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Nathan

Tidy Preparation

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Get organised for your prep when you submit your thesis.

If you need help then let people know as soon as possible.

Gather up your supplies: notebook, stationery, printing, files, links and more.

Make a plan. Make two! Sketch out how you might get the work done in several ways to see what works best for you.

As you work keep track of what you’ve done. A record of finished tasks will help you feel better as you get closer to your viva.

Keep everything nice and tidy. A little thought will help you get through prep well.

Nathan

The Long Way

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There are little tasks that help you get ready for your viva. You can add sticky notes to the start of thesis chapters, read the regulations or list questions that occur to you as possible viva starters.

 

For the most part, like the rest of your PhD, you have to see viva prep as a journey with no shortcuts.

It’s the long way for you.

You have to do the work.

There are no AI quick fixes, no top tips or hacks that get you past reading your thesis, thinking, rehearsing and everything else involved.

 

The long way is the sure way. While your journey will be different from every other there are so many viva and viva prep experiences that you’re bound to find some help if you ask for ideas.

You don’t need shortcuts but knowing the routes that others have taken can help a lot.

Nathan

7 Weeks

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That’s roughly how long I had to prepare for my viva. Here are seven thoughts from those seven weeks in the dim and distant past of 2008:

  1. I took a break when I submitted. Not a big one, just a week to rest from the final busy days leading to submission. Starting viva prep rested helps.
  2. I made a lot of notes. I annotated my thesis. I wrote summaries. I did a lot of things to help my memory because I didn’t really know what to expect from my viva.
  3. My examiners asked me to prepare a presentation to start my viva when the date was set. It was helpful to have something concrete to do. Preparing a presentation also helped with other parts of prep.
  4. I didn’t have a mock viva with my supervisor. We continued to meet once per week and talked over each chapter. I wish I’d thought to ask him more about what vivas were like.
  5. My supervisor also told me to look at my external examiner’s research area. It was very different to my own. He thought it would be good to get an understanding of it and he was right!
  6. I wasn’t nervous until ten minutes before my viva. That happened because I didn’t sleep well the night before. I felt very tired as I was unpacking my bag; nervousness hit me hard but at least I had my presentation to focus on.
  7. Looking back I can see that I was confident that I had a good thesis. I can also see that I wasn’t feeling confident in my own ability at the viva. With hindsight I wonder if I had been pushing away nerves and worry for weeks leading up to my viva.

Of course, hindsight is wonderful! I was on the right track for a lot of my prep. I could have done better if I had paid attention rather than ignored how I was feeling.

How are you getting ready for your viva? What are you feeling? And what are you doing as a result of those feelings?

Nathan

The 3Ps Of Good Viva Prep

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Good viva prep is practical: there’s a lot of thought involved but you areĀ doing things, not simply thinking about your research, thesis and viva. You might be writing summaries, rehearsing, reading and annotating or something else. Good viva prep is practical.

Good viva prep is personal: there are big picture principles of the work involved but you need to do them in a way that meets your needs, your research and your circumstances. How will you write summaries, rehearse or annotate your thesis? Good viva prep is personal.

Good viva prep is planned: there’s plenty of time between submission and the viva to get ready but you also have a life. Rather than wing it with the work and potentially build up stress, plan for when you will write summaries, rehearse and annotate your thesis. Good viva prep is planned.

Good viva prep is practical, personal and planned.

Nathan

Secret Prep

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My friend Shaine didn’t tell any of us about his viva.

We didn’t even know he was actively preparing for it. We found out about his viva as it was happening! There was a hurried series of text messages around our group when we learned on the day. It was a shock but he had his reasons. And we still celebrated with him when it was over and done.

My typical viva prep advice would be to tell friends about your viva, ask for their help with your prep and so on. This is overridden by the greater need to make sure that your viva prep process meets your needs, preferences and circumstances.

If it’s important to you that your viva and prep time be secret then do that. And, more importantly, if you realise that something else is really important for your prep then follow that instinct too.

Prep is personal. Do what you need to do to get ready.

 

PS: You’ll find a lot more help with viva prep in the latest issue of Viva Survivors Select! The 2025 Issue collects twenty of my favourite blog posts from last year and adds two new pages of viva help – including a game that’s all about viva prep. You can find the zine here along with a few of the pages to get a sense of what the issue is like. Do pick it up if it seems helpful and you value what I share on the Viva Survivors blog šŸ™‚ And please spread the word if you can!

Nathan

Options For Prep

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Good viva prep has core activities: reading your thesis, making notes, creating summaries, checking papers and rehearsing for the viva. Every candidate needs to do these sorts of things and every candidate needs to considerĀ how they will do them.

What are your options?

How someone prepares depends on many things:

  • How much time do you have between submission and your viva?
  • How busy are you? (or how pressured is your time?)
  • What do you need to do to get ready?
  • Are there special factors to take into consideration for your viva and viva prep?
  • And what preferences do you have for organising yourself, taking in information, annotating your work and getting help from others?

There are many possibilities and so many options generally for getting ready for the viva – even if the work itself builds on a few core activities.

Consider your options for prep when you get to submission. Sketch a few plans and see what fits best. Make sure you’re covering the core activities and meeting your needs.

That’s your best option.

Nathan

Five 1-Page Summaries

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A summary is a helpful tool to use as part of viva prep. Think of one as a little project for gathering your thoughts ahead of the viva.

Summaries come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; they can bend to meet your needs and preferences. I’ve described a lot of summary ideas on the blog before – and shared a whole zine of ideas last year about how they help someone focus ahead of their viva!

Here are five 1-page summary ideas you could use to help yourself get ready for your viva.

  1. Give yourself an hour to write a list of the ten most helpful references in your bibliography. Write a sentence for each about how they helped your research.
  2. Take ten minutes to list as many keywords as you can think of that are related to your research. After a day take another ten minutes to draw lines between connected keywords and ideas.
  3. Invest thirty minutes in sketching out prep ideas. Capture any tasks or requirements for your preparation.
  4. Divide the page into three equal parts and write the following questions, one in each space: Why did I do this research? How did I do it? What is the result? Spend ten or twenty minutes writing notes and thoughts down for each question.
  5. Split the page in two. Take five minutes and on the lefthand side note down any questions, problems or concerns you have about your viva. On the righthand side, working down your list, write at least one practical step you could do to help with the item on the lefthand list.

What else could you do with a single page to help your prep?

Nathan

That Next Step

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Whether you prepare for your viva in a series of twenty minute tasks or use three-hour blocks of activity, do yourself a favour: finish your prep time by making a note of the thing you’ll do next.

PhD candidates often find themselves getting ready by working around all of the other things in their life. This can mean prep time is work when they’re already tired and not in the mood to do more work. A note made ahead of time can remove friction, take away one more decision and give direction when someone needs it.

  • Read Chapter 3.
  • Make a list of key references.
  • Suggest mock viva dates.

When you plan ahead even a little you free up space to work well. Do yourself a favour and decide in advance what your next step will be when you finish a piece of viva prep.

Nathan

Final Focus

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I try not to be overly prescriptive or proscriptive when it comes to advice about viva prep.

There are certain kinds of work that are helpful when someone is getting ready for their viva but every candidate faces their own challenges and situation. There are approaches to planning prep (start with reading, for example) that would seem appropriate for every candidate…

…but what might be a good approach for one person could be bad for someone else. You might need to read your thesis over the course of a week in preparation for your viva while a friend has the opportunity and impulse to read theirs in one afternoon.

I emphasise the kinds of work that help not how someone “must” do them. It’s helpful to make a plan but you need to make a plan that works for you.

And with all of that said, one thing I would encourage is to give a little focus towards your confidence at the end of your preparations.

A few days before your viva take some time to think about your PhD journey. Note down what you’ve done and what it means. Recognise the talents that you have developed and see them as a foundation for confidence at meeting your examiners.

Nathan

What Are Your Distractions?

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I wear noise-cancelling headphones when I’m writing. Sometimes I forget to put music on; I can sit and write for an hour and realise that I didn’t pick something to listen to. The trigger that helps me focus is the headphones rather than the music (or, at least, the headphones are enough to help me focus).

It might help you to think about how you could minimise distractions when you’re getting ready for your viva. There are lots of practical elements you could explore:

  • Headphones might be a starting point!
  • Find a good time and a good space to work in: when will you be free but not tired? Where can you work and not be disturbed?
  • Have your resources to hand so that you don’t start a task and then have to pause as you get something.

There are other distractions for viva prep and the viva though: nerves, anxieties and worries.

Nervousness is uncomfortable but not unexpected for viva times. Anxiety and worry suggest problems: rather than be distracted by them, name them and then see what you can do to overcome them. Ask for help, read the regulations for vivas or find out more of what you can expect. If any of your worries are directly related to your research or thesis then talk to your supervisor.

You can expect viva prep and the viva to have an element of difficulty. If you’re distracted you have to take steps to focus more.

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