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Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2025: Short Posts

Daily Post

For day two of my best posts of 2025 I wanted to share a selection of the shorter posts I’ve published in the last year. These cover a lot of different topics as I like to explore many aspects of the viva. Sometimes it feels just right to write a little!

There are lots more short posts in the archive – and twenty-five more curated posts in The Sparks Issue of Viva Survivors Select too!

Nathan

Viva Survivors Select 05

Update

In 2012 a little spark came to me: “I wonder if people would be interested in hearing viva stories from PhD graduates?”

Eight years ago I realised I couldn’t continue the podcast but wanted to use this space to still do something helpful. A spark: “I wonder if people would be interested in daily viva help?”

Sometimes before you have a concrete idea you have a spark, a what-if, an “I wonder…” that prompts action and leads to something good.

This kind of little notion is what lead to Viva Survivors Select 05, The Sparks Issue, which is out today. In over eight years I’ve written some very long posts and also quite a few short ones as well. For this issue I just wanted to look at those short posts with big helpful ideas.

Cover for Viva Survivors Select 05, The Sparks Issue. Shows two textboxes in the foreground with the title and author (Nathan Ryder) and the publication month, August 2025. Background is black with yellow-orange sparks stirred by a breeze.

The Sparks Issue contains twenty-five posts from the Viva Survivors archive covering a range of topics: viva prep, the PhD journey, building confidence and a lot more. As with previous issues of Viva Survivors Select I’ve also written two new pages: a helpful reflection on how the little things in your PhD journey can have an impact and an original reflective writing game to explore how you’re feeling as you get ready for your viva.

Viva Survivors Select 05 is out now for £3 and joins the first four issues in this ongoing project of monthly viva help. If you like the blog, want more help and want to support what I do then please take a look at and consider buying The Sparks Issue.

Please do pass on details of this issue and Viva Survivors Select to anyone you know who is looking for viva help.

Thanks for reading!

Nathan

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2023: Short Posts

Daily Post

I like to limit these round-up posts to five links, but as every link today is for a short post I thought I’d add an extra one!

And that’s all for today. Five posts on confidence tomorrow!

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Short Posts

Daily Post

I very rarely set out to write a long post. Viva Survivors posts tend to be around 200 words, but sometimes they can be a lot shorter, as with these six posts on a range of topics:

And how about one more? Making A Difference – something you must do over the course of your PhD!

There are two more days of my review of 2022. Tomorrow we explore confidence and the day after we finish the year by looking at the topic of surviving.

PS: the Viva Survivors blog celebrated five years of daily posts earlier this year! To mark the journey so far I wrote and published “Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology” – a curated collection of the best of the first five years. If you’re looking for viva help then this blog is and always will be free – if you want to support the blog and get an awesome book as well, then take a look at the options at the link. Thanks!

Nathan

The Best Of The Best Of Viva Survivors 2021

Daily Post

Between Christmas and New Year I shared some of my favourite writing from 2021. In case you missed those posts here are links to each with a piece that particularly stands out to me.

Best of Viva Survivors 2021: Viva Prep – lots of practical posts but the one that jumps out as always-relevant is Kind Prep. You need to be kind to yourself as you get ready, whatever practical tasks you have to complete.

Best of Viva Survivors 2021: Long Posts – after many interactions with PhD candidates in webinars over the pandemic, Space To Feel was a post I had to write.

Best of Viva Survivors 2021: Short Posts – one of the most helpful framings I’ve found in describing questions in the viva is treating them as Opportunities To Engage. No tricks, no traps, each question is an opportunity.

Best of Viva Survivors 2021: Confidence – I set myself a little challenge in writing The Basics. Confidence comes from many places. A key source could simply be understanding what the viva is all about and realising that, given the situation, you can do well.

2021 was not an easy year and 2022 has not started very well.

I’m always hopeful, but we still live in interesting times. Who knows what the rest of the year will bring?

From me, there will be another year of Viva Survivors posts! Subscribe if you’d like to get them sent to your inbox every day 🙂

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2021: Short Posts

Daily Post

There’s only a little of 2021 left, so today’s best of is nice and short: in fact these posts are among the shortest I’ve written and published on Viva Survivors!

Tomorrow we have the final Viva Survivors post of the year and on one of my favourite topics. If you haven’t already, perhaps subscribe to get it – and a daily email of viva help – in your inbox.

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2020: Short Posts

Daily Post

We head towards the end of the year with today’s look back at some of the shortest posts I’ve written and published in 2020.

Short posts are fun to write. Sometimes they come from a great big idea that I can express concisely, sometimes I realise that fifty words is simply enough. I’ll be thinking a lot in the coming months about shorter posts, and maybe some way to share a collection of them.

Tomorrow we finish the review of the year’s posts with a topic that has been on my mind a lot: surviving.

Nathan

9 Short Posts On A Break Day

Daily Post

Hopefully, as it’s a public holiday in the UK, you can have some downtime today. I hope you can rest. If your viva is coming soon and you want to think a little about it, here are nine little posts from the last three years that might help, and a micro-commentary on each:

But maybe just save them for tomorrow! Rest today if you can 🙂

 

Nathan

A Haiku For Viva Confidence

Daily Post

Not by hope, but earned;

Actions build up your belief.

Reflect and see them.

 

Confidence is built through actions and experience. Before your viva, think about what you’ve done and what you could do to realise your confidence for the viva.

(find more viva-related haiku here!)

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2019: Short Posts

Daily Post

Each year I finish my blogging by sharing some of my favourite posts over a few days. In today’s round-up I want to share some of my favourite short posts. Sometimes an idea doesn’t take much to explain!

  • Requirements – all you need for your PhD.
  • Everything! – what you can’t have done!
  • Questions & Answers – a couple of thoughts about where your viva comes from.
  • A Better List Than Typos – something to focus on rather than spelling mistakes.
  • Labels – reflecting on the words that you choose to use to describe yourself, your examiners and the viva.
  • Final – putting the importance of the viva in perspective.

Drop me a line if you have other favourite short posts from 2019! Tomorrow, in the final post for this year we come to one of the most important topics for the viva: confidence.

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