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Tag: viva prep

Nathan

Simple & Consistent

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When you start to annotate your thesis, take ten minutes to think and make some decisions.

First, think carefully about what you need in your thesis. Every thesis is different and so is every person. There may be some very good suggestions for annotations that would be helpful to a lot of people, but they may not be right for meeting your needs or preferences. So make a list: what do you need in your thesis?

Second, consider how you are going to meet your needs simply and consistently. This is very important: anything you add takes time to add and anything you add will be seen again by you. It’s better if whatever approach you take is easy to do and easy to remember.

So what will you underline? With what colour? For what reason?

Where will you add margin notes? What governs your decisions for using highlighters? And when will you stick notes in to your thesis?

Decide before you begin. Think about your thesis. Think about your needs.

Be as simple as you can and work consistently to help the process of annotating your thesis – and to create a good space for when you’ll need to read it again.

Nathan

Actions & Improvements

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There are many actions, big and small, that you can take to improve your readiness for the viva.

  • Placing a sticky note at the start of each chapter can help you navigate your thesis more easily.
  • Taking half an hour to reflect and list key references can help you make connections about your research.
  • Preparing for and having a mock viva can help your confidence grow for meeting your examiners.
  • Simply writing one short sentence – you can do this – at the start of your thesis can give you a little boost.
  • Describing your research to a friend over coffee can help you practise sharing ideas.
  • A two-hour meeting with your supervisor can help you review ideas, key questions and difficult problems.

There are many actions, big and small, that you can take to improve your readiness for the viva. Some may only help a little, but lots of small actions can add up to a huge difference.

Don’t neglect the little things – and don’t put off the big tasks!

Nathan

The Minimum

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What’s the minimum amount of viva prep I can get away with?

There are no bad questions in webinars, no stupid questions, but there are questions that surprise me!

 

What’s the minimum? A core set of tasks perhaps – reading, checking, practising – or a time period to do the work in.

What’s the minimum? Well, all you “need” is to submit a thesis and attend on the day of the viva. That would be the absolute minimum, right?

What’s the minimum? Maybe we need a better question. Charitably, I can imagine that the person asking the question is stressed, tired, overwhelmed and wondering what they can do to fit in what could feel like a lot of work.

Maybe instead of what’s the minimum? we can focus on how do I get ready if I’m busy?

You plan, you break the tasks down, you give yourself a generous period of time to do the work, you ask for help and so on.

 

And at a minimum, you’ve invested three years of work when you meet your examiners. There’s still more work needed to get ready for the viva, but don’t forget the foundations you’re building on to be ready for that conversation.

Nathan

What Will It Take?

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When you start to prepare for your viva, make a list of what you will need to feel prepared. Ask yourself:

  • What practical materials do you need to help you get ready?
  • How much time do you have to invest?
  • Who do you need to consult with?
  • What key tasks do you have to have finished?
  • What activities will you engage with?
  • What outputs or outcomes will help you to know that you are prepared?

With all of these questions responded to and items listed, you have a checklist. The more you mark off, the closer you are to being sure you’re ready. Even if you can’t get everything – say, if you can’t have a mock viva – if you manage most things then you can feel pretty confident for the big day.

What will it take for you to feel ready? Make a list and do as much as you can.

Nathan

Summaries Aren’t Scripts

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There are lots of good reasons to write summaries of your thesis, your research or aspects of both as part of your viva preparation.

  • Writing a summary helps you to focus on what matters.
  • A summary can help you to collect and organise your thinking.
  • Creating a summary can help you to identify what matters too.

A summary can be a list of points or a page of paragraphs, written in ten minutes or drafted carefully over an hour.

A summary is not a script though. You might use a helpful question to prompt writing: there are many viva question resources on the internet that provide these. Still, your examiners are not expecting memorised responses and hyper-polished notes that you read from.

The summary helps you prepare for the viva. It’s not a script to read from during the viva.

Nathan

Words Count

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What’s the upper or lower word count for my thesis?

This is an interesting question. Sometimes it’s asked in a purely practical way: someone wants to know what the regulations say. The best response I can give is suggest they read the regulations for their university and check with their supervisors for any department-specific advice.

Sometimes it’s asked because there is a deeper question waiting to be asked. Perhaps how short can my thesis be? Or maybe will my examiners prefer a long or short thesis?

These are also interesting questions, but I’d follow up with questions of my own: why do you want your thesis to be short? and why are you writing your thesis for your examiners?

Here are some better questions about words to consider as you finish writing and start preparing for the viva:

  • What terminology do you need to refresh yourself on before the viva?
  • What can you do to practise sharing your work with your examiners?
  • What words matter in your work?
  • What words or sections do you need to highlight in your thesis?
  • What words would you use in a good summary of your thesis contribution?

What words could you use to describe what you do well as a researcher? What words stand out when you think about what you’ve accomplished over the years of your research?

Nathan

One More

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One more hour of reading could help you to remember that key piece of information that’s slipped your mind.

One more conversation with your supervisor might boost your confidence for meeting your examiners in the viva.

One more look through your thesis with a highlighter in hand might show you that detail you’ve been missing – or the typo you’ve missed so far!

 

One more of any of these might be one too many things though: there is a practical limit of how much prep you can do and how much prep you need to do.

The viva is only one more day when you have to show up and do things you have done many, many times before.

Nathan

Aware, Not Expert

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It’s good to know about what your examiners do but you don’t have to know all about them to be prepared.

At a minimum, if you don’t know much about them you can read a few of their recent papers in the weeks leading up to the viva. Then you can get a sense of who they are, what they do and what they spend their research time on.

It could be you already know this before you submit your thesis. If their work has been part of the background for your research then you might be more familiar than I’ve outlined above – and of course that’s fine too!

And similarly, it’s enough for them to be familiar with your area of research if it doesn’t correspond to everything they know and do – your examiners don’t need to be experts in your thesis focus in order to be good examiners for you.

Nathan

The Questions You Want

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Take ten minutes to write down any questions you really want your examiners to ask.

Take twenty minutes to write down keywords for each question to capture ideas of what you might say in response.

Take thirty minutes to sit, think and maybe write about what this is telling you.

 

It’s common for PhD candidates to have a sense of questions they don’t want to be asked in the viva.

Flip that feeling. What do you want to be asked?

Or, perhaps when you reflect, what do you want to share with your examiners? What would you say? And what does that mean?

Nathan

Vivas Have Structure

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Every building has multiple blueprints or plans. On one plan are the walls, but another diagram shows where pipes and cables go.

If you compare building plans for different buildings you’ll notice similarities and differences, but look closer and you’ll see common structures.

Certainties for what you would find.

 

Vivas are based on regulations, expectations and norms.

  • Universities set thesis examination regulations.
  • Expectations rise from the general stories in academic culture.
  • Your department finds norms, the “good practice” ways of the viva.

All three give the viva structure. Every viva is unique because every thesis and candidate are unique but vivas tend towards patterns of experience.

You can make predictions and have expectations of what your viva will be like. You’ll have to wait until viva day to know exactly what it’s like.

Every viva is unique – but that doesn’t make yours a big unknown.

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