Daily viva help for PhDs
How did you get this far in your PhD journey?
There’s a great series of steps, actions, ideas, questions, papers, successes, failures, setbacks, breakthroughs, meetings and long hours.
All of which boils down to: you did it.
The talent, skill and knowledge are yours. The actions were yours.
You did it. Remember that as you get ready for your viva.
There was a two-month period in my maths PhD where I tried and tried to make something work. Here’s my layperson’s description of the problem:
I tried a lot of different things. I found some results in the process but I didn’t reach an answer.
I tried and I failed.
I thought for a split-second-that-felt-like-forever at my viva that this was going to be a problem.
In Chapter 7 you detail your failure at a problem. That’s interesting.
I can still remember the way my internal examiner said it seventeen years later!
It was an odd way to express a point. It knocked me for a few seconds but really he just wanted to explore the situation:
These were all good questions. I had a lot to say because there was a lot to talk about.
If any of this seems resonant – although hopefully not the knotted balls of wool! – then prepare for your viva with your problems in mind. If you tried and failed at something then be sure you know why. Be sure you can explain why.
And be sure you realise that while it might have been a problem while you were doing your research it doesn’t have to be a problem at your viva.
A PhD journey is a series of steps. You make choices, do the work, see what happens and then figure out the next options. Then you do it all again.
A PhD journey can develop due to good fortune. You make a choice and it works out well. Maybe an opportunity comes your way. A eureka moment strikes you at just the right time.
Still: where do these things come from?
You have to put yourself in a good place to receive an opportunity. It isn’t a lightning bolt from nowhere. It’s not magic. It happened to you because you did the work.
Remember the steps that got you where you are. Think about how you might explain that to other people including your examiners. If you’re telling your story and someone says “Then what happened?” your response should never be to simply say, “Oh, I got lucky…”
You might have the benefit of some good fortune, where you work hard and enough of that hard work pays off – but PhD candidates don’t get where they are because of luck.
(if you’re working towards your PhD and your plan requires luck to succeed then you need a new plan!)
It’s interesting to consider what you would do differently if you had your PhD time again.
Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight you would take a different approach, explore another topic or organise your work differently. In some cases it might not even be a case of thinking that things would be better: perhaps you can simply see that there are other options or opportunities.
What would you keep the same?
This is perhaps an even more interesting provocation: with experience, understanding and hindsight, what would you keep the same about your PhD?
Ahead of your viva consider what you wouldn’t change. Maybe your topic, approach and effort. Maybe your working process.
Surely your determination. One reason that you got as far as you have is that you managed to keep going, whatever challenges came to you along the way.
PS: if you’re looking for help getting ready for your viva then check out details of my Viva Survivor webinar on Wednesday 3rd December 2025. This is my standout, comprehensive session on getting ready and there’s full details at the link about what to expect. Also, if you use code VIVASURVIVORS before midnight on Sunday 5th October 2025 you can save £10 on registration!
It’s likely there will be mistakes of some kind in your thesis.
Writing is hard. Proofreading is hard. Add to that hundreds of references and three or more years of research and it overwhelmingly likely that there are mistakes in your thesis.
It’s not your fault but you are responsible. Your examiners will most likely ask you to correct mistakes as a condition for you passing your viva and achieving your PhD. When they ask for this what they’re really doing is giving you an opportunity: would you like to make the best possible version of your thesis given the circumstances?
Given that you have spent years of work, a long time writing and a very long time thinking, here’s just a short time to make a final version. Finished, for good.
No-one wants mistakes or to have to correct them.
Which is better though: hoping and hoping for the small chance that you have no mistakes or trying your best and accepting that you’ll have some to amend?
Make your choice.
What do you expect of yourself at your viva?
Viva expectations are often discussed in terms of length and first questions, format and examiner tone – but what do you expect from yourself? What should others expect of you?
Together, you and your examiners can all reasonably expect that you’ll succeed at your viva.
There is always more work you could have done. There are different questions you could have asked. There are other ways you could have approached your research.
More and different do not mean better.
They’re just more or different.
As you prepare for your viva, work to find the confidence to acknowledge alternatives but support what you did. Explore and explain the choices you made, easy or difficult, and build the certainty that what you’ve done is enough.
Build your confidence that you are enough.
How many challenges have you overcome?
The viva is one more.
It’s not trivial. It’s not easy.
It’s one more.
It’s not the biggest challenge. It’s not the hardest challenge.
It’s one more.
Prepare for your viva when the time comes and remember: you can only have got this far by overcoming difficult challenges. You can do this too.
There have been many times in the last six months I’ve thought “I’ve finished!” when I’ve been working on an issue of Viva Survivors Select. I’ll be sure I’m done and then remember, oh wait:
I’m getting better at mapping out all the stages so I don’t get ahead of myself. While doing so I’m reminded that this is not so different from the closing stages of a PhD journey. There’s a lot of steps you need to check off so that you can finish your PhD.
The viva is set up as the end of the PhD, but there are lots of steps to finishing before you’re really, truly done. Don’t lost sight of the end. Don’t forget that you will get there one day.
PS: and one more step might be to check out The Expectations Issue, the latest issue of Viva Survivors Select, newly out this last week!
The most important thing you can remember about the start of your PhD journey is that you are a long, long way from it.
This is more important than remembering your first meeting, the first paper you read or even why you wanted to pursue a PhD!
You have done more. You know more. You can do more.
You are more knowledgable, more capable and far better at what you do.
Remember that whatever else has happened in your PhD you have come a long way. You have not got this far through luck. You got here because you are good at what you do. You can build on that foundation to be ready for your viva.