Want to know how to prepare for PhD viva? We’ve collected advice and tips from successful researchers from around the world! Succeed in your PhD viva!

Each PhD is a distinctive journey in the fascinating world of yet-to-be-discovered knowledge. And as most of the journeys we take in our lives, it has a very specific destination – the PhD viva exam! 

I’ve discussed what PhD viva is, what are the requirements and what you should expect in my last article – make sure you read it if you haven’t done so yet!

The key to a success in a PhD viva is thorough preparation. We cannot just “wing it”!

The viva exam not only aims to verify whether you’ve done your research yourself, and I bet this isn’t the issue, and whether it is novel. It also aims to test whether you understand the work presented in your PhD thesis and the broader discussions in your field of study. The examiners also aim to verify if you’re ready to undertake a career as an independent academic. 

But how do you prepare for PhD viva and pass it with a flying colours? 

As I said at the the very beginning of this article, each PhD is unique and depends on the context of your doctorate, your examiners, your project and so on. Therefore, the viva preparation and viva experience is different. 

That is why I asked my friends who successfully passed their vivas in the recent years to share their tips and advice on viva preparation. Please meet Dr María Erans, Dr Ahmed Saleh and Dr Sinemobong Essien with whom I had a pleasure to work with in various capacities during the past decade. 

I asked them three simple questions: 

– what advice would you give yourself before viva?

– how did you prepare for PhD viva?

– what did you find most useful in your preparation? 

If your main goal for this year is to pass your PhD viva, you can find their recommendations below. I will build on their advice and share the tools and reflections from my PhD viva preparation in the webinar.

Dr María Erans, Marie Curie Fellow at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

Graduated with PhD at Cranfield University

For preparing a viva, in my opinion, the most important thing is to be proactive. The weeks leading to my viva, I read my thesis a couple of times putting different coloured post-its with a colour scheme. Green post-its were for possible questions, yellow for minor errors and pink for the most important points/findings. This allowed me to prepare for any possible questions that I might be asked, and not that surprisingly the examiners asked questions in the locations of my green post-its, so I was ready for them. At the end of the day, you know your thesis better than anyone and you are aware of its strengths and weaknesses.

Another important point is to not psyche yourself out; you have been preparing for this for around three years and if your supervisors think you are ready, trust them! Also, relax the day before your viva, go for a walk, watch a movie you like or read a book. I always tell this to any soon to be Dr. the days prior to their viva, and not many believe: a viva is a conversation between scientist peers that are actually interested in your work, so above everything ENJOY IT! It will only happen once!

Viva is a conversation between scientist peers that are actually interested in your work, so above everything ENJOY IT! It will only happen once! | Dr María Erans

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Follow Maria’s work on ResearchGate and LinkedIn!

Dr Sinemobong Essien, Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Auckland

Graduated with PhD at the University of Auckland

What advice would you give yourself before viva?

Relax and Prepare early. Remember, the planning and execution of this research project was done by you. Agreed, you might have had some help here and there. But the bulk of the work was done by you. So, get confident in that fact, plan, prepare early, practice, repeat. The viva is just a discussion session with other experts, who only want to know if it was you who did the work.

How did you prepare for PhD viva?

I started preparing for my oral presentation from the first day I resumed my doctoral degree. The plan was to build confidence in my research and the results thereof. So, I worked on gaining a complete understanding of what my research stood to achieve, the big picture and specific targets. I used standard practices, like having controls and repeated measures, for my experiments. This is very important when drawing conclusions especially in new research areas.

I began arranging and populating my presentation slides at least a month to the D day. This was to allow time for practicing and editing. My presentation was organised in a way that gave an executive summary of my research background, approach and results while addressing questions that were raised by the examiner. The latter part is very essential because it helps you expound on the questions/issues that were raised thus giving more depth to your presentation.

I had several mock presentations in front of the mirror, where I noted non-verbal cues that may indicate confidence or lack of it, then I adjusted these body signs where necessary. One more mock presentation with the supervisor to gain perspective from a more experienced person in the field. Another mock presentation with friends who gave tips on presentation style.

I backed up my presentation slides and thesis in various location e.g., email, cloud storage, USB, external drive. Storing your thesis and presentation slides in different location helps prevent document losses. The impact of this loss can be devasting to both physical and mental health.

I looked at the viva as a discussion session and not as an examination. That way I was able to reduce the undue examination tension which allowed me focus on arranging, practicing, editing and back.

Lastly, I took breaks. The time allowed me recharge and also come up with better ideas to improve my presentation.

What did you find most useful in your preparations?

The practice sessions. The tips provided helped improve my presentation, both the style and the content. Most people shy away from this because of various reasons including timidity. But I encourage everyone preparing for their viva to try practicing in front of the mirror, to friends and to research group. The pointers you receive may be very useful for preparing for your viva. Best wishes for you big day.

I encourage everyone preparing for their viva to try practicing in front of the mirror, to friends and to research group. The pointers you receive may be very useful for preparing for your viva. | Dr Sinemobong Essien

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Dr Ahmed Saleh,  Low Carbon Energy Engineering Consultant

Graduated with PhD at Heriot-Watt University

You have reached this stage, congratulations! You are almost there; just a few steps away from your dream. Be confident about your work. Be full respect to your examiners and their experience but remember you have something special that you have done all that amount of research and analysis was done by yourself and you know each part of it. Now it is the time to talk about and explain.

Be confident about your work. Be full respect to your examiners and their experience but remember you have something special that you have done. | Dr Ahmed Saleh

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In my introductory paragraph, I have avoided using the word defend and I used explain and talk instead. The reason for that I believe that dealing with the viva as discussion and explanation session, rather than a defence session, would reduce your stress compared to dealing with it as a defence session and you have to be prepared for others attack.

Personally, I believe that the preparation for the viva starts from choosing your examiners. Choosing examiners with a research profile close to what you are doing in your PhD might help to have a smooth viva what we could call a discussion session.

To prepare for PhD viva, first read carefully the thesis from the start to the end. Do it at least once before the viva. It should be a deep reading and try to stop and challenge your self about what you have written. Ask yourself if you were the examiner how could you ask about this point. Do not leave anything vague. If you do assumptions prepare your self to be asked WHY?

If you faced a problem in the design or the calculations prepare your self for a question of HOW did you manage to solve and so on?

While you do the deep reading practise, take notes and put them either on the hard copy of your thesis or gather them in a separate file.

After completing what I called the deep reading and challenging yourself, you may get a list of questions or points you are highly expecting the examiners to ask you about. Prepare the answer for each of them and make your self ready with one step ahead.

Second advice I would like to give you is to do a couple of mock vivas. In my case, I did it twice. Once with my supervisor and once with a friend who was studying something completely different from what I am doing. The main advantage I could see from the two mock vivas that I have received different opinions, questions and suggestions from experts and non-experts in my major. 

Although it is optional to give a presentation in the day of the viva, I found it very useful as you may answer some of the examiners’ questions and the most important thing is that it might guide them to the right question in the core of your thesis which you are well prepared for.

Finally, to wrap up, the thesis is your hard work which you have spent months to prepare and this a very good chance for you to explain, discuss and impress others.

Follow Ahmed’s work on LinkedIn!

A final word…

I trust the reflections and advice from my friends around the world will inspire you and will help you to prepare for PhD viva – let me know if this has been useful in the comments!  

If you’ve already passed your viva, I’d like to hear from you! If there’s any piece of advice that you’d like to give current or prospective PhD students, use the contact form to reach out!