You Are Here

Tag: plan your prep

Nathan

Summary & Memory

Daily Post, Sabbatical

Writing a summary of some aspect of your thesis or research before the viva can do a lot of things to help you. It forces you to focus on something, to highlight the best parts or the most difficult sections and can really support you as you fine-tune your thinking.

It’s important to also recognise that creating a summary can help your memory too. It helps embed ideas. You don’t need to memorise your thesis, or a list or a page of notes, or anything like that. Your examiners want to talk to a person and hear their research, their story and what that means. They don’t need you to recite your work to them.

The focus of writing a summary can help boost what you remember for the viva. You know enough and have done enough or you wouldn’t be working towards finishing your PhD. A little more work can help you remember what you need for meeting your examiners.

 

Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical: I’m taking July, August and September off from new writing to concentrate on other creative projects, so will be sharing a post from the archives every day throughout those months. Today’s post was originally published on July 8th 2023.

Nathan

Take Your Time

Daily Post

Take your time as you finish your thesis. You’ll never make it perfect but you can be proud it’s as good as you can reasonably make it.

Take your time as you get ready for your viva. Plan your prep and give yourself space to do the work without stressing or rushing.

Take your time in the viva. You don’t need to speak as quickly as possible – you can think, you can be clear and you can respond confidently.

Take your time after the viva to breathe and appreciate what you’ve done. Getting a PhD is not something that everyone does; at the very least it marks you out as someone capable and determined.

If you can, when your PhD is complete, take some time to think about what you’ll do next.

 

PS: the Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical starts on Monday! A daily post from the archives all through the summer while I take a creative break after seven years of Viva Survivors 🙂

Nathan

Feeling Ready

Daily Post

If you feel ready for your viva then you probably are!

So ask yourself two questions, just to be sure:

  1. Is there anything else you can do?
  2. Is there anything you might have forgotten to do?

If you can honestly answer no to both of these then the third question is simple: what will you now do to hold on to this feeling of being ready?

Nathan

Good Preparation

Daily Post

Viva prep is the work you do to help yourself feel ready. It’s a set of relatively simple tasks and activities like reading your thesis, rehearsing for the viva, making summaries. There are a lot of options for how you can approach things and when you combine all of the work together it’s relatively small in comparison to the rest of your PhD.

What helps make viva prep good?

You do.

 

As you begin, think about your situation: your work, your responsibilities and your commitments. How can you plan to do your viva prep in a way that won’t overload you?

Think about how and when you will get your prep done: what can you do to make that time effective? What can you do to work with the amount of energy or focus you might have available?

Explore your own preferences: if you need to read your thesis, for example, how will that work well for you? Will you read it for a chapter per day for a week? Will you take an afternoon to read it all?

 

There are specific tasks that help someone get ready for their viva. How you do the work, when you do the work and the circumstances you create for that will show you how good that preparation is. Good viva prep doesn’t follow a masterplan for all candidates. Good viva prep is personal: shaping the tasks to your circumstances and doing it with as little stress as possible.

Nathan

Positive Prep

Daily Post

If viva prep feels like a grind and a bore then you need to change how you’re approaching it.

It’s not that it should be FUN or that you should perform a series of fist pumps every time you read your thesis, but it will help you to feel ready and confident for your viva if you have a positive association with your prep, your research and your thesis.

If prep feels like a grind and a bore then perhaps you could try some of the following:

  • Can you switch to a different task for a day or two?
  • Can you change the time that you’re doing viva prep work?
  • Can you move to a different space to get the work done?
  • Can you ask for help from someone?
  • Can you bring a little fun to the process?
  • Can you motivate yourself with a small reward of some kind?

Any positive connections you can find will help. What can you do to help you get your viva prep done in a positive way?

Nathan

Resolving Viva Problems

Daily Post

Hope for the best, plan for – well, let’s not say the worst! However, sometimes the best doesn’t happen and it helps to have a way to tackle problems while you’re getting ready for the viva.

  • Maybe you read something that causes you to pause. Maybe you find a mistake in your thesis.
  • Perhaps an examiner cancels or has to postpone. Perhaps you encounter an issue with your own availability.
  • Or it could be as simple and difficult as nervousness, anxiety, worry or concern for what might happen when you get to the viva.

Problems come in all shapes and sizes. It’s very hard to remove the possibility of all problems occurring. Even so, keep in mind that whatever problems come your way you can always do something to help your situation.

Whatever problem you face as you get ready for your viva, ask yourself three questions:

  • Why is this a problem?
  • How could you improve the situation?
  • What will you do?

Asking why explores the reason for the problem. Asking how explores your options for tackling it. Asking what gives you a way forward.

These questions might only be the first step to clearing a problem aside, but that might be enough to help you past the situation and closer to being ready for your viva.

Nathan

Preparation Pressure

Daily Post

Plan your viva prep with the pressure you need to get it done.

Time and circumstances are not completely within your control. Planning ahead allows you to think about the situation you need to work well.

If you need space to think, time to make mistakes and enough freedom that you can take a day off from viva preparation then give yourself plenty of time in your plan. Pressure won’t help you. That’s your preference.

Alternatively, if you feel like you need a bit of pressure, then still plan but start closer to your viva day. Work more intensively and focus your efforts on the week and days immediately leading up to your viva. That’s your preference.

Whatever you feel you need and whatever you decide to do, don’t confuse stress with pressure. A little pressure might help you to work well, but stress will only provide pain to your preparation plans.

Nathan

Multipliers for Viva Readiness

Daily Post

There are many tasks and activities that help someone get ready for their viva. Reading the thesis, rehearsing with a mock viva and so on – the practical stuff that helps.

Alongside what you might need to do, consider how you get it done. How you do something has an impact on your effectiveness, and consequently on your readiness for the viva. All of the following help, for example:

  • Rest helps you to relax and helps you to think.
  • Time to do the work well.
  • A plan to help you feel organised.
  • A quiet, calm space to do the work.
  • Understanding the process of the viva.
  • Time to reflect and think.

It’s unlikely that every aspect of the viva prep work you do and the way you do it will be within your control. Consider how you can start with good intentions and work towards being ready for your viva.

Nathan

Steps For Research Reflection

Daily Post

Reflecting on your research contribution is a very helpful part of viva preparation. Discussing what you have done and what it means is definitely going to come up during your viva!

To make the most out of reflecting on your contribution then try some of the following steps:

  • Set aside time purposefully. Plan occasions when you will reflect.
  • Use questions to prompt deliberate reflection.
  • Write down thoughts or summaries. Thinking alone could lead to forgetting.
  • Make space to come back to your notes or summaries.

The last point is helpful to allow you to refresh your memory or even to build upon what you’ve thought through previously.

Using questions won’t lead to perfect scripts you can read from in the viva, but it will help build the words that will come more easily when you meet your examiners.

Nathan

Superlatives

Daily Post

Here is a small reflection and summary exercise to help gather useful information before your viva. Four questions:

  • What’s the best part of your thesis?
  • What was the least useful period of research during your PhD?
  • What was the hardest thing you learned?
  • What is your proudest achievement?

Take a moment to reflect for each of these. Write down your thoughts in keywords or sentences. Reflect more and then dig deeper for each by asking yourself, “Why?”

  • Why is this the best part of your thesis?
  • Why was that the least useful period?
  • Why is that the hardest thing you learned?
  • Why is that your proudest achievement?

Reflection questions are helpful for shaking loose ideas that are worth remembering or considering more.

“Why?” often allows one to dig a little deeper.

1 … 4 5 6 7 8 … 20