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Tag: viva prep

Nathan

Your Significant Original Contribution

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It’s right to reflect on the significant original contribution that your research makes to your field as part of your viva preparation. It helps to consider how you can share that. If your examiners asked you to dig deeper, what would you say? What would you focus on?

Making notes, writing summaries and talking can all help to make that easier in the viva.

While it’s right to focus on the contribution in your research and thesis, it’s also important to invest time reflecting on yourself: what is the significant and original contribution you have made to your own development while working for your PhD?

What have you learned? What do you know now? What can you do now that you couldn’t before?

You need a good thesis to pass your viva. You also need to be sure that you are a good candidate. Reflect on the contributions you have made to both over the course of your PhD.

Nathan

Getting Ready & Being Ready

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The process and the goal.

Getting ready means reading your thesis, asking questions, checking things, making notes and building confidence. Being ready means feeling certain that your viva will be successful.

Before you sit down to get ready, think ahead to what you want to feel when you are ready. What does being ready mean for you? What would you have done? What would convince you that you’re ready for your viva?

When you have a sense of what it would mean for you to be ready for your viva, you can plan and do your preparations much more easily.

Nathan

Burst Your Bubble

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You’re in a bubble.

How could you not be? You’ve read lots of papers and done lots of relevant work and now you’ve written a book! You’re in a bubble, thinking what you think and knowing what you know and life is fine.

Now here come your examiners. They want to talk to you. They need to talk to you. They’ve been reading what you wrote and they have questions. They have comments. They have opinions and until you speak to them you won’t know what they want to discuss.

You can make some educated guesses, but those will be from inside your bubble. They’ll be based on what you did, what you know and what you wrote. Good guesses, but limited.

Unless…

Unless you burst your bubble by reading your examiners’ recent publications. You can take a little time before your viva to get a sense of who they are, what they do and what they think. You can find out a little more information, become more well-informed and see if there’s anything else you need to know to be prepared for your viva.

Being in your bubble has served you well, but you need more to be ready for your examiners.

Nathan

Break It Up

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There’s a lot to do in the viva. There’s a lot to do to prepare for the viva, or at least a lot of tasks and thoughts to manage. You might feel a lot about what’s going to happen and have plenty of distractions or concerns to contend with.

If you try to solve the whole of your prep, all of your worries or how you feel about the discussion as it starts, you’re going to dump a huge pile of problems in your path.

Instead, break things up, whatever stage you’re at.

Viva prep is a series of tasks and activities, not one great monster undertaking. There’s work to do but you can do it one piece at a time.

Viva worries can feel persistent, but you can tackle each concern one-by-one. Get help, ask for support and when you have an answer to your problem set it out clearly for yourself that you’ve got past that.

As you get to the viva, remember that while it’s a discussion you only have to respond to one question or comment at a time. You can pause, think and respond. You don’t have to have an answer for everything.

As with everything else, you can take your time to do what you need to do.

Nathan

Under It

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Viva prep doesn’t take much, space it out, don’t overstress yourself by trying to do too much in too short a time-

Good advice but if you are really under time pressure, if you just feel stress because of your work or your life, and if the thought of adding more to that feels terrible, the words above won’t help.

If you are overwhelmed you still need to prepare. If you are overwhelmed it might be difficult to think straight. Very simply then:

  • Ask for help.
  • Find a little time each day and do something small.
  • Read your thesis.
  • Make notes.
  • Talk about your work – respond to questions if you can.
  • Seriously: ask for help!

You’re the only person who can respond in the viva, but until then you have a lot of people around you who would support you practically if they knew you needed it. You have work to do to get ready for your viva – but you are not alone.

Little things add up. Your supporters will help. And it will get better.

Nathan

Clear Your Head

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Begin viva prep by writing down everything you think you might need to do.

Write down any upcoming work – projects, tasks, employment, responsibilities – that you also have to complete.

Sketch a plan of how much time you have to get ready.

And finally decide on your priorities for your viva prep. Which tasks have to be done? Which ones do you have to complete first? Are there any which are good ideas but less crucial?

Don’t start your viva prep by wondering where to begin, or juggling everything in your mind. Clear your head by getting everything out: make sense of what you could do, how much time you have and when you really need to get started.

Nathan

The Unread Notes

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Ahead of my viva I wrote in my thesis margins to simplify jargon. I checked my maths to convince myself I was right. I found an unclear explanation and rewrote it so it made more sense to me. I wrote notes on my external’s research interests to understand why my work was incompatible.

I made a lot of notes before my viva – and I read none of them in my viva, even the margin notes.

I was asked by my examiners to prepare a presentation to start the exam and I don’t think I read those notes either!

The notes were to help me get ready and they did.

All of my notes helped me to feel that I was doing or had done everything I could to be ready.

Nathan

Under The Surface

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There’s a lot in your thesis.

You created a record of what you did, how you did it and why that matters. Whatever the format or discipline, your thesis describes problems that you’ve solved or addressed.

You might share hints about obstacles that got in the way or ideas that you weren’t able to develop fully. There will be good stuff, tough stuff, simple stuff and difficult-to-talk-about stuff.

There’s a lot going on under the surface of the many pages of your thesis. Reading it carefully ahead of your viva is essential for being ready to talk about your research with your examiners.

Nathan

Invisible Work

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An audience doesn’t see the preparation and planning that goes into a talk. They might appreciate that work because of the effect it creates in the talk, but they don’t see it. They might not fully understand just how much work has been invested or even know some of the steps that have lead to the successful talk.

Reflecting on the invisible work of a PhD and a thesis is a useful activity for viva preparation. Even though you wrote your thesis, by the time you see the final collection of chapters – and given just how much time has been spent – you can forget what efforts you’ve put in.

You can forget the personal development. The setbacks and successes. The dedication you’ve invested.

To build your confidence for the viva and review what you did, reflect on the invisible work. Remind yourself of all you’ve done to produce your impressive thesis.

 

(sometimes this even extends to blog writing, when you can write a post and only realise when you come to share it that you have written on the topic with the same title two years earlier!)

Nathan

7 Starts To Viva Prep

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1. Read a handful of posts from a blog!

2. Sketch out a plan of the weeks leading up to your viva, noting busy days and quiet times.

3. Read the introduction to your thesis.

4. Search for and download the last two papers by each of your examiners.

5. Page through your thesis and insert sticky notes at the start of each chapter.

6. Ask your supervisor when they might be free for a mock viva.

7. Download the regulations for thesis examination for your university.

 

Viva prep takes a fair amount of work, but small tasks help. Little things get you moving if you’re not sure what to do. The smallest of steps can help energise you to the next thing you need to do.

If you’re procrastinating or unsure of what to do, or even worried about what’s still to come with your viva, remember that getting started puts you on the path to being done.

So start!

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