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Nathan

Read The Manual

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Talking to friends about their viva experiences is useful. Picking up on bits and pieces of what goes on in vivas while you do your PhD is inevitable.

Generally, candidates have a fair picture of what they need to do procedure-wise; the regulations might not need to be spelled out for you, but if you have any questions, concerns or “what if….” worries:

Read the manual!

Your university has one, and it will have a lot of the answers about situations and circumstances that come up around the viva.

Find it. Read it.

Nathan

Starters

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I really like the following lines of a poem by Rudyard Kipling:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Whenever I’m trying to analyse a problem and get stuck, I think about these six starters and search for questions that will help.

They are valuable when unpicking the contribution you’ve made in your research. As your viva approaches, consider taking the following six questions as a starting point for reflecting on what you’ve done.

  • What was the result of your research?
  • Why was it worth doing?
  • When did you arrive at your main ideas?
  • How did your approach change during your PhD?
  • Where did you learn the most during your PhD?
  • Who do you think would be interested in your work?

There are many other questions you could use to reflect on your work. Start with these, see what thoughts and ideas they lead you to.

Nathan

Augment

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I advise candidates to annotate their thesis, but the word really in my mind is augment:

To make something greater by adding to it…

You’re not just adding some notes or bookmarks, some Post-its or highlighted sections; your thesis will be better for you doing it.

I use the word annotate in workshops, because that’s what people expect. Let’s be clear though: if you add Post-its to show the start of chapters, underline typos, add notes in a consistent way, highlight references, insert clarifications, decrypt technical language, update a thought and anything else like this – you’re augmenting. Your thesis is greater than it was, a richer resource for you.

Step one, ask yourself: what would make your thesis even greater for you?

Nathan

Control

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In the viva, as with the rest of your PhD and life in general, there are things you can control and things you can’t.

You can control what goes into your final thesis, but you can’t control what your examiners think of it.

You can control how much you know about your research and your field, but you can’t control what questions come up.

You can control what you do to feel confident, but you can’t get rid of nervousness completely.

You control the actions you take. Focus on what you can do to be prepared, not on things which are beyond your control.

Nathan

Maximum Effort

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Or rather, Maximum Effort! if you’re a fan of the Deadpool movies. It’s not quite a catchphrase, just a fun thing that the anti-hero says before a couple of cool moments in the films. I was away for work last month when I saw the second movie, and the phrase stood out to me.

As I was walking back from the cinema I pondered: “What would Maximum Effort! look like for viva preparation?”

Would it be…

  • …checking every paper your examiners had ever published, learning them by heart?
  • …having a mock viva, a mock-mock-viva plus weekly status update and chapter breakdown meetings with your supervisor?
  • …preparing answers to every question you could think of?
  • …putting Post-it Notes everywhere in your thesis?
  • …reading your thesis until you can see it with your eyes closed?
  • …optimising everything you can think of to fine-tune your confidence?

Erm, yeah, probably.

But do you need to do all of that?

No. Not at all. Check out your examiners’ work, have a mock if it will help and practise answering unexpected questions. Annotate your thesis in a useful way, read and check it so you have a good mental picture and do what you can to be your best on the day.

You don’t need to make a Maximum Effort! for the viva when you’ve come as far as you have already.

Nathan

Needles & Haystacks

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We all know looking for a needle in a haystack is a fool’s errand.

I understand why PhD candidates are interested in being well prepared for questions in the viva. Too often though the desire is expressed as wanting to prepare perfect answers, or anticipate all the questions that might come up. But this is looking for a needle in a haystack. There are thousands of questions you could conceive of that are relevant, interesting and possible for your viva…

…and you won’t be asked most of them.

You can’t think of every possible question. There’s not enough time.

You can’t prepare answers to all of the questions you can think of. There’s not enough time.

You can’t prepare perfect answers, full stop!

What you can do: find opportunities to practise answering unexpected questions. Have a mock viva. Chat to friends over coffee. Give a seminar. Email colleagues and ask them for their questions.

Stop looking around in haystacks for every question. Start finding opportunities where the questions come to you.

Nathan

Where’s The Challenge?

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As an alternate route to unpicking the value of your thesis contribution, consider reflecting on the challenge that was involved in getting it done. I don’t only mean the labour of three or more years, but the deeper questions about the nature of the research itself.

  • Why could it not have been done before now?
  • What made it difficult?
  • Who else had tried to do this?
  • Why are you the first person to do this?
  • What do you see the challenge as being?
  • What obstacles have you overcome?

Reflecting on the challenge is a different perspective, but it leads in the same direction. The challenge points to the value of what you’ve done.

Nathan

Overcomplicated Prep

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You could plot out minute by minute when you are going to do your viva preparations. When will you read Chapter 4? How will you make notes for various sections? Which colour highlighters will you use to encode different associations?

How far in advance will you bring up mock vivas with your supervisor, and how will you raise the topic? Which approaches will you follow for making summaries? How often will you re-read your thesis, and at what intervals? Who will you look to for advice, and when will you let them know what you need?

There are many, many questions you can ask yourself to figure out what you’ll do. Many plans you can set in motion. There’s always more detail you can pile on. And at the end of it all you could be a viva-ready machine, thoughts all composed just-so, almost every detail anticipated.

But do you need to do all of that? Is that really what you need?

Or rather than overcomplicate things, can you focus on the fact that you did the work, that it’s good, and that really viva preparation is just checking details, reflecting on your work and finding some opportunities to talk?

Nathan

A STAR For Confidence

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A great way to build your confidence before the viva is to find stories from your PhD to inspire you. I’ve mentioned finding STAR stories in the past to point to specific skills or parts of your work, but the same four-point structure can help to build stories of talent generally.

Try using this process to find stories that help you. Answer the following four questions in success:

  • Situation: Find a situation or project that was challenging. How did it stretch you?
  • Task: Detail what exactly you had to accomplish. What were the specifics?
  • Actions: Lay out the sequence of steps you followed. How did you try to solve the problem?
  • Results: Clearly state the outcome. What happened in the end?

How you think about your PhD and your talent is a story. If you need to, find a new story, or several! Find stories that boost your confidence and lay out how you got your research done.

Nathan

All Post-its Great And Small

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Tiny Post-its are good for marking the start of chapters. You can clearly highlight where important parts of your thesis are.

Large, square Post-its help to expand on a point. Postcard-sized Post-its can be a brief summary of a key section or chapter.

Post-it Notes come in a variety of colours too! If you really want to you can think about some kind of way to code for different information. Different colours for different chapters, certain colours for certain kinds of work.

There’s a lot you can do to help annotate your thesis. A trip to the stationery cupboard is a good start.

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