Daily viva help for PhDs
You don’t need to memorise your thesis, you’re not expected to memorise your research, and most viva candidates couldn’t do that even if they wanted to.
Your examiners expect you to do the work, be familiar with the literature you’ve cited and be a capable researcher. That’s enough.
You might cite them, you might not. It depends on lots of factors:
It’s neither intrinsically good or intrinsically bad for you to cite them. It’s not a requirement to cite publications by your examiners.
But if you have: make sure you check those papers again before your viva. Be sure you’re familiar with why you used them, how you used them and what they did for your thesis.
You have to expect your examiners might have criticisms. You can also expect they will be fair in the way they communicate them to you.
You don’t need to be particularly thick-skinned to take any critical comments – but you need to expect your examiners might have comments and corrections for you.
Perfection isn’t realistic, but neither is a totally critical appraisal of your research.
One of the things I love about summertime is it feels right to treat yourself with a scone.
But it has to be a scone with jam and clotted cream. Scone cut open, jam first then clotted cream on top. Amazing! Best summertime treat ever. This is the right way to have a scone (even better with a very thin layer of salted butter before you put the jam on).
At least, I think it’s the right way.
Some people would say this way is heresy. You’re supposed to have clotted cream first, then jam. And it’s not proper unless the scone has fruit in. Or is warm from the oven.
Everyone has their right way of having a scone in summertime.
Every candidate will have a picture of the right way to have a viva. Every institution will have regulations which goven the right way to run a viva. Every supervisor will have experience they could share which helps them to think about the right circumstances. Every pair of examiners will have ideas about the right way to examine a candidate.
There are lots of people and ideas connected to the right way for a viva to happen. It’s worth listening to all of these ideas, including your own intuition; see how they all compare and contrast, and find a set of useful expectations.
There are lots of things we might think of as wrong for the viva, and lots of good things we could reasonably expect. There’s no single right way though.
Unlike a scone with jam and clotted cream. Then there really is only one, right way.
Perfection!
What’s your vision of your viva?
Lewis Carroll is misquoted as having written, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” He didn’t write that, but it’s a neat way to summarise a short exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I think there’s a lot in there, when you reflect on it.
It’s really a warning.
If you don’t know what you want your viva to be like, it doesn’t matter what you do to prepare.
If you don’t know what vivas are like generally, you can’t know if your preparations are really useful.
If you don’t know what examiners are generally interested in, you can’t be sure you will be able to engage with them well in the viva.
Find out about the viva. Build a vision, then decide what you are going to do to make that vision a reality.
Perhaps, from another perspective – through the looking glass? – we can see Lewis Carroll’s unquote as,
“If you know where you’re going, you can find a way to get there.”
I’m convinced that’s true for the viva.
Where will your viva take place? You’ll know in advance. Examiners don’t surprise candidates on the day with the examination room.
Since you’ll know before the big day, go and check it out. What is the space like? Are there any distractions you have to think about? Is there a whiteboard if you need one? Can you sit with your back to the clock? People feel comfortable in some spaces, and less so in others. What can you do to encourage the thought that the venue for your viva is good for you?
Remember that your viva really takes place in the discussion. So reflect: what can you do to make that space as comfortable as possible for you?
A question you have not considered. A question that surprises you. A question that does not seem relevant.
These questions could be scary: if the goal of the viva is to engage in discussion then a question you have not considered could be terrifying.
But an unknown question does not mean the answer is unknown. A question you’ve not thought of before can still have a response.
You got to where you are by answering questions you didn’t know at some point.
You know a lot, you can do a lot. Answering questions is part of your skill set.
This is a question I didn’t realise I was asking myself before my viva.
All of my friends told me I would be fine. They’d passed their vivas, they told me I would pass mine. It would be OK.
Why? Why would it all be fine? Why would I be OK? I didn’t know.
I didn’t know that most candidates pass – and pass with minor corrections. I had no idea.
I didn’t know what examiners did in the viva. I didn’t know if there was a format. Were there expectations for vivas? I didn’t know.
I didn’t know what I might be asked about. I had a good understanding of everything I’d done, but I didn’t know if that would be enough. Would that match what my examiners wanted to know? I had no clue.
Everyone told me I would be OK. If I’d been a little more self-aware at the time I would have known to ask, “Why?”
Your viva can be fine. Find out more about what they’re like, find out what you can do to be ready. Then go and be fine.
You’ll be OK.
Ask around, you’ll see,
Yours will be different, but:
Not a mystery!
Thesis examinations follow regulations; examiners develop good practice. Talk to your friends who have had a viva in the last few years and learn from the stories they tell you. Get a good sense of what to expect!
(find a list of more short viva-related haiku posts here!)
“Pass or fail” is too simple a story for the viva. Two outcomes plants the idea that both have equal likelihood. Even when a candidate knows that’s not the case, having a binary outcome allows for one (the negative one, of course!) to rest heavily in the mind.
There are many outcomes – minor corrections, major corrections, resubmission, no corrections… If we tell the story that the viva is pass or fail, the real outcomes confuses the matter. I’ve had many candidates ask me “Is major corrections a pass or not?” because they think the viva is only pass or fail.
Check the outcomes at your institution. Check what they mean. Focus on the fact that most people get some corrections to do, and that’s not a problem. They’ve not failed.
“Pass or fail” is a nice, simple story, but it’s not accurate. There are many outcomes, not just two, and most of them are a pass. There are conditions to the pass, and there are reasons why candidates get those outcomes. Find out why. Learn more. Understand the situation.
Not “pass or fail” but “pass and why”…