You Are Here

Tag: viva prep

Nathan

Seven Reflection Questions

Daily Post

When inspiration is not flowing there are tools you can use to unstick thinking. SCAMPER is one of those tools: an acronym to prompt looking at things differently. I knew I had written something about it on Viva Survivors before but was surprised when I checked that it was over five years ago!

Time flies, eh?

I was looking for inspiration for today’s post and SCAMPER stood out to me as a way to prompt a series of questions to explore different aspects of someone’s research in advance of the viva. These questions could help to find useful thoughts or parts of your research for further reflection.

  • Substitute: could you have used a different method to do your research?
  • Combine: what ideas did you bring together?
  • Adapt: how could someone use your research in the future?
  • Magnify: where would you direct someone to focus their attention in your thesis?
  • Put to other use: what other conclusions or questions can you find based on your work?
  • Eliminate: what did you have to take out of your plans as you did your research?
  • Rearrange: what changes would you make to your research process if you could?

After any of these questions you could also go deeper by simply taking your first response and asking, “Why?”

Nathan

A Little Help

Update

I’ve been publishing Viva Survivors for over six years. In writing more than 2300 posts I’ve shared why candidates succeed, what they can expect, what they can do to prepare and how they can find the confidence to believe that it will all be OK on the day. If you need a little help for your viva, you can probably find it in the archives of this blog

If you need a little extra help then remember the community you have around you: you know people who have examined vivas, who have prepared recently or who have succeeded in the past. There’s a lot of help close at hand if you look for it.

And finally if you have your viva coming up and you still feel like you need a little more help, then please take a look at the Viva Help Bundle of ebooks – which is on a very special sale until the end of November.

The Viva Help Bundle contains:

  1. Keep Going, my collection of 150+ posts from the first five years of the Viva Survivors daily blog.
  2. 101 Steps To A Great Viva, my guide to practical steps that every viva candidate can take to help themselves.
  3. How You Got Here, a short reflective writing game to look back over the PhD journey and find confidence.

Actually, there’s a lot of help packed into the Viva Help Bundle – and it is available for £6 until Thursday 30th November 2023. If you think it might be the help you’re looking for, please take a look. And if you want to know more, please get in touch 🙂

Nathan

Turn The Page

Daily Post

Thesis pages have words, gaps, lines, margins and space at the top and bottom.

Annotation is a key step in viva preparation: adding something to make what’s there even better for the purposes of the viva. You gain a little help when you do the work because you have to think about what you need to add and why – and you get even more by making a special edition version of your thesis to use in the viva.

Every page in your thesis gives you an opportunity to help yourself but you don’t need to add something to every page or overload every page with more words, underlining and highlighting. The opportunity could be used by thinking, “Actually, this is fine as it is.”

Turn the page. Look carefully. Add what you need.

Nathan

Rough Edges

Daily Post

Thesis submission typically comes after many hundreds of days of work: learning, development, growth and making something. You can’t get to that point without learning how to do something well.

Perfection isn’t attainable, but viva prep is a short period of time to help you get better for the particular task of the viva. You can clean up the rough edges of your memory, smooth over common stumbles in how you explain things and be more confident for meeting your examiners.

It’s a little work, but it can help a lot.

Nathan

Viva Prep Party!

Daily Post

Imagine that viva prep is an amazing party!

  • Look at your diary and think about when you’ll host it.
  • Who do you invite?
  • Do you need to invite more people so that you can be sure of enough help?
  • What supplies do you need to make sure that it goes well?
  • It’s a really long party probably, so what will happen when?
  • What do you need to do in advance to help it along?
  • And how will you maintain your own energy throughout?

Of course, viva prep is not a party but similar questions can help you organise, get help and do the work well.

That way you’re ready for the celebrations after your viva!

Nathan

3 Simple Questions

Daily Post

In viva prep there’s a lot to unpack when you reflect on your PhD, your research and your thesis.

If it seems overwhelming, start small with three questions:

  • Why did you do it?
  • How did you do it?
  • What can you do now?

Begin your viva reflections simply, dig deeper afterwards.

Nathan

The Rs of Viva Prep

Daily Post

Refresh your memory: read your thesis, check a few papers and make whatever notes you need to feel confident that you know what you need to know.

Review your thesis: add annotations to create the best supporting resource possible for your viva.

Rehearse for the discussion: you have to be ready to talk.

Reflect on the journey: remember why you have got this far – not by being lucky, but by working hard and growing as a capable researcher.

Rest: give yourself space to breathe.

Nathan

On Mini-Vivas

Daily Post

It was five years ago yesterday that I first published 7776 Mini-Vivas. Since starting this blog in 2017 it remains one of my favourite resources I’ve created.

Since then I’ve shared it with over five thousand PhD candidates in workshops and webinars, posted supporting posts on the blog from time to time – most recently in September – and adapted it as a print resource. Before the summer it inspired another new resource I’ve started offering with my sessions.

All of which is by way of preamble to say, “I made a thing to help with viva prep five years ago and I still think it’s really good and other people do too!”

If you’re looking for something to get you thinking or talking about your work then check out 7776 Mini-Vivas, because after five years it’s still a really helpful thing.

Nathan

Academic Siblings

Daily Post

During my PhD I came across the Mathematics Genealogy Project: an attempt to explore the family tree of mathematicians going back hundreds and hundreds of years.

Maybe you have something similar in your discipline or maybe you have a general appreciation that you are part of a tradition: your work continues to build on the past ideas, research and achievements of other dedicated humans. It’s nice to think about and can be very helpful to reflect on where your work comes from as you get ready for the viva.

Don’t forget you have academic siblings today too. There are many people around you who can help you to get ready for your viva, either by helping you practically, sharing information or simply being there. Make sure you ask for support from people who are really well-placed to help.

Nathan

Traffic Lights

Daily Post

Traffic intersections use simple colour-coding to indicate what actions should be taken. They’re used to prompt very specific behaviour and action. Perhaps we can borrow the terminology to consider the kinds of questions that might come up at a viva…

Green light questions are anticipated; you are entirely comfortable with them. Whether it’s about something in your thesis, your research or your general field, if you were to hear a green light question you would be happy to just go (and start talking)!

Yellow light questions force you to slow down. You might have to change pace. There’s no problem but you need to think and focus more. There’s nothing wrong with doing that. You’re not expected to know everything or remember everything in your viva; pausing for a moment to get your thoughts together is good.

Red light questions make you stop. A question could be unexpected. It could be something you struggle with. And it might make you feel uncomfortable.

 

In the real world, red lights make people stop – but then they go again, and that’s also like the viva.

If a question is hard, unfamiliar or unexpected at the viva you still need to respond to it. You still have to engage in order to meet the expectations of the viva.

If you know of a red light topic for you, what could you do to improve how you feel about it? If it’s a yellow can you make it a green?

1 … 32 33 34 35 36 … 135