I found out yesterday my viva will be on the 11th of Jan. I am terrified about it and haven't really done anything to prepare yet. I am worried I have left it too late and won't have enough time to get ready (3 weeks). Any advice on how to prepare? Have I left it too late?

Thanks

Hi LilMiss, oooooooowwwwwhhhww bleeuuurghgh, that's really rough of them to have pulled that on you, just before Christmas too . All I can do is wish you luck, I'm nowhere near your stage yet, so can't advise - but you just made me feel lucky to only have marking to worry about. I'm sure someone around here will be able to advise you soon.

Hmm, I have just the thing for you that should help you get everything together. I've got a very good book (not too long and very practical and well-written), which I'll send you the link to in a private message, so you can just download and read it. Search this forum for the topic of viva questions - there's loads of advice swimming (sorry, Eska was talking about sea horses in one of the other threads!) about. I wouldn't worry too much though, as you're the world-leading expert on your topic. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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hello lilmiss..
I had my viva last week , and it is definitely not too late, if you work for the two weeks I think it is enough.

Based on my experience here are my advices:

1- read your whole thesis and know what is there exactly, i mean don't just skip through it, read it carefully.
2- make a summary (write it down) of the most important findings of your thesis
3-read the papers published by your external examiner ( cause that is there area of their expertise)
4-read few up to date papers which has been published in the last few months.
5-if you can, find a list of weak points in your thesis and prepare replying to them if you have been asked.


if you can not do all of them don't worry too much, i know it is hard to do, but the examiners will put you at ease and only try to make you talk about your project, so don't worry so much.

start focusing on these things now and don't listen to what every body says, it will confuse you, just see what is the best for your field.
and if you can, do a mock viva one week before the actual one, that should make you realise what you need to focus on the chapters that might need a bit further reading, just to remember what you have written.

I also had my viva last week. I prepared by reading my thesis a week before and looking things up so I felt confident about every statement made. I also printed a copy of the university regulations stating what was required to be awarded a PhD; I then thought of ways I had satisfied these criteria -- although this was thankfully not needed in the viva.

On the day, faculty were telling me well done before I even went in. My supervisor even remarked beforehand that I wouldn't fail unless I had a brain transplant on the way between his office and the viva room.

Don't worry. I would have put the odds at 50/50 at passing/failing on the day before the viva, but it turned out ok. The fact that your supervisor(s) let you submit means you're more than likely to pass. Good luck (up)

We had a guy come in to speak to us about the viva not so long ago. some of the more unusual things he said were:
he flicks through the whole thing, (like a magazine, i.e. starting at the back, thumb on the pages kind of thing)  to get a feel for the thesis, this apparently gives him an idea of the final outcome
he checks the number of refs to see if there are enough, their dates, to see how much recent stuff there is etc., and makes some kind of chart from this
he then checks the refs against the number of times that ref is quoted
he goes online to see what is available that hasn't been referenced, so he can ask why
then he looks at the abstract, then the beginnings and endings of chapters
then he reads it
Oh and he also said he reads the acknowledgements very carefully

I'm not sure how typical this is, but something I am going to keep in mind although he isn't in my field

I passed with minor corrections!! :-)

Yay! Congratulations, LilDrScareAll ;-)

Well done lilmiss! That's wonderful news :-)

Congratulations! :-)

Well done!

Congratulations! :-)

Congratulations, what a wonderful start to the new year! Do your corrections as soon as you can, repaging can take ages!!