Whenever they argue against you, point and shout OBJECTION!
Hang a little bit of shirt through your fly hole, they'll be too distracted to mount a proper argument and you'll get a 10% markup advantage.
Before you start each point, pass them each some cashmoney as it'll help them understand your thesis more properly. Besides, you'll get it back once you become a Doctor.
So tomorrow is my Ph.D. viva, where I will be defending my thesis to two separate examiners. My question is has anyone here completed their defence, and do you have any advice for the viva itself?
stay calm - it really is just a conversation about your thesis and work, not really a grilling
the best thing you can do is be able to justify all the choices you made in your work.
If you've made any decision that isn't exactly proven, they'll question you on it (even if it's a perfectly valid one) so that you can prove you put the correct thought into why you made that choice, and you didn't get it right (or wrong) by chance.
Does that make sense?
It felt great that I was scrutinized on the smallest details and had appropirtae responses to every question, or could prove the question/examiner was wrong in a number of instances.
Thanks for the comments guys, fingers crossed that I am confident enough in my work for them tomorrow!
You'll probably find one of the examiners will pick out some obscure point in your research/thesis that they'll want you to justify. If you can't justify something (i.e. you were told to do it that way and you haven't thought of why), then just say you don't know. Don't warble some incoherent answer.
You're at your PhD viva, so that means you've passed your MPhil transfer. Unless you're in the absolute minority, you'll more than likely pass with some corrections needed. It's very rare for someone to completely fail a PhD viva, the MPhil transfer weeds those people out.
I think my friend had to do one, last year. Basically he's on a PhD, but when they sign people up for one, they actually put them on an MPhil, with the option of going onto the full PhD, if they do well enough... so they don't just get wasters sapping funding for three years, if they're terrible. So, really, he was on an MPhil, so they could easily boot him out, after one year, if he was rubbish... but his work had progressed enough for him to be allowed to stay on for three years (an additional two) and do the full PhD.
That's half guess work, so I could be horribly wrong!
As stated above, remember you are the expert on the subject. You don't get to do a PhD in something that is already known which automatically makes you the expert in it.
I took my viva 11 years ago now but I remember all of it. I had three "examiners"; although one was my supervisor, so he was more there for moral support, then there was the (university) internal chap,who didn't really ask much and, finally, the external. That was the potental issue for me as a large part of my thesis refutted things that he had published and showed the basic errors in his work. I was a bit worried about that. Not about the quality of my research but about how he would take it. All credit to the man, we got to the relevant section of the thesis, he asked me a couple of questions, sat back in his chair and said - and I really can quote this verbatim, even now - "There is nothing wrong with being proven incorrect by a well made argument supported by good data. Congratulations Chris. That really was a beautiful piece of work." At that point I knew I had it in the bag.
Good luck tomorrow, future-Doctor.
As an aside, one of the best moments in the whole thing for me happened about 2 days after my viva. I went into the university branch of HSBC and asked to speak to an advisor. The woman who I got to talk to was just plain rude and obvious thought of students as lowly scum. I played along until she said "now Mr Smith*...", To which I said, "Actually, that's why I came in. I'd like to change the name on my account to Dr Smith*". Instantly, I went from being scum to proto-deity. It was hysterical. She suddenly couldn't do enough for me. Enjoy that moment.
* Name changed to protect my super-hero identity.
This. The time goes by pretty quick even though you can be in there for hours. Take your time when answering their questions, and don't be a afraid to say "I don't know." Don't start making things up, trying to talk about something you have no idea about as the examiners will know.
You have got this far, frankly the hard work is out of the way.
all the people in there will have refereed many PhD's before and have done one themselves so they know what its like - they aren't out to get you.