PhD Viva

[soappyblue]

Those of you who have sat a PhD Viva, did you get any hints from the examiners whilst they were asking you questions that made you think they will have passed you?

Take in a copy of your thesis maybe with sections marked by post it notes. I don’t think looking up notes to answer a question will give a good impression. You probably don’t realise how well you know your own work. Above all, remember that you have to DEFEND your thesis. I had one student who simply agreed with every criticism the examiners raised.

No hints.
It wasn't great, but I passed.

My chartership interview a few years later was much nicer!

To counter this, you don't have to defend every point. Sometimes if the examiners say "why didn't you cite Smith et al" (and you've never heard of Smith et al) you can say "great idea, I'll include that in the corrections".

But on central points, yes you can defend what you've done. Remember there is no one right why to do a PhD so even if your examiners would have done something different, your way can still be fine.

Sorry, this was a reply to @Rocknrollstar

Mine was awful. Still rankles after 35 years! All I really remember was being asked about statistics rather than questions about the actual research and findings. I think mainly because my internal examiner knew very little about my research area (he was a clinician rather than a research scientist) and really was not a good choice.

The only person I knew who failed their viva had little in the way of positive findings (which really I do not think should be a fail because there is no point doing research if you already know the answer) but was compounded in their case by an error strewn write-up. So my big advice to anyone submitting is to get as many people as you can to proof read it for you and spot the errors before the examiners do.

@OneInEight thank you very much! Some good tips there. Unfortunately, I don't have anyone to read my work 😩

The formal report on mine, which was for a humanities subject, opened with, "After a nervous start...." I had a long discussion which was mainly interesting once I settled in.

My viva was several months after submission and I had kept up with literature in the meantime just in case. I read a paper about a relevant but obscure text I hadn't previously encountered. In the viva I was asked, "Why didn't you refer to XYZ?" I was delighted to be able to discuss the text with them rather than being a deer-in-headlights, and one of the minor corrections was to write a footnote mentioning it in the right place of the thesis. That might be a useful tip for you, but most of the comments here are about sciences which are a completely different cup of tea!

Thanks for the tips, glad it went well for you. I have read up on current literature so I'll be okay with those sort of questions. I am within social sciences which is similar to humanities I guess

Good luck @soappyblue . I’d echo lots of the reassuring advice here. Are you on good terms with your supervisors? I’d hope they will want to support and reassure you through this, and that they have chosen examiners who will engage positively with your research.
I’ve examined a few vivas for people with reasonable adjustments and would agree with posters above that this isn’t a memory test. What it is, is a test that the thesis is actually your own work, so use notes but try not to appear that you can only answer verbatim from notes.
But for what it’s worth, most examiners want a good result for the student (not least because all the other options are an awful lot more work for all concerned!)

Good luck @soappyblue

And further to @EBoo80 's comment on advice from your supervisors, at my place we always do a mock viva. Sometimes, students report that it's tougher than the actual viva!

So maybe ask about that?

And absolutely:
take in notes,
take in an annotated copy of your thesis
ask for questions to be repeated
take breaks as you need them

We always have a non-examining Chair who directs traffic and will have had a discussion with the examiners beforehand.

The other thing to remember is that most examiners are looking for your broad conceptualisation of the topic to test its originality, and to gain a sense of your understanding of the field. They may drill down into nitty-gritty details, but as an examiner, I'm interested in how the candidate conceptualises and positions her research in relation to the field, and her ability to articulate what she has done that is the original contribution to knowledge.

@LittleBigHead thank you for the advice really appreciate it. I had a mock viva with both my supervisors this morning and honestly it went really really well. They were very impressed with my answers and gave me lots of tips too. I am feeling much more confident now and hopefully I should be okay! I will update you all on the day of the viva. Thank you everyone

The point of the viva is to check that it's genuinely your work

My examiners asked a lot of what seemed to be very obvious questions, and it almost seemed that they hadn't read the thesis. I realised that they were checking that I knew the content - that it really was my own work. I kept saying 'as I said in Chapter Two ... as I wrote in Chapter Four....'

The internal examiner asked why I hadn't included anything on his pet subject, to which the answer was it wasn't what I wanted to research and write about.

I agree with pp, your supervisor should not let you submit a thesis that isn't up to standard.

My old HOD always used to say that you are the person who knows the most about your thesis topic, so have confidence in that.

My examiners told me I’d passed before we even sat down to do the viva, we then had a lovely chat about my research, and the external examiner took me out for lunch afterwards.
They seemed very happy with “what a good idea, I’ll add that in the corrections” type answers for some of the questions, and were fine with me flicking through my notes and asking them to show me specific examples of the things they had to criticise in the thesis, which gave me some thinking time.

My experience as an internal examiner on a viva was that I really, really wanted the candidate to pass, and that I tried to set up questions that would allow the candidate to shine, rather than trying to trip them up. If a supervisor has allowed the candidate to proceed to a viva then they should be confident of a pass.

Hello guys, thanks for the support. Just had my viva today, I passed with minor corrections 🍾

Brilliant!! Well done Dr Soapyyblue!

Fabulous, well done 🎉

Well done. That's an amazing achievement.

Congratulations Dr Soappyblue!

Congratulations. Great work.

Congrats dr @soappyblue

Hooray! Many congratulations DR!!!