Thesis and Viva

It’s been quite a year for me! I got a new job almost a year ago, wrote up my thesis, moved to a new city and I am about to move house again. Oh, and I just passed my Viva!! Suffice to say the year has been quite packed and the next few years are going to be similarly packed I’d guess. I haven’t posted here for a while mostly because I’ve just not had the time to sit down and create a post. I really want to and have a folder full of ideas and continuations of the projects I started here. I hope to have some time to sit and write those soon, but for now I thought I would put some of my thoughts about my PhD thesis and VIVA experience out there since there is always a lot of discussion about this and I can add my two cents.

I wrote my PhD thesis quickly by most standards. It wasn’t quite stapling three papers together and handing them in but it was a lot of copying from the manuscripts I’d already written. Of these manuscripts only one had been published (the other is in preparation now) so I was a little worried whether it would be enough. I was constantly fretting that the thesis was too short and wouldn’t contain enough original research. I searched and searched for other thesis in my field finding a huge range from 80 pages to 400 pages. This was a little comforting since mine was turning out to be around 120 pages. However, it still felt too reliant on the introduction being around 40% of the thesis. But I was assured by friends that 120 pages was ok. On reflection I should have known that the old saying “quality over quantity” always rings true but I guess I was worried about the “quality” part as well.

If I had advice for someone writing their thesis now in a similar position to me, I would say this “ If your work is being considered for publication or has been published then I’m sure you’re fine. Expand on your paper(s) (unless it’s already 20 pages long), add discussion where you think you should and most of all don’t waffle !!”. Even if your work isn’t being published, if you and your supervisor believe the work to be of good quality put it in! Of course, this is all said from the lens of someone on the other side of the process. I’m currently writing my corrections so I’m sure there’s a good amount looking back through rose tinted glasses going on.

Once you’ve submitted there is of course the viva. It took an age to organise my Viva. There was the initial delay of finding time for two academics to be on the same teams meeting - my Viva was online which was both a blessing and a curse. Then there was the other delay of my examiners reading the thesis and then a rescheduling due to illness of the external examiner. Suffice to say that it was a long wait until the viva. But nonetheless there were still nerves even after the initial nerves for the first (cancelled) viva. I read and reread the thesis finding mistakes everywhere, second (and third) guessing myself on my conclusions and worrying about if the research was solid enough. In retrospect it was good for me that the viva was rescheduled, it meant that all those feeling didn’t haven’t anywhere to go and so just dissipated. A month later when I came to the rescheduled viva I’d had time to reflect on those and look at everything with fresh eyes. Things weren’t as bad as I thought. I’d had time to brush up on all the background, do more reading about my external (good advice is to read their papers, academics love talking about their work) and to think about the cracks in my work and prepare my defence.

So some more advice: start the viva prep early and have a two-stage approach. First have an initial read of the thesis and surrounding work. Do all the usual prep that’s advised on other websites (see below) and have a good old-fashioned freak out about it. Importantly though WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. Then take a week or two not thinking about it. Concentrate on work or do something completely different BUT the important thing is to forget about it. Then, a week before the viva, get back into it and read the thesis again with fresh eyes. Consider all the issues you found before, read all the notes you made, and think of ways to respond to them. My experience was that they didn’t ask about the thing I had highlighted. But if they don’t bring it up you should bring it up yourself. They will be happy with this. It shows you’ve thought about your work. A quick aside, being able to reference a lot of the main material around your subject was a big plus for me so take some time to re-read all the main results your thesis relies on and the main papers in your field.

The viva itself was online so I was able to get myself comfortable. I had my notes in front of me, but I was also able to grab paper to take notes about what we were saying. That I would recommend since they will want you to make some changes that they won’t mention in the notes they send you afterwards. Have some water handy as well, it’s not only good for hydration but also is a nice stalling technique if you need a few extra seconds to think about your answer.

Most importantly make sure you are wearing comfortable clothes (equally at least make sure they are a little smart). that was a god send for me as it was a 3 1/4-hour viva - not quite the 7-hour marathon my friend had but still a long time to sit down and talk for.

I’m summary, yes PhD thesis writing, and Vivas are a daunting task that everyone who is undertaking should not underestimate the challenge, but also should not underestimate the reward. It was amazing to finally be done with the PhD but even with that to be frank I would do it again. For me it was great to learn everything about a single topic and really get to know as much as you can about it, talk to experts in the field and people in the same position as me. Also talking to other PhDs and experts about their field and making connections was one of the best experiences I had. In short, it’s a hard qualification to get but extremely worth it in the end.

Helpful Links

https://www.ilovephd.com/phd-viva-questions/

https://www.sbs.strath.ac.uk/blogs/SBS/post.aspx?id=1449

https://www.thesavvyscientist.com/common-phd-exam-questions/

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