Daily viva help for PhDs
Have a break when you submit your thesis. Give yourself space to rest.
Have a break now and then when you prepare for your viva. You don’t need to cram everything into one hectic period of activity.
Have a break during your viva if you need one or if you’re offered. Take your time to make sure you keep performing at your best.
No-one else is going to make sure that you look after yourself or check you’re working at your best. There’s more you can do, but at a minimum have a break!
A viva over video is still a viva. It’s alright that there are pauses caused by technology.
A viva over video is still a viva. Practise with the software you’ll use and think about the space you’ll be in.
A viva over video is still a viva. Expectations are different but that doesn’t make them bad.
A viva over video is still a viva. It doesn’t matter if you’re not there in the same room as your examiners.
Who do you know who could help you get ready for your viva?
Your supervisors can help with a lot: setting expectations, hosting mock vivas, sharing ideas of what examiners do – there’s a wealth of support from them potentially.
Departmental friends and colleagues around you understand: they may have first-hand experience of the viva, they could listen to what’s bothering you or even be a part of discussions to help you practise.
Family and friends might not understand: they can still help you by providing a space that you can prepare in, or by giving you time to do the relatively small work involved in preparation.
No person is an island. You don’t have to do everything alone. You might be doing the most work, but others can help lighten the load, in lots of different ways. Ask your community. Perhaps ask early to help set their expectations and schedule support, but know that there are lots of people in your life who can make a difference as you prepare for your viva.
There are lots of questions you could be asked at your viva, including questions you’ve never been asked before! But by the time you get there you will have had lots of practise responding to questions, certainly enough to do well with your examiners.
There’s a lot of pressure on the whole situation, but you have experience with that sort of thing.
You can’t be sure what your examiners will ask, but before the day of the viva you can find out more about your examiners and rehearse for being in the viva. You can’t arrive perfect but you can take the time to get ready.
Yes, there’s a lot you won’t know about before the moments of your viva, but prior to arriving there you can do as much as possible to be ready for the situation.
You need both candidate and thesis to be good for a PhD. Your examiners need to ask you – the candidate – about both in the viva.
What’s your thesis’ contribution? How did you do it? And what can you do well?
They’re looking for clear confirmation that your thesis has a significant, original contribution, that you did the work and that you’re a good researcher.
If that sounds like a lot, remember:
No candidate, no thesis.
No thesis, no candidate.
Between submission and the viva you might spot some changes you want to make in your thesis.
Perhaps you see a typo that has to be amended, a sentence that could be simpler or a diagram that’s just not right. It could be you’ve thought more and now have a slightly different opinion. Maybe a paper has been published recently and that gives a different perspective to part of your work.
We can’t say that none of this matters – but it doesn’t change anything in your thesis at this stage. You can’t make corrections yet. You can’t change your opinion as it stands. You can’t write more into the pages you’ve submitted.
You can make a note for later. You can stick a Post-it Note in with a suggestion. You can read a paper and write a summary if you think it’s really relevant.
But no updates. No changes. No alterations. Whatever you call them, all the changes wait until after the viva.
Some numbers are magical for the viva, and some can only cause you to worry.
Don’t think about how long your viva might be. It’s not worth obsessing over how many pages of references you have in your bibliography. And don’t check your word count to try to boost your confidence.
Instead of counting little details or wondering about things you have no control over, focus on how long you’ve been doing the work.
Several years – which can be properly understood as thousands of hours. Consider the time and effort you will have spent in getting ready for the viva itself. Remember the time invested in becoming a better researcher – and your many achievements along the way.
What other magic numbers could help you feel good for your viva?
A viva is not a random collection of questions and comments from your examiners, strung together by whatever you say in response.
Your university has regulations that govern the viva. Your department has expectations for what a good viva “should” be like. By reading regulations and talking to graduates you can build a sense of the pattern – the structure – that underpins your viva.
Your research and thesis are the basis for many areas of discussion in the viva. Your thesis is set out chapter by chapter and it’s natural that your examiners would follow that flow in your viva.
Your examiners will have prepared for your viva too: reading, thinking, writing and discussing what needs to happen. They have their own research and while you cannot predict every question they might ask, you can appreciate from where their questions might come.
The structure of a viva is not a big topic to dig into and digest. Perhaps the most important point to remember is simply this: there is a structure.
The viva doesn’t just happen.
There’s a knock at your door.
A courier leaves a package in your arms. It’s not heavy, but it has a strange heft to it. You don’t remember ordering anything. You’re not expecting something. But here it is, addressed to you.
Unwrapping the package reveals a small brown paper parcel and an envelope. The stationery and packaging are both of a good stock, clearly not from a supermarket shelf or high street stationer’s. The handwriting on the envelope is familiar, but you can’t place it.
For your viva, it reads.
You open the parcel first, cutting the string when the knot proves too tricky. Beneath several layers of paper you uncover a polished wooden box. It’s old, you can tell, but you’re not sure where in the world it might come from. You hold it in your cupped palms, the sides are smooth to the touch. There seems to be no lid or opening. It is a box though, not solid wood: the contents don’t shift much as you carefully move it in your hands, but you can tell that the weight is not uniform.
Resting in the curved top surface is a small recess and a red button.
Perplexed by the box you open the envelope. The note inside has a scrawl for a signature, but the contents are clear enough.
Friend. In case this helps with your preparations. What do you not want to be asked in your viva? Think carefully and press the red button, and you won’t be asked. But think carefully. Yours [illegible]
A hoax. A weird joke from a friend who knows your viva is weeks away. And yet…
What if?
No. It couldn’t be. This is a strange sort of gift. You wrap the parcel up and put it in a cupboard.
Two weeks later you take it out and stare at the box and the red button for an hour.
You make a decision.
If the box was real, and you could press the red button, what would you not want to be asked in your viva?
The box is not real! But if there’s a question you don’t want to be asked in your viva then you probably need to do something to rehearse for that situation.
Not wanting to be asked a question won’t remove the possibility. Practice and preparation will help just in case you should encounter that one question you really don’t want to be asked.
Candidates are always concerned about viva length, worried that theirs will be long – or too long, however that might be defined.
Remember: the longest viva will be shorter than the longest work day of your PhD. It has to be.
As challenging as your viva could be, it can’t be a greater challenge or require more of you than you have already given on your PhD journey.