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Tag: responding to questions

Nathan

No Understatement

Daily Post

Before your viva, reflect on the best of your work, your results and your thesis.

How can you communicate the value of what you’ve done?

What are the words that will share how good your thesis is?

Write summaries, capture keywords and rehearse talking about your work. Don’t leave it to the viva and don’t be too humble.Don’t bluster or over-exaggerate the outcomes of your work, but also don’t focus on the might-have-beens and if-onlys of the pandemic.

If you need to talk about the impact of problems and obstacles then do so, but leave no room for doubt that your work is valuable and that you are capable.

Nathan

Figure It Out

Daily Post

Questions and comments in the viva are supposed to be fair, but they could also be tough.

You might forget something. You might not know something. You might disagree with your examiners. You might be surprised. You might need time to reflect and think.

All of these are understandable, but faced with a tough question or comment you could default to certain behaviours:

  • Freeze. You stop and go blank, panic gripping you.
  • Flee. You try to bluff and evade, get away from the point and onto firmer ground.
  • Fight. You could be over-assertive from a place of worry.

These are the classic responses to troubling situations. They won’t serve you well in the viva. They won’t help you to engage with a tough question and could only make things worse for you and the discussion. However, you could always:

  • Figure it out. You can take a moment, breathe, pause, think, sip some water and calmly respond.

You can’t choose the questions you’ll be asked in your viva – but you can decide in advance how you would like to engage with your examiners.

You don’t have to freeze at, flee from or fight with tough questions.

Take a moment to figure it out instead.

Nathan

Break It Up

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There’s a lot to do in the viva. There’s a lot to do to prepare for the viva, or at least a lot of tasks and thoughts to manage. You might feel a lot about what’s going to happen and have plenty of distractions or concerns to contend with.

If you try to solve the whole of your prep, all of your worries or how you feel about the discussion as it starts, you’re going to dump a huge pile of problems in your path.

Instead, break things up, whatever stage you’re at.

Viva prep is a series of tasks and activities, not one great monster undertaking. There’s work to do but you can do it one piece at a time.

Viva worries can feel persistent, but you can tackle each concern one-by-one. Get help, ask for support and when you have an answer to your problem set it out clearly for yourself that you’ve got past that.

As you get to the viva, remember that while it’s a discussion you only have to respond to one question or comment at a time. You can pause, think and respond. You don’t have to have an answer for everything.

As with everything else, you can take your time to do what you need to do.

Nathan

There Are Limits

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A PhD journey is bounded in many ways.

You can only read a finite number of papers and articles to build up your knowledge.

There’s a cap on the number of words that a thesis can reasonably contain.

You have only so many productive hours in any working day and pushing beyond that will not bring greater progress.

And you have hundreds of days to do the work but those days will eventually come to an end – and then you’ll have weeks to prepare for your viva.

 

Consider your limits as you start to get ready for submission and your viva. What do they show you?

Perhaps there were other things you could have done, but if you’re a typical PhD candidate those limits will show that you are knowledgeable. You embraced your work and studied. The limits of your PhD journey will demonstrate that you worked hard enough to get things done. You’ll have a thesis with thousands and thousands of words as proof that you stayed determined.

There are limits that come in many forms, but none detract from the picture presented of you and your work. You did something. You made something that wasn’t there before and you can be proud of what you’ve made.

Nathan

Questions About Questions

Daily Post

Your examiners will ask you questions. They have to: it’s an essential part of the viva process. They will share opinions or make statements to encourage you to make a response but they couldn’t get through your viva without asking a question.

Engaging with a question could be as simple as pausing to consider what was asked, thinking about what you’re going to say and then respond as clearly as you can. If a question was surprising or had an unexpected element you might want to reflect further:

  • Did I understand this question correctly?
  • Why is it surprising? (if it is)
  • What do I know about this examiner and their work?
  • What information do I know that might be relevant?
  • What could I check in my thesis that might help?

It would be wrong to expect every question in a viva to be mind-meltingly almost-impossible. They won’t be.

It’s right to remember that if you encounter a tough question that there is a lot you can do to engage and respond.

Nathan

Doing More

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At the viva you’re doing more to tell your examiners about what you’ve done, how you did it and who you are. You’ve set that out in your thesis but now they need more from you.

They need you to do more to clarify what you did.

They need you to do more to explain what it means.

They might need you to do more to convince them of an opinion you hold.

They can ask you to do more to tell the story of why your research makes a contribution.

Whatever they need you to do, however, it’s more of what you’ve already done. Doing more is showing your knowledge, your ability, your thinking and all-round capability as a researcher.

It’s only a little more though. That’s all you need and all your examiners need for this final challenge.

Nathan

Disagreeing With Examiners

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Tension is created when opposing perspectives meet, in the viva or elsewhere. In daily life that could be very challenging depending on the situation, but it doesn’t have to be that way in the viva.

Disagreement in the viva just means that there is something to talk about.

If there’s disagreement then the best thing you can do is explore why. What reasons do you or your examiners have for your positions or beliefs? What’s the evidence? What does that mean? Where do you have common ground and where do you really differ? And what does that mean?

A difference of opinion could mean simply understanding the other view. It could lead to an acknowledgment of an alternative in corrections to your thesis. It could be due to a simple mistake or error on someone’s part; discussion could help to resolve tension that’s purely accidental.

If you encounter disagreement in your viva, it may not be a big thing or a bad thing, but it’s something.

Something to talk about and resolve.

Nathan

How Much Do You Say?

Daily Post

This is a very common question about the viva and I have a lot of thoughts!

  • The most honest response is simply, “It depends,” because it really does depend on the question, the discussion, the situation and what is really being asked.
  • In some situations you might want to convince your examiners of something. You respond by saying as much as you need to: you give details and reasoning and respond to any objections.
  • Sometimes you might respond to a question in the viva with as much as you can: you share what you know, you check your thesis and perhaps reach a limit for what you can add to the discussion (or at least you reach the limit that you feel in the moment).
  • Maybe you encounter a question and don’t really know what you can say. You share a little or offer thoughts because you don’t know exactly the sort of thing your examiners want. That’s fine: if they need more they can ask for more. It might also help to ask them directly, to ask them for clarity or information.

How much do you say in response to a question? It depends on the question. It depends on the situation. It depends on your knowledge, your experience and your research. It depends on knowing what your examiners are looking for.

To know that you might have to ask them a question or two.

Nathan

Blocked

Daily Post

If your thinking is blocked – you freeze or forget – in the viva:

  • Stop. Just stop. Take a moment or two because you’ve probably not done that.
  • Breathe. Before you can speak you need to have some air. Your brain could use it too.
  • Reflect (part one). If stopping and breathing haven’t cleared the blockage then go deeper. Ask yourself why you’re blocked. What’s the reason?
  • Reflect (part two). With a reason in mind, consider what you can do. Maybe you need to ask your examiners a question. Maybe you need to read your thesis. Maybe you just need to sit and think a little longer.
  • Respond. Take your time, but start to talk. Share what you can and move the discussion along.

Being blocked is a starting point. You have to go somewhere from there – so you may as well take charge and do something!

Nathan

Finding The Answer

Daily Post

Lots of questions have answers.

Answers are things that are known: factually accurate, true or perhaps established as a logical argument with sufficient supporting reasons and information.

If you were asked a question and needed to find an answer in the viva there are lots of things you could do or try:

  • You could stop and remember the answer, or at least attempt to.
  • You could use a piece of paper and calculate something that leads to the answer.
  • You could stand up at a whiteboard and draw while you talk to explain the answer.
  • You could check your thesis to look for a piece of information that holds the answer.
  • You could ask a question of your examiners to help explore the situation.

Lots of questions have answers and if you are trying to find an answer in the viva there is a lot you could do to find it.

 

But not every question has an answer.

Some questions seek opinions. Some are hypothetical and explore a scenario – or how someone thinks about it. Some questions have an answer – and you might not know it. Some questions don’t have answers, but they are worth exploring all the same.

If a question has an answer you might be able to find it. If a question doesn’t then you can still engage with it.

Not every question has an answer, but every question asked at the viva is something you can engage with and respond to. If there’s an answer there then there’s plenty you can do to find it – and if there isn’t you still have an opportunity to demonstrate your work, your ability and your knowledge.

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