Six top tips to pass your PhD viva
I’ve got six top tips to help you get through your PhD viva without losing your mind. Get ready to take some notes!
PhD viva voce. Thesis defense. Do those words make you shudder? Do they bring about a creeping feeling of dread?!
No one goes skipping into their viva singing songs from the musicals!
Most people feel nervous. It’s completely normal to be anxious.
A viva is a big deal.
It comes at the end of several years hard work and there is a panel of experts ready to put you through your paces.
So, yeah. Gulp.
It’s a big day.
However, it’s not supposed to be awful!
Your examiners are going to ask you some tough questions.
They are going to challenge you on the choices you made, the findings you came away with, and your interpretation of those findings.
But, unless you’ve struck seriously unlucky and have a psychopath as an examiner, they do not want you to fail.
None of your examiners are plotting your demise.
They want you to succeed.
So, how can you maximise your chances of success?
Keep reading, because I’ve got six tips to help you! I’ve summarised them all in a handy PDF guide, which you can grab by clicking here. You’re welcome :-)
If we’ve not met before, hi, I’m Dr Elizabeth Yardley and I’ve got 20 years experience supporting graduate students through their dissertations. I’ve prepared students for PhD vivas, I’ve been an examiner, I’ve chaired PhD vivas.
In that time I’ve seen so many students coming out of their vivas saying, “Ooh, I actually enjoyed that”. I know, right?! It is possible!
So, let’s get into the first tip.
(1) Prepare for obvious questions, but don’t drive yourself crazy
Some PhD students try to anticipate every question their examiners are going to ask them. This is 100% impossible!
Prepare for the obvious questions, like:
Can you start by summarising your thesis?
What is the central idea of your thesis?
What inspired you to carry out this research?
What are the main issues and debates in this subject area?
There are another 16 of these questions in the free PDF guide I mentioned at the start, just saying.
Prepare some loose answers to them. Literally just a few key points you want to cover.
However, don’t try to “revise” for every possible question.
I’ve come across students who’ve tried to anticipate every question and learned - robotically off by heart - the responses they’ve crafted to those questions.
That never goes well.
Firstly – because the examiner didn’t end up asking those specific questions. Secondly, trying to cram their answers made them feel really stressed and uptight.
Your best responses will be those you give right off the bat in the viva.
It’s highly unlikely there will be questions you’re completely clueless about, because you’re an expert on this now! Yes – you are! Your imposter syndrome might be telling you otherwise but it’s true, you know your stuff.
To summarise - prepare loosely for the obvious questions but don’t drive yourself nuts trying to predict the others.
(2) Mark up your thesis with sticky notes and highlights where necessary
One practical way to feel more confident going into your viva is to mark up your thesis for easy reference.
If you're bringing a hard copy of your thesis to the viva, use sticky notes, tabs, or coloured stickers to mark important sections and pages. This simple step can save you valuable time when you need to quickly find specific parts of your thesis to reference or elaborate on.
For those of you who prefer to go digital, take advantage of electronic tools to achieve the same effect. Most PDF readers allow you to highlight text, add comments, and insert digital bookmarks. Familiarise yourself with these features and use them to create a navigable digital copy of your thesis. This way, you can efficiently locate sections, figures, or tables during your viva.
By doing this you’ll be able to respond to questions more swiftly and accurately, yay!
It also helps reduce stress, as you won’t be fumbling through pages or scrolling endlessly on your device. That’s really annoying for the examiners and it’s going to make you even more flustered.
Remember, your viva is your opportunity to shine, so make sure you’re equipped with all the tools to help you perform at your best. This extra layer of preparation can make a significant difference in your confidence and overall experience.
(3) Manage expectations, corrections are not the end of the world!
There are different outcomes for a PhD viva, which vary from one university to the next. However, it’s likely to be some variation of: pass with no corrections; pass with minors; pass with majors; resubmit, or fail.
Don’t fixate on the outcome. The only one you DON’T want is a fail, but that’s very rare.
If you’ve made it to the viva with the support of your supervisors, if they’re happy with your thesis, being outright failed isn’t likely. Most students who don’t make the grade will be given a chance to resubmit.
But what really bugs me is this pressure to pass with no corrections or pass with minors. You see so many people, who are like, “I passed with no corrections!” or, “The only change I had to make was a referencing error!”. Well, good for you, love.
It’s gotten worse in the age of social media. There’s a performative, highly curated element to PhD life now and the viva show-offs can make you feel like a massive failure if you’ve got to make more than about two minor changes to your thesis.
But just remember: two, three, ten years from now, the kind of pass you got won’t matter.
What will matter is that you will have a PhD!
No one cares whether you passed with no corrections or passed with majors. You’ll be a Dr and that’ll be really cool.
Well done to people who pass with minors or no corrections, that’s great, hats off to you. But to those who don’t – please don’t let this make you feel like you failed. Because you didn’t.
Also, quick side note on this: one thing examiners will sometimes do is give you majors rather than minors simply because the majors option gives you more time. Examiners are human, most of them are nice people, and if they’re aware you’ve got a full time job, young children, a ton of responsibilities, they might give you majors because that buys you more time than minors. Again, this varies from institution to institution but with minor corrections, you might need to get them done in six weeks. Majors however, you’ve got longer for those, six months maybe.
(4) You’re the expert now, own it – but do so cautiously!
When you go into your viva, you’re an authority on your PhD research topic. You know your stuff, and you should 100% own that.
However, there’s a fine balance to strike between confidence and arrogance, so tread carefully.
Don’t be afraid to defend the choices and decisions you made during your research.
Don’t concede too easily or automatically defer to your examiner.
They want to see some oomph!
But, just don’t be too spicy!
The folk examining you will crop up at various points during your career and you don’t want to be remembered as that student who got a little bit too big for their boots in their viva. Be nice, be respectful.
(5) Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need in the viva
In your viva, there will be rules and processes to follow, which the chairperson will outline at the start.
However, don’t be afraid to ask for what you need.
If you need an examiner to repeat or rephrase a question, do so.
If you need time to answer a question, or have the examiner circle back to that question later, that’s fine, say so.
Most examiners are totally reasonable and they’ll be like, “Yeah, fine, lets come back to that in a while.”
If you need a comfort break, ask for one. Don’t sit there in pain or discomfort!
Sometimes, examiners don’t realise how much time has passed during a viva, so if you need a breather, say so.
I have been in this position a few times when I’ve been examining. I’ve been firing through a load of questions, two hours has disappeared and the other folk in the room are just wilting. I’m like, “Sorry, does anyone need a comfort break?!”.
You can take the initiative, you can ask for a break. The other people on the panel will probably be like, “Oh my goodness, thank you, I really need to go to the bathroom and I didn’t want to be the one to ask!”.
(6) Sounds weird, but try to enjoy your viva - seriously!
Lastly – enjoy it.
Your PhD viva, whilst nerve wracking, is something to actively enjoy because…
You get to talk about your research, for quite some time, with people who are genuinely interested and invested in it.
Your family and friends are likely sick of hearing about your research – if they even understand it at all – so this is a golden opportunity to talk about it.
Your examiners have read every page of your thesis. They believe your research matters and what you have to say is important. They wouldn’t have agreed to examine you if they didn’t.
You might say, “Well they’re getting paid to examine it!”. Yes they are – but the amount they’re paid is pretty small when you take into the account the hours and often days it takes them to get through your thesis. They’re not doing it for the money, trust me! They’re doing it because they’re excited about your research and they care about your contribution to the discipline.
Very rarely in life do we get the chance to really get into it about something we’re passionate about with people who also care about it. So, enjoy it!
What next?
I hope you found this helpful and it’s given you some reassurances that you’ve totally got this!
What to do now? Download the guide I was banging on about earlier and look out for helpful emails from me on all things PhD!
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