Daily viva help for PhDs
In the viva, thesis defence doesn’t mean your work is being attacked.
Think of it as support: you can support something without it being in danger.
Think about how your words can support your research. Think about what you can do before and in the viva to help your work shine.
You can be enthusiastic for the viva and also feel nervous about it too. They’re not mutually exclusive states. Rather than think of ways to combat nervousness, could you think of ways to boost your enthusiasm?
To my mind, there’s lots of reasons to be enthusiastic about the viva.
It’s the final test! You’ve written a thesis! You are talented to be there!
Of course, I have a different perspective on the viva. The reasons I can think of to be enthusiastic might or might not help you.
So what would?
About six weeks ago I watched as a dozen children almost went to war in my living room. The reason?
Pass The Parcel.
It was my daughter’s fifth birthday party, and she’d insisted on playing a lot of games, including Pass The Parcel. We decided it would be like Pass The Parcel from our childhoods, with a single prize in the centre, and no little prize with every layer.
Well.
The kids were in uproar. We told them there was just one in the centre, but they were confused. Wh- Why?! Where were the little prizes? Then I want to win the one in the centre! They were desperate to hold on to the parcel in case this layer was the layer. They stopped having fun. We thought it would be alright, they would see the fun in taking part, taking a layer off getting closer to the prize, but they didn’t. Wanting the prize was too much for them. In the end, we fudged the final round so a particularly desperate child won.
(I feared tears and physical violence if they didn’t)
I was thinking about this game of Pass The Parcel the other day and was reminded of my PhD, and research more generally.
Sometimes, you only get to tear the paper off; sometimes, you don’t get to the big answer, the thing you were looking for. You get closer, but not all the way to the prize.
And that’s fine, you learn, you grow and you move everyone in your field forward.
It can be hard though, doing a PhD, writing a thesis, preparing for the viva, to see it that way. It might be true, but will your examiners see it that way? Or will they focus solely on why you didn’t get to the end goal? Examiners appreciate that not every research journey ends at the point one might want. They’ll have the experience to recognise what you’ve done if you don’t reach the point you wanted.
Your job, if this is your situation, is to be able to talk about how far you went. How close you came. What the different layers you tore off were. How you might have done it differently. And what other steps someone might need to take to reach the prize.
Every computer I’ve ever owned, every phone, every console has glitched at some point. From the blue screen of death to Netflix stalling, Firefox not responding and Open Office encountering an error, sometimes things go wrong. It just happens; reboot, restart and then things work. They work correctly 99% of the time…
…just like you. It’s understandable to worry about freezing, going blank or saying “I don’t know” in the viva. It’s important, you want it to go well. If you glitch then the solution is the same as your favourite expensive electronic device.
Reboot, restart and things will be fine:
Glitches don’t happen all the time. When they do, you can take steps to overcome them.
If you glitch in the viva, you can do something about it.
If every outcome was a pass with various conditions then the viva wouldn’t be an exam. Failing is possible but not likely. A rare outcome, not one you should expect.
Failure is an option for the PhD viva, but one that comes at the end of a generally long list of possible outcomes: no corrections, minor corrections, major corrections, resubmission without a viva, resubmission with a viva, awarded an MPhil, no award. Failure is the exceptionally rare last option that makes the viva an exam and not some kind of confirmation process.
Don’t expect it for your viva. Given everything you’ve done and how far you’ve come, it’s not an option for you and your thesis.
If you’re unsure about some aspect of the viva – the process, expectations or even something as subjective as the tone – then the answer is simple:
Figure out what questions you need answers for, then find people who can answer them.
If you need to know something then you need to do something.
Consider your examiners. Two people sat across the table from you and they’re interested. They’ve read your thesis, thought about it and now have questions for you. You’ve got to answer their questions to pass, but maybe you can get some answers to questions of your own. You might ask:
You don’t have to ask them questions, but there’s an opportunity in the viva to get ideas and insights from two experienced researchers who’ve read your thesis.
What do you most want to know?
Don’t make assumptions about why a question is being asked in the viva.
Don’t answer a question without listening and understanding it first.
Don’t bluff, evade or lie.
Don’t hope for a particular finish time.
Don’t expect the viva will be impossible.
Don’t expect it will be easy either.
Don’t go without being prepared.
Don’t discount all of the work you’ve done and the talent you must have.
Don’t forget to celebrate when you’re done.
They’re not always looking for answers.
Viva questions aren’t unfair, but they might not always be asked with the expectation of a definitive answer. It could be they simply start a discussion.
You might not know, your examiners might not know, maybe no-one knows “the answer”.
But you might have an idea or two. Or you might know why you don’t. Or you could discuss the topic with your examiners.
Another secret: you’re among the best people – possibly the best person in the world – to discuss the questions that are asked in your viva.
It’s really tempting to have a couple of answers tucked away for the viva, ready for the obvious questions you’ll almost definitely be asked.
But how do you know you’ll definitely be asked those questions? If you’re not, you’ll be asked different questions – questions you’ve not prepared answers for! So then: best to find more questions to have answers for, get them prepped, ready to deploy when the examiner says this or that.
So how many questions to have ready then? 10? 20? 100? More?!
It’s ridiculous when we take it to these extremes, of course.
Preparing answers to every question is a bad idea. Too many plausible questions could come up. You’ll be asked a small number of these in the viva, and probably several more you couldn’t anticipate. Better to focus on answering questions generally than specifically: get comfortable with being asked unexpected questions, rather than happy at being able to recite something for many specific questions.
The exception that proves the rule: make sure you feel happy answering “What’s the contribution of your research to your field?”