Daily viva help for PhDs
That’s the viva in a nutshell.
You invested years of work into research and months into writing up. Now, for a few hours: say more, do more. Say more about your work; do more in thinking and understanding and demonstrating that you’re a capable researcher.
Not for long, not on the same timescale as before. It might feel pressured but remember that the years of work help you to say more and do more for a few hours more.
A day off in the weeks leading up to your viva is not going to detract from your viva performance.
A day off in the week leading up to your viva doesn’t mean that you’re not taking it seriously.
A day off the day before your viva is possibly the best thing you can do, assuming you’ve already invested time in getting ready.
Rest helps. Unless you can’t sit still, unless you just have to do something, then taking some time to relax, recover, rest, destress and focus on being well is perhaps the most helpful thing you can do to help yourself before the viva.
Take today to rest, if you can.
Examiners sometimes ask a candidate to prepare a short presentation to open the viva. They’re always clear about whether or not this is something they want: regulations might mention them, your department might have them often, but your examiners will be specific about whether or not they want one, and if they do, help set some expectations for what you could do.
“Ten to fifteen minutes summarising your thesis.”
“A short overview of each of your chapters and their key points.”
If your examiners ask for a presentation then prepare one in a style that works for you. Break your work down as best you can. Practise doing it so that you know you’ve got your points covered in the time you have, then go and start your viva in a good way.
If your examiners don’t ask for a presentation, there could still be a lot of value in preparing for one.
Summarise your work, connect ideas clearly and concisely, then practise delivering it with an audience of friends who can ask you questions and offer thoughts. There may be a little more work involved with this than with a lot of general viva prep ideas, but it can be a really useful way to help convince yourself you’re ready for your viva.
“Anything could happen!”
I’ve heard academics and PhD candidates say that about the viva, and while there’s a sort of truth to it, the statement also misses a lot. Anything could happen, but it rarely does. The vast majority of vivas are completed within three hours, most vivas have two examiners and there are common opening questions. While there’s no way you could expect a particular script of questions they might ask you, you can reasonably expect certain areas to come up.
Going back to my pure maths days, the topic of viva expectations reminds of prime numbers. There are infinite prime numbers – 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 and so on – numbers which can only be divided by themselves and 1 without leaving a remainder. There is no end to them. And yet there are many, many ways we can categorise them.
There’s one even prime, and infinitely many odd ones. There are primes that form little pairs, twin primes, which are separated by adding 2, for example, 3 and 5, 5 and 7, 11 and 13. There are primes like 23 and 37 that aren’t twin and don’t form little couples. After the number 2 we could group together all primes according to whether or not they are 1 modulo 4 or 3 modulo 4 – but really we’re getting away from the topic here!
There are infinitely many primes, they go on for ever – and yet there are many useful ways we can group them, categorise them and learn from them.
There are countless different vivas, anything could happen, but also patterns and structures that we can see and even expect.
Again: anything could happen in the viva, but “anything” very rarely does. It’s far more useful for you to find out about common expectations and learn from them than to try and prepare for infinite possibilities.
How will your viva end?
Will your examiners simply say something like, “I think we’ve talked enough,” and then request a short break?
Will they ask you if you have any questions or anything else you want to say?
It’s hard to say how your viva will finish. It won’t hurt you to reflect on what you might say in advance.
A question about developing your work further could make for a short, interesting conversation. Asking about publications or funding opportunities might help you gain the benefit of your examiners’ experience. Or coming back to a point from your research could help you to say one more good thing about what you’ve done.
Reflect a little in advance, then see what happens on the day. The closing moments won’t make or break anything, but they could help you to feel a little bit better or gain a little more knowledge.
Tomorrow is the best time to start building your confidence for the viva – assuming you didn’t do it yesterday and you’re busy today.
Tomorrow, take five minutes to write down a few thoughts about something that you’ve achieved in the course of your PhD. Capture a result, an idea, a paper, a chapter, a skill that you’ve developed, a knowledge-based competence – something you’ve done that has helped you get to where you are.
And keep going every day. Five minutes of reflection every day, building up a short story collection of the last few years. A collection of little story fragments that point to you being good at what you do. A story that, when combined, shows you can be confident you’re ready for your viva.
Thinking about how to prepare for the viva stresses some candidates. There can be lots of factors at play.
I have work, I have kids, I have so little time, I’m tired, I’m stressed, what to do, when to start, where to focus and so on.
I can’t answer every possible concern, but my advice generally comes down to four short thoughts:
Engaging with prep doesn’t need to be much harder than that.
To date, there’s probably over 101 posts on this blog about viva prep. I’ve explored this topic a lot, but you don’t need to do 101 things to be ready for your viva.
Keep it simple. Cut through stress and worry with something as simple as a to-do list. Keep taking small steps to get to where you need to be.
“I have 200 references in my bibliography! How can I remember all those details?! What do I do if my examiners ask me about one of them??”
The 200 reference problem is not actually a problem. It’s a not-irrational worry linked to being perfect, the desire to know everything and be ultra-competent, but isn’t something to invest attention in.
How can I remember all those details? You can’t. Don’t try. Look for the most important references and do your best with those. It’s likely you’ve highlighted them in your thesis, but creating an edited bibliography could help you too.
What if my examiners ask me about one of these references? If your examiners ask you about one you can’t remember off-hand, you can check your thesis. It’s there with you in the viva to support your discussion. So check it. But it’s far more likely that your examiners will ask you about something important, something you know, than a random paper buried deep in the seventeenth page of your bibliography.
The 200 reference problem isn’t a problem. It’s a nudge to look again at your references and figure out how to use them as part of getting ready.
You need to read your thesis to get ready for the viva. Then look deeply. Really look. What do you see?
Scanning your work isn’t sufficient to be ready for your viva, but it helps you get there. Looking at and analysing the larger “bones” of your thesis is better than trying to commit hundreds of pages of words to memory.
I’ve shared a few posts for being playful in getting ready for the viva before, but nothing so comprehensive as Professor Pat Thomson’s post from March on “ten playful viva preparation activities“.
I love all of her suggestions, but the first particularly resonates given my general philosophy on getting ready for the viva – and my recent reflections on the end of my PhD:
Write a love letter to your Doctor self, listing all of the expert doctoral qualities and competencies they have. Write a break up letter to your student self, saying why you lived with them for so long, and explaining why it’s now time to leave them behind.
It would have been really helpful if Past-Nathan had taken some time to write a few letters to myself. I think I’d have felt better about how I was finishing. Working through that transition as I was coming to the end might have felt a little smoother.
There’s lots of great ideas in Pat’s list, so do go and check it out. Consider: how else could you play your way to prepared?