This may perhaps be a stupid question, although I firmly believe not asking them is more foolish but can someone give me any idea how exactly the thesis should be marked up for the viva.

I have a few post its etc but I'm a bit hesitant to put anything in it. Yet others have implied that they used neon markers etc to easily flip to parts. My supervisor well we know he isn't that helpful so I have come to you all for some knowledge.

Im a bit confuddled anyway. I feel woefully underprepared viva is at the start of June. I have Rowena's book on how to survive your viva so I am using it a lot. Worried I wont know enough. I have very poor knowledge retention these days...

xx

I didn't mark up my thesis at all, or stick post-it notes in it. I read it beforehand, and summarised it, and took the summary in with me (a sentence/line for each page number, arranged in two columns). So that would have helped me find things. But I didn't mark up the thesis at all. And I wasn't asked to refer to it once.

You have plenty of time to prepare for your viva. June is ages away :) Good luck.

Thank you,

feeling a bit intimidated by it all and a bit baffled with what to do. My thesis has escaped my head which is annoying lol!

Have you tried summarising it? There's really good advice on how to do that in the Tinkler & Jackson viva book, based on the Phillips & Pugh "How to get a PhD" book. I summarised mine into two-column pages, a short line (well half line!) or two per thesis page. That helped me engage with it.

I was really concerned about remembering my thesis because I have brain damage and huge memory problems as a result from neurological disease. But I found actively summarising it helped. But don't try that until 3 weeks or less before your viva, lest you forget it.

I didn't need the summary in the end, and wasn't asked anything that required me to look up my thesis at all, even though I had it with me. But having summarised it like that, rather than just reread it more casually, made me a bit more confident when I went into the room.

Brilliant advice there actually. Im gonna see if I can grab that book and start summarising like a mad person!

If you can get hold of the Tinkler & Jackson viva book look at page 148 for advice on summarising the thesis. I'd give you the Phillips & Pugh pages too, but they vary by edition. But Tinkler & Jackson describe the technique, as well as others you can use.

Thank you xx

Hi Liminalplace, Bilbo,

I agree that summarising the thesis is a good idea. It is probably not just the end product (the summary) but also the process (the summarising) that is important.

For myself to prepare for the viva (no explicit date yet) I have "brainstormed" what kind of issues / questions would be important. I thought that important were:

The thesis / summary
Literature around it, knowledge of summary of literature, good knowledge of a few key studies
Principles of the project done, research methods,
strengths and weaknesses, what have I learned, what to do differently if the project would be done again
Awareness what is happening between the thesis and the viva (new studies not in thesis yet)

Have you got a similar / different list? Bilbo, did you use something like this for preparation?

I had a similar list Rick, based on what I'd read in Tinkler & Jackson.

- originality of my thesis
- contribution to knowledge
- methodology
- weaknesses/gaps/mistakes
- and what would I do differently if starting again

Those areas were what I focused on in my pre-viva thinking. I preferred this to the alternative approach of revising for dozens of potential similar viva questions. I have huge memory problems, and the pared-down approach was more effective for me.

Hi Liminalplace, I'm in a similar situation with my viva at the beginning of June. I've decided to go through the thesis and write lots of notes on it - I'm in sciences, so have lots of calculations etc. I feel exactly the same way as you in that I feel I don't know enough, especially about the background to my area and who has done what. But I'm feeling better the more work I do on it, so hopefully will feel better by the viva. I'm just telling myself that I can't be expected to know everything, and if I work hard between now and the viva, there's not much more I can do!

It's going to be really hard to cope with the stress for the next few weeks - I know a lot of people are so relieved after handing in the thesis, but I feel so much worse now that it's handed in!

All the best with your preparation :)

I used post-it notes to index locations so that I could quickly flip to some important tables. Something I found very useful was that I wrote keywords beneath several references so that I could quickly justify why they had been included and how they backed up my argument.

Gosh thank you all, I really need to implement some of these things. Thanks for all your help.