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Nathan

Your Best Work

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Naturally, it is extremely likely that your examiners will want to talk to you about your best work. The headline results and conclusions that are central to your contribution.

  • How do you define your best work?
  • What lead to you working on it?
  • What’s the impact for your thesis and for others?

There’s more to your thesis than a single topic or piece though. It’s likely that there’s more they will want to talk to you about.

  • What other aspects of your work do you think they’ll focus on?
  • How do these other areas connect with your main contribution?
  • Is there anything you don’t think they’ll ask about?

Finally, it’s likely that these two categories are not all that you want to talk about.

  • What else would you like to come up in conversation at your viva?
  • What questions do you want to introduce into the discussion?
  • What do you not want to talk about?

Your best work will feature at the viva along with lots of other topics. Take time as you prepare to reflect on what could come up, how you could engage with it and what you need to do to be ready.

Nathan

The Last Questions

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What’s the last feedback question you want to ask your supervisor?

What’s the last question you’ll have for your supervisor as you prepare for your viva?

What’s the last thing you need to check as you approach viva day?

What’s the last task on your viva prep list?

What’s the last question you might ask your examiners at the end of the viva?

What’s the last thing you want to be asked by your examiners?

What’s the last thing you’ll do as you finish your PhD and leave your university?

Nathan

Reflecting On Capable

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Some questions to consider as you get ready for your viva:

  • When did you know you had made a significant and original research contribution?
  • What’s the most interesting thing you know now that you didn’t know when you started your PhD?
  • How many references have you listed in your bibliography? (and how many more potential references did you read?)
  • What do you understand about your research area now that you had no idea about when you started?

A key part of the viva process is your internal and external examining your capability as a researcher. They need to get a sense that you are good. It helps to reflect on this in advance of your viva: it helps you prepare and builds your certainty that you are good.

Reflecting on your capability leads towards finding confidence for your viva.

 

PS: You’ll find more reflections 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. Please take a look at the zine and some pages here – and pick it up if it seems helpful 🙂 Oh, and please spread the word if you can!

Nathan

Lack

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You’ve done a lot of work by the time you get to submission but as you prepare for your viva you might feel lacking in some areas.

  • Have I read enough papers?
  • Did I do enough research?
  • Do I know enough?
  • Am I enough to pass?

These are hard questions. If you find yourself facing them then remember you don’t have to just feel worried. Ask for help from people like your supervisor or your colleagues and find something you can do to build your certainty.

 

More importantly: if you find yourself confronting any of these questions then ask yourself why it’s there.

For example, Have I read enough papers?

  • Are you thinking this because you feel like there’s something you don’t know?
  • Are you concerned about your examiners?
  • Do you think your bibliography is maybe small compared to others?
  • Or is it something else?

When you start to pinpoint why a troubling question is troubling you then you can be more targeted in how you respond to it.

Nathan

Contribution Is Cumulative

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Or, in simpler words, the value of your work builds over time.

It’s unlikely that there was one particular day of your PhD that you did one particular thing that made the only valuable contribution in your work. Even if your contribution is a big maths theorem or is highlighted by a paragraph that neatly explains the other 70,000 words in your thesis these things don’t just appear. They don’t standalone.

Your contribution is pieced together from all kinds of work over years of effort. As you prepare for your viva take a little time to reflect. How did all of this come together? How did your early results develop? And how did the work change you?

Contribution is cumulative – and so is your capability.

Nathan

Remaking My Viva

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Oh no he’s done it again! It’s another video game related post about the viva!

Which is apt because I’ve been thinking about remakes and remasters of video games. This is the practice of taking an older game that people liked and saying, “We can make this look more fancy and play more modern. We can smooth out the rough edges we couldn’t do anything about in the past.”

It’s also typically a way to make money by tapping into nostalgia and fan curiosity!

 

I had my viva in 2008. I’ve been thinking about what I would change or do differently if I could go back. How would I remake my viva and tweak my experience?

  • I could have asked about what I didn’t know instead of just seeing unknowns. I could have worked to find out more about what to expect.
  • I could have realised that the one person I knew of who had failed didn’t have to define my concerns. I knew over a dozen people who had passed.
  • I was a nervous presenter and felt similar nerves for my viva. I could have worked on building up my confidence or found ways to cope better.

Video game remakes often involve upgrading graphics and appearances. I would definitely change the venue for my viva! There were three of us in a long seminar room with rows of tables and filing cabinets at the back of the room. The room was the dumping ground for the spares and castoffs of my department. It wasn’t the nicest venue for a meeting at any time.

A change of venue would be an upgrade. Spending more time rehearsing would be an upgrade. Knowing more about what to expect would be an upgrade.

But maybe all of the stuff I do wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t had that experience and been thinking about it so much afterwards? Who knows?

 

But never mind my viva, here’s the real point: you can upgrade your viva today.

You don’t need to wait for hindsight. You won’t have a second opportunity to make this the best experience for yourself.

Take a little thought to think about what you need to know and what you need to do. How can you make your viva a great experience? What steps can you take? What actions will steer things closer to how you need them to be?

Nathan

A Reflection

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To reflect a little ahead of your viva, take a sheet of paper and divide it into four parts. Respond to each of the following questions with a few sentences.

  1. What was the starting point for your most significant work?
  2. What were the three most useful papers you read?
  3. What words come to mind when you think of your PhD challenges?
  4. What was the most helpful skill or understanding that you developed?

You can always build on any of these thoughts by reflecting on your responses and asking why.

A reflection or a summary is a chance to think ahead. What other useful questions can you think of to explore topics and that will help you at your viva?

Nathan

Future Feelings

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What do you think it will feel like to wake up the day after your viva?

How might you feel if you were to look at a list of requested corrections?

What do you think it will feel like to be told you’ve passed?

How will you feel when you shake someone important’s hand at graduation?

 

And assuming that some of the above are positive or good expected feelings, what are you going to do between now and your viva to get to that reality?

Nathan

Questions For Everyone

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A question for your supervisor: how does your thesis meet the expectations of your discipline?

A question for your graduate school: in their experience, are there any common difficult points in the viva process for candidates?

A question for friends who have PhDs: what surprised you about your viva?

A possible question for your examiners at your viva: what did you think?

A question for you: what do you need to feel ready for your viva?

 

PS, one more question: what else do you need to know about the viva? Come and ask me all your questions at my Viva Survivor webinar on March 27th 2025. Registration is open now if you’re looking to find out more about the viva, viva prep, expectations and building confidence.

Nathan

The Motivations

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What was your motivation for doing a PhD?

What was the motivation for exploring the topic that lead to your research contribution(s)?

Has your motivation changed during the course of your research?

What topics or themes motivate your examiners?

What questions do you think will motivate the discussion in your viva?

What will keep you motivated as you get ready for your viva?

And what motivates the personal confidence you feel?

 

Or another way to think about many parts of the PhD and viva process is always to look a little deeper and ask “Why?”

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