Ph.D. viva defence

Status
Not open for further replies.
Associate
Joined
9 Jun 2009
Posts
1,397
Location
Suffolk
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?
 
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.
 
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.

Good, solid advice. I concur.
 
stay calm - it really is just a conversation about your thesis and work, not really a grilling (unless you made a massive error, in which case you're screwed!)

nah - they are easy really. it won't stop you getting stressed out about it (and it shouldn't) but it will be one of the easiest parts of your PhD.
 
I'm still an undergrad, so this probably won't be the most helpful advice really. But from what I've heard from people who have taken their Ph.D vivas (As well as final year/placement year ones) is that 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?
 
I had mine a couple of years back.

Wasn't too stressful at all. We went through the thesis page-by-page, with the two examiners asking questions on the content as we went. I'd say around two thirds of the questions were examining my understanding of the work and how it fits into the boarder research field. The rest were more specific questions about the work and the results.

I quite enjoyed it actually - having the chance to discuss in depth what I'd been working on for over three years was very useful. It lasted about 3hrs but time seemed to fly by. I won an international prize for my thesis though so maybe I had an easier viva than most :p
 
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.
 
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?

Did mine back in April.

Took around 4 hours of intensive questioning. However, 95% of the questions came from 1 of the 3 experts. After several hours of questioning by this one expert the president of the comittee stepped in and sugested they concluded the questioning.

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.

My advice is to be very well prepared, to be very confident, clear with your reasoning (use the white board, make sure you have lots of back up slides, appropriate references etc.). You need to take a defensive attiude and be strong with your responses. The viva is lieka right of passage, they want you to stress and want to see how you perform under pressure and how you can strongly defend your arguments with valid and well thought out responses in real time. But don't be rude, blunt, argumentitive etc.

Take tiem to answer the questions. It is not a gameshow with a time limit. It is good to thank the expert for the good question, to reiterate in zour own words such that you are clear you udnerstand it. This way you gain some seconds for your brain to work on the answer unconciously. If the problem is tricky and you can-t forumulate a response quickly then don-t be afriad to tackle the rpoblem step by step, explain your reasoning, write down some notes. They probbly wont care that you can't answer some minor technicality somewhere, at the most they will add this to one of the small corrections to do after ou have passed. Of course if you can't answer somethign fundamental in your thesis then you have serious problems.

Remember, you are the expert on your thesis, they are experts on other related fields. It is fien to have weaknesses in your research if you can appropriately defend them.
 
Last edited:
stay calm - it really is just a conversation about your thesis and work, not really a grilling

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.
 
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's common sense to me :) Good sound advice, essentially it's make sure you can back up what you're saying.

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.

I haven't done anything as big as that before but this little feeling is something I've experienced after giving presentations or been asked questions from work I've done!

Thanks for the comments guys, fingers crossed that I am confident enough in my work for them tomorrow!

As long as you're prepared and able to back up the work you've done you'll be fine! Goodluck.
 
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've never heard of this MPhil transfer. Is it an English thing or just something that certain unis do?
 
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. ;)
 
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!

Thinking a bit more about it I've heard about second year 'mini-vivas' that we have to pass. Assume it's just slang for the same thing.
 
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. ;)

Again many thanks for your comments - I just got a bit stressed as just heard from my supervisor and she just decided to give me some areas I really should brush up on - it doesn't help I only got back from America for interviews a couple of days ago...

Anyway I believe I have done as much as possible for it, so we'll see where we end up tomorrow - either way theres a **** up tomorrow night after its all over!

Thanks everyone for your comments - this is why I <3 OcUK forums so much :)
 
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.

important points there - don't be afraid to say 'i don't know', and if you don't understand the question ask again and again til you understand it. its quite easy to get brain freeze due to nerves and sometimes even a simple question can confuse you.
i got stuck on a really easy question that i could have answered in a second the day before but i agonised over it for ages, not really understanding what he wanted to know.

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.
 
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.

I think thats the important point for me to take from this thread - its not some giant conspiracy to stop the candidate from getting their Ph.D.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom