Daily viva help for PhDs
One experienced candidate waiting to be done,
Two prepared examiners hoping this is fun.
Three years (or more) leading to this day,
Four key threads of prep can help along the way.
Five seconds pause can help get a thought together;
Six hours is unlikely (but never say never)!
Seven might be lucky, but you don’t need to be,
Eight lines is enough, now repeat: “It’s up to me.”
As an alternate route to unpicking the value of your thesis contribution, consider reflecting on the challenge that was involved in getting it done. I don’t only mean the labour of three or more years, but the deeper questions about the nature of the research itself.
Reflecting on the challenge is a different perspective, but it leads in the same direction. The challenge points to the value of what you’ve done.
Build your confidence by identifying your achievements from your PhD. There’s more than just your thesis. Reflect on the first time you…
Find your firsts: these are key moments in your PhD. They plot out a fantastic journey that’s brought you to today.
What message would you add to the end of your thesis?
You don’t have time to do every follow-up, or advance every idea. Perhaps you can leave that to someone else. Perhaps there is a new perspective that you have on the whole work, and a short note could set those thoughts out. Maybe there is a problem with something in your thesis, but you don’t quite know how to talk about it on the page. Or it could be that you just want to thank some people.
Reflect on your thesis. What postscript would you add?
PS: Now you’ve reflected on this, consider making some notes or even writing a message. Your examiners are unlikely to ask you anything like this directly, but this kind of reflection and review is useful to see what you think about your thesis now it’s done.
Quick exercise to get you reflecting on your whole PhD journey. What’s your…
Your mind has collected a lot of neat stuff over the last few years. What stands out?
In Jenga, whatever your intentions, you might knock the tower down at any moment. Your actions or a misplacement by the last player might make things so unstable that the tower can only fall.
It’s tempting to think of the viva is a precarious situation, but your thesis is not a Jenga tower, and the viva is not a game.
Questions from examiners aren’t like pulling bricks out. Your answers aren’t going to make your work fall apart. Discussion can bring in some wobbles, but your work is more than a tower of bricks. You designed this structure, it didn’t just come together out of a box.
I like acronyms as useful tools, particularly for unpicking things or prompting thoughts. Last year I shared a post on how to use the tool SCAMPER to think about how to extend the research you’ve done for your PhD. Recently it struck me that SCAMPER could be useful as a reflection and review tool.
Today’s post is a series of questions inspired by SCAMPER to get you reflecting about your research. Use these with journalling or free-writing to spark some thoughts about your thesis.
Use these questions to think about your research and thesis. Reflecting on the three or more years of work you’ve completed is an essential part of the viva prep process.
After nearly ten years since the end of my PhD, and countless times that my thesis has been in and out of the protective wrapper I keep it in, the gold letters on the spine are starting to gradually fade away.
Which got me thinking about the material in there. Is that disappearing too? How valuable is it now? Has it been superseded, extended, built on or ignored in favour of other things? I don’t know. I was a pure mathematician, and I think we like to think of ourselves as making permanent contributions to knowledge. Proof is proof!
Although I got there first, someone else could find something even more valuable. I’d be referenced (I hope) and my work would have served it’s purpose, but that’s that. Things change. Things move on.
How long will your accomplishments matter? How long until someone does something bigger, better or just different? It’s worth thinking about. It’s not self-defeating, it’s just honest. Help yourself define what your contribution really means. Why does it matter? And for how long?
And how might you frame that in the viva?
Your thesis is an expression of your research. But in the viva, and at any time when someone asks you about your work, you can’t just hand them this great book you’ve made and say, “Read it!”
I like thinking about ways to help candidates reflect on their work. I like exploring ways to help people explain their ideas concisely. Here’s a plan of how to spend five days in short activities to break down your thesis and your research contribution.
Day 1: Describe the Why-How-What of your PhD in a single page, no more than 300 words.
Day 2: Use Day 1’s page to write a single paragraph about your PhD. Try to keep it under 100 words. Remove the inessential.
Day 3: Use Day 2’s paragraph to write a sentence describing your PhD – no more than 20 words. You’ll never be able to say everything, so don’t try. What can you get across?
Day 4: Use the work of the previous three days to write down five words. What are the themes of your work? Think about where it all started, how you did it and what your outcomes are.
Day 5: Write down one word. The Big Picture. What is it that stands out?
It’s unlikely your examiners will ask you to describe your research in a single word, but they will ask you to talk about your work. An exercise like this can help you think about your PhD a lot before the viva. You might never say to someone, “In one word, my research is all about…” but I think you’ll get something valuable from following this process.
Having trouble putting your research contribution into words? Or want to reflect on it in new ways? Try the following questions to take a fresh look at what you’ve done for your PhD. (and if you’re writing up, these questions might help you to unpick some new thoughts about your work)
Spend some time in your viva prep thinking, writing and talking about what your contribution means.
Bonus Question! What kind of difference does your research make to your field now that it is done?