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Nathan

Your Work Matters

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In preparation for your viva, take some time to reflect on why your work makes a difference. Unpick the ideas that matter, reflect on why your work is valuable.

Your examiners want to talk to you about why your research is a significant, original contribution – and so you have to be ready to talk, discuss, think, reflect and respond.

Between submission and your viva:

  • Read your thesis and focus on what makes your work matter.
  • Highlight contributions that make a clear difference.
  • Use reflective questions to write summaries about key elements.
  • Rehearse responding to questions and discuss your work with your supervisors and others.

Remember that your work matters. It must – or you wouldn’t have come as far as you have on this journey.

Nathan

Elevate Your Pitch

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It’s unlikely that you will have to give an elevator pitch of your research at the viva. I’ve never heard of examiners asking for a polished thirty-second or two-minute overview of 3+ years of work.

But that said, exploring a concise summary could be a useful part of viva prep. You could:

  • Highlight the most important points of your research;
  • Organise your thinking about key ideas;
  • Rehearse using technical terms and jargon;
  • Practise talking about your work.

Your examiners don’t want a pre-prepared speech as a response in your viva, but rehearsing a pitch for your research could help how you think and talk on the day.

Nathan

Measuring Up

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My wife found beautiful curtains in a local charity shop. They were a lovely pattern, they would look good alongside the colour of our living room walls and tone in with the furniture. They were clean and in great condition, and the shop was asking a very fair price for them.

She brought them home, and I leapt into action. Stepladders out, old curtains down, curtain hooks off, hooks on the new curtains and back up the stepladders to hang them.

And discover that the beautiful curtains were six inches too short for the length of our windows.

All of which is a fun little true story to say: find out as much as you can about realistic and relevant viva expectations before you take steps to get ready for your viva. Make sure that your understanding of the viva measures up to expectations – rather than have your actions fall short of what’s needed!

Nathan

Slowly

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There doesn’t need to be rush in viva prep.

Before you get to submission, sketch out a plan. Think about your life, commitments and responsibilities. Plan your prep so the work gets done. Bit by bit. Day by day. Slow prep is much better than racing to pack it all in at the last moment.

No-one has to sprint through their viva.

Listen to each question. Take your time to consider what you will add to the discussion. Ask questions. Check your thesis. There’s no race to get it over and done with. Some vivas are short but no viva has been made better by trying to get through it quickly.

Take your time with prep, take your time with your viva. Slow and steady will take you to success.

Nathan

The Viva Needs More Understanding

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Candidates need to know more about examiners: how they prepare, what’s involved, what they’re asking, what they might ask and do and why.

Examiners need to know more about candidates and the PhD journey in the 2020s: they need to understand the particular thesis they’re looking at, the general experience of PGRs, the impact of COVID and more.

Supervisors need to understand the viva situation: they need to have a good handle on expectations, what helps in preparation, they have to grasp their candidates’ situations and advise them well.

And then there are researcher-developers, policy-makers, regulation-writers, awesome administrators and sensational support staff.

The viva needs more understanding. Or perhaps it is better to say that if everyone involved knew more about it then the viva, how it happens, how it’s prepared for and how it’s talked about could be better for everyone involved.

 

What can you do to improve your understanding about the viva before you have yours? Who could you ask? What do you need to know? And when you’ve been through the process, who could you share your experience with to help others with their understanding?

Nathan

Drivers, Worries, Actions

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In the viva, examiners drive the discussion by asking questions that:

  1. Explore your contribution;
  2. Investigate your authorship;
  3. Assess your capability as a researcher.

In turn, a candidate typically worries that:

  1. They haven’t done enough;
  2. They won’t remember enough about the process;
  3. They aren’t good enough to get a PhD.

To combat these a candidate could:

  1. Review their thesis and work to build confidence in the contribution;
  2. Rehearse explaining how they did the PhD to build confidence in describing the work;
  3. Reflect and remember how they have developed to build confidence in themselves.

Preparation helps with the discussion and lessening worries!

Nathan

Going Back

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What would you change about your viva prep if you could go back and do it over?

I was asked this at a recent webinar. I knew immediately what I would change: I would have a mock viva. I definitely spent way more time on getting ready for my viva than any typical postgraduate researcher would need, but the one thing I didn’t do was rehearse.

For five or six weeks I read my thesis, made notes on pages and read my examiners’ work. I checked several papers I’d forgotten and had a weekly meeting with my supervisor where we talked about a thesis chapter. My examiners asked me to prepare slides to give a presentation for the start of my viva.

And while all of this helped, none of it prepared me directly for the simple thing I would spend my time doing in the viva: responding to questions and being part of a discussion.

So what would I do differently? Rehearse. I recommend every candidate do this too!

Nathan

A Few Weeks

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Viva preparation doesn’t have to take a long time. It isn’t a huge amount of work, not compared to the scope and scale of a PhD.

It doesn’t take long, generally, to read a thesis, make some notes, capture thoughts and rehearse for the viva. A few weeks can be enough to space the work out. A few weeks of reflection and preparation.

A few weeks to remind yourself of what you’ve done, how you did it and why you’re capable of succeeding in the viva.

Nathan

A Recipe For Viva Stress

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Take several years of difficult and demanding work.

Sieve together with months of writing.

Stir in vague half-truths and uncertain expectations.

Add two experienced academics to the mix.

Fold together with nervousness, worry, future plans and, depending on circumstances, pandemic-related uncertainty.

Bring to a slow boil over weeks of preparation and serve at the appropriate time.

 

A candidate might not feel stressed, but it’s not hard to appreciate why someone could be stressed by the thought of their viva. They would most probably still pass but the experience might be uncomfortable.

There’s no silver bullet to defeat viva stress, but there are remedies for each of the ingredients above.

Review your work and highlight what really matters. Re-read your thesis to be sure of how information flows. Find out more about what happens at vivas. Check recent publications by your examiners. And instead of bottling up stress as you prepare, use that time to build your confidence.

There’s a clear recipe for viva stress – but you don’t have to follow it.

Nathan

Lists Leverage Lots

Daily Post

I love starting something with a list. There are lots of lists that can help with getting ready for the viva:

  • A list of key references in your bibliography.
  • A list of important results from your thesis.
  • A list of questions you anticipate at your viva.
  • A list of things to do as part of viva prep.
  • A list of annotations you could add to your thesis.
  • A list of people who could help you get ready.
  • A list of questions to ask your supervisor.
  • A list of typos that you find while reading before your viva.
  • And an incomplete list of possible lists that you may write as part of your viva prep!!!

You start something with a list. A list can focus or highlight, but it’s not the real work.

Any of the lists above and any others you might write could lead you to action or summarise information. So once you have a list related to your viva or prep, ask yourself what you need to do next.

Then do it.

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