Congratulations Dr Gibson! Get those bank account and passport details changed!

Congratulations!

Can you give us a detailed account of the actual viva please, including any tips/suggestions, questions you did not expect, questions you did expect but haven't been asked, level of difficulty and all that.

Thanks

Sure. Make 1-page summaries of your chapters, think about what contribution your thesis makes to knowledge (preferably along the lines of "it makes x number of contributions; these are...etc."), read your entire thesis through from start to finish twice - and properly, not skim-reading. And if you don't know an answer to a question don't try to fumble through it, simply say you can't answer. But the questions tend to be relatively general; they don't "pick fault" with a thesis unless it's very poorly written.

Yay, Dr Gibson . That is great news.

Thanks for the tips, they are greatly appreciated.

I hope you celebrated in style, you deserve it.

Thanks.

One more questions: retrospectively and with regard to the entire research process, is there anything you would have done differently, if you had to start all over again?

I don't think there is a single candidate who can honestly say that they wouldn't do the thesis in a different way if they could do it again. I would have done more interviews, I would have changed some of the literature for other theorists, I might have structured it differently. They do ask you about alternative ways that you might have approached the subject. Just be aware of them and answer honestly.

That's really helpful. In that case, congratulations again.

It must be an absolutely amazing feeling, so many years of hard work and now you know for sure that it was worth it.