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Tag: viva preparation

Nathan

Good Preparation

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Viva prep is the work you do to help yourself feel ready. It’s a set of relatively simple tasks and activities like reading your thesis, rehearsing for the viva, making summaries. There are a lot of options for how you can approach things and when you combine all of the work together it’s relatively small in comparison to the rest of your PhD.

What helps make viva prep good?

You do.

 

As you begin, think about your situation: your work, your responsibilities and your commitments. How can you plan to do your viva prep in a way that won’t overload you?

Think about how and when you will get your prep done: what can you do to make that time effective? What can you do to work with the amount of energy or focus you might have available?

Explore your own preferences: if you need to read your thesis, for example, how will that work well for you? Will you read it for a chapter per day for a week? Will you take an afternoon to read it all?

 

There are specific tasks that help someone get ready for their viva. How you do the work, when you do the work and the circumstances you create for that will show you how good that preparation is. Good viva prep doesn’t follow a masterplan for all candidates. Good viva prep is personal: shaping the tasks to your circumstances and doing it with as little stress as possible.

Nathan

Positive Prep

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If viva prep feels like a grind and a bore then you need to change how you’re approaching it.

It’s not that it should be FUN or that you should perform a series of fist pumps every time you read your thesis, but it will help you to feel ready and confident for your viva if you have a positive association with your prep, your research and your thesis.

If prep feels like a grind and a bore then perhaps you could try some of the following:

  • Can you switch to a different task for a day or two?
  • Can you change the time that you’re doing viva prep work?
  • Can you move to a different space to get the work done?
  • Can you ask for help from someone?
  • Can you bring a little fun to the process?
  • Can you motivate yourself with a small reward of some kind?

Any positive connections you can find will help. What can you do to help you get your viva prep done in a positive way?

Nathan

Where You Prepare

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For viva rehearsal activities you might need to meet others in offices, seminar rooms or cafés. However, for most viva prep you’ll likely be working by yourself. What kind of space will help your viva preparation?

Think about your preferences. Think about the practicalities of the situation. When will you do the work? How quiet do you need it to be? What resources do you need? Consider your options and choose the one that will work best for you. Can you do something to meet your needs even more?

Where you prepare can make a difference to how you prepare. Make a good space for where you’ll do your viva prep.

Nathan

Thinking In Advance

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Creating summaries as part of viva prep helps you to gather useful thoughts. A summary is a chance to focus and gives you space to think in advance of the viva.

Write an overview of your thesis and you bring together a lot of helpful information.

Make a list of what you’re most proud of and you highlight ideas to share with your examiners.

Prepare a summary of your research methodology and you bring together valuable points.

Do any or all of these, or create any kind of summary, and you’re not creating a script to read from in your viva. You’re doing some of your thinking in advance though: you’re helping yourself to pre-consider topics you might need to engage with when you meet your examiners.

Nathan

Preparation Pressure

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Plan your viva prep with the pressure you need to get it done.

Time and circumstances are not completely within your control. Planning ahead allows you to think about the situation you need to work well.

If you need space to think, time to make mistakes and enough freedom that you can take a day off from viva preparation then give yourself plenty of time in your plan. Pressure won’t help you. That’s your preference.

Alternatively, if you feel like you need a bit of pressure, then still plan but start closer to your viva day. Work more intensively and focus your efforts on the week and days immediately leading up to your viva. That’s your preference.

Whatever you feel you need and whatever you decide to do, don’t confuse stress with pressure. A little pressure might help you to work well, but stress will only provide pain to your preparation plans.

Nathan

Multipliers for Viva Readiness

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There are many tasks and activities that help someone get ready for their viva. Reading the thesis, rehearsing with a mock viva and so on – the practical stuff that helps.

Alongside what you might need to do, consider how you get it done. How you do something has an impact on your effectiveness, and consequently on your readiness for the viva. All of the following help, for example:

  • Rest helps you to relax and helps you to think.
  • Time to do the work well.
  • A plan to help you feel organised.
  • A quiet, calm space to do the work.
  • Understanding the process of the viva.
  • Time to reflect and think.

It’s unlikely that every aspect of the viva prep work you do and the way you do it will be within your control. Consider how you can start with good intentions and work towards being ready for your viva.

Nathan

Revise or Review?

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Words matter.

It might help to think of viva prep as revising for a test. If that’s how you think of it then follow that impulse. Make a plan. Consider what you need to do. Build structure to help you get the work done. Thinking of viva prep as exam revision has merit.

Another consideration could be that viva prep is reviewing things. You don’t need to revise and re-learn everything. You already know what you know. Because you’ve been doing this for years you don’t need to revise and cram your mind with information. Instead you just have to review who you are, what you can do and how far you’ve come.

Words matter.

What words are you using to describe your process for getting ready?

Nathan

Superlatives

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Here is a small reflection and summary exercise to help gather useful information before your viva. Four questions:

  • What’s the best part of your thesis?
  • What was the least useful period of research during your PhD?
  • What was the hardest thing you learned?
  • What is your proudest achievement?

Take a moment to reflect for each of these. Write down your thoughts in keywords or sentences. Reflect more and then dig deeper for each by asking yourself, “Why?”

  • Why is this the best part of your thesis?
  • Why was that the least useful period?
  • Why is that the hardest thing you learned?
  • Why is that your proudest achievement?

Reflection questions are helpful for shaking loose ideas that are worth remembering or considering more.

“Why?” often allows one to dig a little deeper.

Nathan

The Sixth Activity

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There are six main types of activity that make up viva preparation.

Five of them are, in a strange way, quite similar. Candidates can prepare for their viva by:

  • Reading their thesis;
  • Annotating their thesis;
  • Creating summaries;
  • Reading recent publications;
  • Checking recent papers by their examiners.

These are quite different at first glance. They are all essential, helpful activities for viva prep – and also completely unlike what a candidate will do in the viva. That’s the strange similarity: they are essential for viva preparation but practically unlike what someone will do when they meet their examiners.

The sixth essential activity is finding opportunities to rehearse. Mock vivas, seminars, conversations with friend and more. Work that is much, much closer to the work you will do when you meet your examiners. Deliberate practice that helps you to be more comfortable for viva day.

The other five activities make a difference. They are essential, but they are not the same kind of actions that you will take in your viva.

Find opportunities to rehearse.

Nathan

What Does It Mean?

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What does this mean? What does that mean? What’s the difference between X and Y?

If there are any terms that you can remember being asked about a lot during your PhD, then take time to refresh your memory before your viva. If there are terms you use regularly while you do your work, be sure that they mean what you think they mean. Be sure that there aren’t edge cases or extra points you’ve forgotten.

You don’t need to know every fact, detail, reference and idea, but take time to unpick what common terms mean, especially if you’ve used them a lot.

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