Daily viva help for PhDs
What do you expect of yourself at your viva?
Viva expectations are often discussed in terms of length and first questions, format and examiner tone – but what do you expect from yourself? What should others expect of you?
Together, you and your examiners can all reasonably expect that you’ll succeed at your viva.
In preparation for your viva you can use margin space to add to your thesis and make it as useful as possible for your viva.
You also need to balance.
Helpful but not overfull.
It doesn’t make sense to try to cram long sentences in.
Start by deciding on what you need from the space. What do you need to add to your thesis to make it useful? What does it make sense to put in the margin?
Keywords? Stickers and sticky notes? Things that draw attention to specific lines?
You have a lot of space in the borders. Your margins can be a useful space for viva prep, but don’t leave them cramped. The point is to make something useful for your viva.
A little thought and a little annotation goes a long way.
PS: viva coming up and an hour free tomorrow morning? Check out the details of 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva which is running at 11am tomorrow (Wednesday 24th September 2025). Find out why you can be confident, get access to a catch-up recording and my pdf guide to getting ready for the viva. Registration closes later this afternoon.
I feel that many PhD candidates expect they will have to argue a lot in the viva.
Arguing can feel like a loaded term. There are lots of negative associations with the word argument so we need to be clear for viva expectations.
The viva is supposed to be a discussion. Maybe you need to make an argument – presenting ideas and evidence and reasoning – but there should never be a situation where you have an argument.
The idea of having an argument is persistent. Some candidates expect that they will be countering points and questions that their examiners put forward. They feel they will defend their thesis by protecting what they have done and what they have written.
At times you might need to make an argument in the viva: make a case, lay out your thoughts and reasons. Put your view across and listen for your examiners’ thoughts.
Don’t expect that you’ll have to have an argument to be heard.
If you are too busy to prepare for your viva then you need a plan. Sketch one out at submission. Just a sketch. Can you spread the work over a month? What could you do in thirty minutes per day over three weeks and maybe an hour or so each day in the week before your viva?
If you are too busy to prepare for your viva then you need help. So ask for help! Talk to your supervisor, your friends, your family and make sure they know what you need with plenty of notice. Ask early so that anyone you live with can give you space and time to get ready.
If you are too busy to prepare for your viva then you need to make your working situation as good as you can. Get your materials together. Always know in advance what you will do with a chunk of prep time. Make yourself comfortable and perhaps find rewards for getting things done.
If you are too busy to prepare for your viva then you need to change how you feel. Reflect on and explore your progress to help you realise just how much you’ve done and just how proud you can be. Build up your confidence for the viva.
If you’re busy you still have to prepare. You can make a plan and make it nice but it’s still work. There are no shortcuts but equally it doesn’t have to be stressful.
If you’re busy: make a plan, ask for help, remove friction and build your confidence.
There is always more work you could have done. There are different questions you could have asked. There are other ways you could have approached your research.
More and different do not mean better.
They’re just more or different.
As you prepare for your viva, work to find the confidence to acknowledge alternatives but support what you did. Explore and explain the choices you made, easy or difficult, and build the certainty that what you’ve done is enough.
Build your confidence that you are enough.
What do you need or want from your viva for it to be a satisfying experience?
And what, of all of these wants and needs that you perceive, is within your control?
If you pin the satisfaction of your viva on things that are out of your control then you can only hope that it will be a good experience.
Think carefully about what you need and want from your viva and don’t rely on hoping that it will all go well.
PS: for more than hope of viva success take a look at next week’s 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva webinar on Wednesday 24th September. An hour of viva confidence plus a catch-up recording and pdf guide to getting ready. Full details at the link!
The length of your viva doesn’t matter for the most part.
There’s an obvious exception: if the amount of time that you are in the viva could have a negative physical, mental or emotional consequence for you then you need to explore what measures could be put in place via your Graduate School or Doctoral College to make sure the viva is fair for you.
That aside, while there are trends and patterns, vivas generally take as long as they need to. Aside from being tiring if they’re long there are no greater likelihoods of negative outcomes based on viva length. Rather than try to make it be quick it’s better to just prepare and engage as well as you can.
Viva length is a distraction. Better timing-related questions to ask are:
One more timing-related question: when will you celebrate your viva success?
PS: if you’re looking for more ideas about expectations that are worth focussing on then please check out The Expectations Issue, my latest curated collection of Viva Survivors help.
What viva superpower would you like?
It might be nice to have Mega-Memory and have perfect recall of every piece of information. Would you prefer to have some kind of Precognition, able to hear your examiners’ questions in your mind hours ahead of time? Or perhaps you’d like Invisibility to hide from questions you don’t want to face?
Of course, you won’t be superhuman as a result of viva prep – but you don’t need to be.
Prep helps you to be ready. Building confidence helps you to be certain.
You don’t need to be superhuman but if you can find confidence you have a superpower: the ability to understand what nervousness is and what it means. Your viva is important and you want it to go well. That’s all.
There’s a lot you could highlight in the text of your thesis as part of viva preparation. You could highlight:
There’s a lot you could highlight. It’s your choice to decide what matters most and where to direct your attention.
The same is true when it comes to the things you highlight from your PhD journey. What are the highlights of the years you have spent working on your research and thesis? What do you want to remember? Where will you choose to put your attention?
What you choose to highlight makes a difference to your preparation and your confidence for your viva.
In brief: I have two upcoming dates for my 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva session. These are on Wednesday 24th September 2025 and Thursday 30th October 2025 and registration is open.
7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva is a 1-hour confidence boost for the viva. I explore why candidates can know what to expect, how that helps them and what they can do to help themselves.
When you register to attend you also get access to a four-week catch-up recording after the session and will receive a pdf copy of my 101 Steps To A Great Viva guide.
Here’s what past attendees say about 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva:
I’m running 7 Reasons You’ll Pass Your Viva live on Wednesday 24th September 2025 and Thursday 30th October 2025 and registration is open now.
And save the date: my 3-hour comprehensive Viva Survivor session will run live on the morning of 3rd December 2025. Registration will open on Wednesday 1st October.
Thank you for reading!
Nathan