Daily viva help for PhDs
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?
Whatever your research, you care about the results and conclusions of the work you’ve done. The tangible contributions you’ve made are what show your examiners (and everyone else) that you’re good and have made a difference. Right?
Yes.
But that’s only part of the story – and for some candidates that perspective can be worrying.
What if you didn’t get all the results you were looking for? What if some problems were too big, too messy or too complicated to resolve?
Your contributions matter, but the work matters too. Your intentions matter. Why did you pursue a project or area of research? What were you hoping for? How did you try to explore it or solve the problem?
It’s essential to be able to talk about your contributions at the viva, but just as important to talk about how and why you were pursuing them in the first place. Regardless of whether or not something worked, why did you go after it?
Imagine I had a new service, YourViva™, where I could offer you a viva with one of the following characteristics:
You can pick one but will have no guarantees on any of the other characteristics. You might get them, their opposites or anything else in-between.
What would you pick? Why does that matter to you?
YourViva™ doesn’t exist but if you picked a viva feature it would be for a reason. You may not have any influence over getting that for your viva but, given that it’s in your mind, what will you do as a result? If you have a worry or concern you can still do something.
For example:
Focus on what you can reasonably expect and what you can practically do for your viva. You can’t control all the details of your viva but you can ensure you show up ready to do well.
What’s the biggest challenge you overcame during your PhD?
What was a significant challenge that you faced while writing up?
What surprised you about the challenges you found while doing your research?
What do you anticipate being a challenge as you get ready for your viva?
And do you have any thoughts on what might be a challenge at your viva?
Examiners might not ask questions directly about PhD challenges but reflecting on them can be a helpful reminder that you have overcome a lot.
Consequently, you are capable of overcoming the challenge you will find at your viva.
PS: looking to explore the challenge of the viva in more depth? Take a look at my Viva Survivor session on March 27th 2025. Registration closes soon for this live webinar – and includes a catch-up recording if you can’t attend on the day.
What do you think your examiners will most want to talk about in your viva? What do you think needs to be in the spotlight? What topics would you most want to talk about and why?
And more importantly, how comfortable do you feel talking about your work?
Reflecting on how you say things might help – word choices, key points and so on – but the real help comes from rehearsal. You need to find situations where you can practise. A mock viva will probably help but you could also try giving a seminar, going for coffee with friends or even just asking someone to listen.
Whatever you do you need to be comfortable and confident enough to discuss your work and your experience. To be ready for your viva you need to put both your work and yourself in the spotlight.
PhD researchers have to be creative in some way: a candidate is expected to produce a significant and original contribution through their work.
What makes your work original? In what ways were you creative throughout your PhD? How did you look at things differently? How did you find solutions to problems?
What did you do that no-one has ever done before?
And having stepped out of one box through your work, what does the new box look like?
(and how might you or someone else go further?)
Examiners need to explore your significant original contributions to research at your viva.
In preparation for your viva it’s worth reviewing your contributions to think about how you would share them. There’s no right answer or script to use: the words you find in the moment will be enough. In preparation though, reflect on any contribution with the following questions to give you something to consider and speak about:
The first three questions, Why-How-What, help to explore what makes the contribution valuable. The second three questions, When-Where-Who, reveal more of the context for the work.
Start with Why-How-What. Dig deeper with When-Where-Who.
No scripts. Just thoughts and ideas to draw from at the viva.
How did you do it?
An assumption: however enjoyable, rewarding, satisfying and interesting a PhD journey can be, there are always difficult circumstances that are part of the process.
So given that assumption, how did you do it? How did you manage to keep going in those difficult circumstances?
Or, to simplify, how did you survive?
I’m not suggesting that any difficult circumstances are fair, right, justified or should be shrugged away. Difficult covers a wide range of things and some situations can’t be excused.
Whatever they were, you made it this far.
You managed to keep going. Part of that is knowledge, capability and work. You applied yourself. Effort lead to results in one form or other.
Part of it is simply determination: if you made it through it’s because you kept going.
Whatever the situations and however you did it you have found yourself on a path to success. You submitted your thesis. You’re doing the work to get ready for a successful viva.
It’s easy sometimes to think of these things like knowledge, capability, work and determination as somehow separate.
We can put them at arm’s length, other things, when in fact it’s you.
How did you survive? How did you manage to keep going in difficult circumstances?
Every answer may be unique but at the core there is always a simple truth.
You did it – and that shouldn’t be forgotten.
Viva success is not based on how many days you showed up to do your work.
Success isn’t determined by the number of chapters you have written, the number of papers you cited, how many conference talks you’ve delivered or whether you have several publications out there.
All these numbers can give a boost to your confidence though. The numbers mean you did something, repeatedly, and over a long period of time.
You need to look a little deeper for proof of your knowledge and capability as a PhD candidate, but a good starting point might be the imperfect metrics of a few numbers that show you did the work.
They count for something.
“How would you define your significant, original contribution?”
That’s a hard question for a lot of reasons.
It asks for specifics, your opinion and makes an assumption that there is one big thing you’ve done through your research. Personally, I would struggle to respond because I didn’t have a single focus during my PhD: my thesis was a collection of results, not one overall idea that I explored.
It’s a hard question, but it could be rewarding to unpick nonetheless. Reflecting might reveal some helpful ways to share your research with your examiners (and others).
It’s also helpful to reflect on all of your contributions, big and small. Look back over your PhD and think about your results, achievements and victories. What do they all amount to? Whether or not there is a single headline conclusion to point to, what do your contributions mean?
Remember that contributions can be a stepping stone to confidence: recognising what you’ve achieved can be a helpful way to boost how you feel.
PS: exploring confidence is a big part of my Viva Survivor webinar – alongside expectations, viva prep and the whole viva process. Registration is open now for my March 27th 2025 session and includes a catch-up recording if you can’t attend live!