Preparing for a PhD Viva
PhD viva’s are an interesting sort of exam because there is no set question you can prepare and the style is very much determined by the examiners. But your main work is done! You submitted! Well done!!
If you published chunks of your thesis in good peer-reviewed papers, that means that other people scrutinised your work and okayed it for publication, so take reassurance from that!
I can tell you about my experience and what I did to prepare. PhD viva’s vary between countries, and each university might have its own requirements too, but this is based on my personal experience at the University of Oxford, UK.
I had about 2.5 months between submitting the thesis until the viva. I gave myself a week to prepare for it, and this was sufficient. I struggled with feeling like I had no idea what to expect and how to prepare sufficiently. I spoke to people, read all the blogs I could find and watched whatever YouTube videos I could on the topic, and got some sort of sense of what to expect. Some of the blogs had really useful questions they were asked so I prepared answers to these.
These are the top 8 things I would recommend that I felt helped me feel prepared. I had the loveliest and kindest of examiners, and it went really well and I enjoyed it (somewhat!). I was so stressed from the unknown element of it all and the few horror stories of people failing. But essentially, if you had good guidance, regular mini defenses and discussed your work outside your group throughout your PhD, by the time you submit your thesis it should be of a passing condition.
- READ your thesis cover to cover again
Read the entire thing through. Great advice from my supervisor was that for each point you made a decision, make sure you know why you did what you did. Whether it’s a statistical test, experiment or use of a dataset, make sure you can explain why you chose it/did it. Not that there is a right or wrong answer, but to demonstrate you really understand your work and the logic/method behind it.
- Print your thesis
I really recommend printing your thesis single-sided so there is plenty of space for your prep notes and if the examiners make comments you want to note down. Use post it notes/write in your physical thesis helpful prompts if you need.
- Prepare a 10 minute presentation
Have a presentation/slide pack ready just in case they ask you to do one. A couple slides per chapter is sufficient. Preparing this, even though they didn’t ask me for it, was really helpful preparation. You can choose what to highlight and can be strategic about what you want the focus to be on.
- Be prepared to discuss your introduction/literature review
Examiners will often go through this properly to see if you know background material well, including papers you reference. Make sure you know key papers of your field you cite – go through some big citations papers so you understand their methods and results etc. I actually really enjoyed this part – I first read the same papers when I started the PHD and barely understood what was going on, but at the end 4 years later I felt I really got it and could critically appraise it.
- Look up your examiners work
Make sure you know what their area is – they may ask stuff relevant to their work. Reference their work if relevant. Try to think about your work from their perspective.
- Speak to other people
Speaking to other people about their experiences can be helpful to give you some general ideas about what to expect. Every viva is different, but it’s nice to get a vague sense of people’s experiences and see how varied they are. And that they all passed and survived and you will too! If you are able to, ask people who have examined viva’s too – maybe your supervisor or other professors you may know.
- Summarise the main findings of your thesis
This is a very common question. Try to summarise the main premise of your thesis – what the work was aiming to address, what you did and what you found.
8. Read your university examination guidelines
Find and read the documents produced by your university which set out the requirements to pass a viva. You can also read the guidelines for examiners, to get a sense of what they are examining you for. This should be a reassuring activity as it’s basically checking you know what you did, why you did it and the place it sits in the broader field. Which you do know!
Huge good luck to you! You’ve done the main work already, and you’ll smash it!
Further resources:
https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/ellie-wood/2022/08/22/my-viva-and-how-i-prepared-for-it/