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Nathan

Four Threads Of The Final Year

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Whatever kind of research you do, there are four threads that will run through the final year of your PhD. In those last twelve months you will have to:

  • Finish your research: no more reading, no more experiments, no more following ideas to see where they lead. You have to find a place to stop.
  • Finish your thesis: write, write, write, and then write some more. Get feedback and then do your best to create a good thesis.
  • Think about your next steps: at the very least, think. Apply for jobs? Start a business? Write papers? Juggle, juggle, juggle…
  • Start your viva preparation: …but only a little!!!

Over 99% of your final year will be the first three threads. You have to get your research done, thesis submitted and start exploring what you will do afterwards. But there are a few small tasks to do before submission that will help with your viva.

First, have a conversation with your supervisors about potential examiners. Think about your preferences and what names that would suggest to you.

Second, get contact details for a member of staff in your graduate school or doctoral college who could help in case of emergency or something unexpected happens.

These are the only two essential tasks for viva preparation in your final year, but if you want to do more then make opportunities to talk about your work and take questions about what you’ve done. Give seminars, present at conferences, go for coffee with friends and build your confidence at talking about your research and what you can do.

Viva prep is a tiny element of your final year, but it still needs to be started.

Nathan

First Five Top Fives

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To date I’ve written five “Top Ten Top Fives” posts! These are preparation icebreakers useful for getting started with valuable viva preparation. I have ideas to do more in the future, but for today here are links to those first five posts, plus my favourite prompt from each!

Viva prep is more than making lists, but you can use any of these fifty prompts to make a start on useful reflection.

Nathan

Sword Sharpening

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A sword could be excellently forged, made with skill from the best materials – but if it’s not kept sharp, it won’t work well.

Similarly, you can’t create yourself and your thesis without making something good by submission – but if you don’t take a little time to prepare before the viva you won’t be at your best.

So: what are you going to do to sharpen yourself for your examiners?

Nathan

Four Mini-Vivas To Kickstart Your Viva Prep

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A year ago I first shared 7776 Mini-Vivas, a resource to create useful summaries, reflections and conversations as part of viva prep. I love seeing people share the resource, and I continue to tinker with it to find other ways to share it.

Today, I’m simply presenting four mini-vivas for you to use. You could write the questions out on a sheet of paper and give yourself thirty minutes to an hour to write down some notes. You could give them to a friend to structure a conversation. You could record yourself talking about them and listen back afterwards to reflect.

All four could help you to reflect on what you’ve done for your PhD and what it means – two areas of conversation that are sure to come up in your viva.

Mini-Viva 1

  • What is your main research question?
  • How do you know your methods are valid?
  • How is your work related to your examiners’ research?
  • What questions have you been asked about your work previously?
  • What’s the impact of your work?

Mini-Viva 2

  • What are the three brightest parts of your research?
  • What influenced your methodology?
  • How did existing literature in the field influence you?
  • How can you be sure of your conclusions?
  • What do you hope others will take away from your thesis?

Mini-Viva 3

  • How would you define your thesis contribution?
  • Where did you find support in the existing research for your methods?
  • What were some of the challenges you overcame during your PhD?
  • How would you summarise your main results?
  • What publications do you hope to produce?

Mini-Viva 4

  • Why did you want to pursue your research?
  • How would you describe your methodology?
  • How did your supervisor help shape your research?
  • How can you be sure of your conclusions?
  • What are you taking away from your PhD?

Remember to leave some time to come back to your reflections, whether written or recorded, to review what you think and see if more ideas come. You could also ask yourself “Why?” after most of these questions to prompt deeper reflection.

There’s another 7772 possible mini-vivas from the resource – you probably don’t need to use all of them as part of your viva prep!

Nathan

7 Summary Starters

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Writing a summary of your research, or some part of it, is useful for viva prep because it gets you making abstract ideas more concrete. It can be tricky to get started when faced with a blank page or a new text document. Sometimes the simplest way to start writing a summary is to answer a question:

  1. What got you started with your research topic?
  2. What was the paper or book that really hooked your interest?
  3. How would you describe your thesis contribution?
  4. What’s important about your thesis/research?
  5. What papers have been most helpful for your research?
  6. What has surprised you about your research?
  7. How has your research changed during your PhD?

If you use these questions, don’t just think about them, write down some thoughts. You don’t have to write perfect paragraphs, but capturing your ideas will help your thinking in the long term.

Nathan

Zombies And Vivas

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Their origins and purpose can seem mysterious. They can be fast or slow. And you have to be pretty special to survive them!

Popular culture shows that zombies can be survived with preparation and a plan.

Experience shows that the viva can be too, though there’s far less weaponry, blood and biting…

Nathan

Behind The Scenes

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I love movies. I sometimes go through periods where I watch a movie every day. A couple of hours of story, tension, excitement, wonder, hopefully interesting dialogue, emotions, and occasionally incredible special effects.

I love learning about the making of movies too: how were the actors cast? How did the script develop? Where did that cool idea come from? And how did they get that amazing shot to look so good? It’s rare that finding out these things breaks the magic for me. It’s possible, for me at least, to appreciate a movie and marvel at all of the hard work that went into it.

There’s a lot going on behind the scenes in the viva too, but it’s easy to forget that, easy to focus on just that one person on the day, hoping to pass. We have to remember…

  • …all of the hours spent by the candidates doing the work.
  • …all of the time spent organising thoughts and ideas into words on the page.
  • …all of the work invested by many others (supervisors, academics, universities) to get things to this point.
  • …the work of the examiners to get ready to give a good viva.
  • …the preparation work that a candidate can do to get ready and feel ready.

The viva is a couple of hours of dialogue, tension, excitement, maybe wonder, emotions – maybe few special effects, but it is certainly a special event! And it doesn’t just happen. There’s a lot that has to happen behind the scenes first.

Nathan

Making A Fuss

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It’s not making a fuss if you ask your supervisor for help before the viva.

It’s not making a fuss if you think something is wrong with your viva or the outcome and believe you need to appeal something.

It’s not making a fuss to make a complaint about your viva.

It’s not making a fuss if you feel nervous or worried and need to share that with someone to try and get some help.

I often say the viva is not the most important thing ever in a person’s life, but that doesn’t mean you need to just trivialise it. It’s right to not just dismiss any concerns or worries. Make the most of your viva. Make it the best it can be. And if you need to ask questions, ask for help, make a complaint, appeal or whatever to do that then that’s what you need to do.

It’s not making a fuss to do what you need to do for your viva.

Nathan

Burning Questions

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Most PhD candidates have real burning questions about the viva.

There’s something they want to know about the process.

They don’t know something about their examiners.

They’re unsure whether something in their thesis is relevant or a problem.

And they hold on to these questions for too long and get burn. They begin to fret. They begin to worry. They get hurt by them!

Have a question? Find someone to ask. Ask your supervisor. Ask your friends. Ask your graduate school! Ask me!

Don’t let your questions burn you. Ask for answers.

Nathan

Predictions For The Future Of The Viva

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Virtual Vivas: Have your viva from the comfort of your home, while you can have the best external from ANYWHERE in the world!

AI Examiners: Profess0R V.Iva will read your thesis and optimise a set of question trees for discussion routines. Genetic algorithms will simulate instances of responses to produce a fair set of questions. And your viva will take place within three hours of submission of your thesis to the V.Iva Cloud!

The Honour System: “You did it? And it’s good? Fair enough then, here’s your certificate…”

Bonus Round: For every question you give a good answer to from the Super-Hard Questions List you get ten points! Get fifty or more and you could qualify to spin the Wheel Of Doctorateness and maybe win bonus doctoral endorsements!

Refreshments Will Be Provided: A water cooler and a hot water urn with several tea and coffee options. This would be nice if it was relatively common!

Predictions for change are tough. Predictions based on regular, common experiences are much more straight-forward. There are regulations for vivas in the UK. There are common patterns of experience. Within all the variety from what is essentially a unique exam every time we can see ideals to work towards, and so you can be prepared.

Who knows what the future will hold, in the short or long term? You can decide what you will do now.

Don’t wait for your viva future: work for it.

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