rid of distractions.

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