Viva podcast transcripts

MS: My name is Manbinder Sidhu, I work in Primary Care in the School of Health and Population Sciences and my research is about looking at ethnic minority communities in developed countries and understanding their health beliefs and practices. My viva was not that long ago, it was in November of last year, so, it’s been around about nine, ten months. 

F1: And before you did your viva, was there, any kind of preparation you undertook?

MS: There was, quite a lot of preparation I undertook before the viva. First and foremost, I had a mock viva, which is a very formal mock viva, so there was somebody who had read my thesis and somebody who hadn’t read my thesis before they actually did the mock viva. It was very formal, a chair would come in and introduce themselves and walk me to the room, it was exactly like it was. Also, I prepared mock answers to questions, so, explain my thesis in a couple of minutes or what are the weaknesses and strengths of your research, so it was, it was mainly that sort of preparation.

F1: Okay, so it sounds like the mock viva was quite a good way of introducing what an actual viva would be like. Did you discuss your mock viva with your supervisor beforehand?

MS: Before I submitted my thesis, a couple of months, we spoke and we thought it was really good to get somebody else from the department to make the time, to read the thesis and present themselves and have a mock viva. It was really important that it was actually very structures, it perhaps wasn’t as long as a real viva might have been, but it was good to have that half an hour experience of actually, listening to yourself speak and answer questions and being, having, anticipating that nervous nature and how you might feel just before your actual viva.

F1: So, you said that you prepared some answers to possible questions. Could you go into a bit more depth about how you did that?

 MS: There’s actually, a very good website by the , on the, University of Leicester and they actually have a very good page on preparing for your viva and what to do before the viva, maybe a couple of weeks before the viva, the actual day, what to do and so forth and on that site, there was a very, they’re very general questions about what you might be asked, so, you might be asked about the methods you used and why you used those methods, explaining what you’d do if you had the opportunity to do your research again and it’s just really, it’s very, they’re very general questions, they could be applied to any field,  but those sorts of questions really helped in actually anticipating what they might ask. I think, one of the most important things was, I wanted my viva in the morning, that might sound weird but, you kind of know when, the time of day you work best, when you’re at your peak of, kind of, your abilities. some people prefer it in the afternoon, some people in the morning, so I wanted my viva in the morning. On the day, I remember that I knew the room that the viva would take place, so half an hour before the examiner turned up, I went to look at the room and kind of, visualise myself sitting in the room and where we would be sitting and I think that just gave me a level of comfortability of what to expect and how we’d be facing the examiner and, so, there was that aspect. And then, there was a bit of waiting because examiners normally meet half an hour beforehand and I actually saw them walking through the room and so forth. So, once I knew that, I was kind of mainly taking a deep breath, taking a few sips of water, making sure I had my thesis with me, to take in with me, a pen, paper, a bottle of water and making sure that I was just getting prepared. I wasn’t reading questions, I wasn’t preparing any answers, it was just more about, just taking a deep moment with myself and making sure I weren’t I wasn’t too nervous. The first question they asked me is, explain your whole thesis to me and, in, five minutes and I’d already prepared that well and [inaudible - 4:05] well rehearsed in actually answering that question. The other questions were more about, oh, you’ve mentioned this literature, can you tell us a bit more about why you’ve made reference to this particular piece of literature as opposed to maybe, somebody else and it’s actually, you really did, do need to know the literature that you cited, it’s just not, forgetting about it and you’ve put it in there and not knowing about it, if you’ve used them once and referenced a piece of, a body of work or someone, you really need to know how it supports your argument and those questions, even though I was prepared for them, I wasn’t expecting them, so that’s probably one question, some of the questions which, I was probably, kind of, a bit surprised about really.

F1: So, you had the one question about the reason you cited different pieces of the literature and it sounds like that was something you were prepared for, or even if it was unexpected. Were there any questions that you got, that, you couldn’t answer?

MS: There was one particular question which I, I struggled to answer. What I did is, in that situation was, firstly, I asked for more information about the question, I didn’t really need more information, I just wanted more time to actually think about the answer, so that was a useful tip. But, when I was struggling, I was trying to make some reference to actually, I knew my thesis quite well, so, if I was struggling, I could always return to that page quite quickly. It doesn’t really look good if you’re shuffling papers around and, is looking for something, because, it seems like you’re unprepared and you don’t really know your thesis that well. So, I made, I went into my thesis, I found examples that I wanted to make and although I didn’t answer the question as well as I would have liked, it was okay as a response and, I think, the way I tried to deal with that, is to, kind of, build a discussion around it, rather than saying I cant answer it, I gave a perspective and we, kind of, generated, like, a discussion about, oh, maybe we could have looked at like this or maybe we could talk about it like this, that was more useful.

F1: You mentioned being able to find things in your thesis quite easily, did you mark your thesis up in any way or did you just memorise page numbers?

MS: No, my thesis was marked with about a couple of post it pads, there was quite a few, there wasn’t a lot but I, it was really good to have my chapters have the post it notes, so I knew, chapter one was written on the side, it was like a tab almost, so I could really flick through quite easily. There were certain sections about the methods that I really wanted to, to make sure that I could get there really quickly. So, if there was something about theory or, why I chose a particular method, that was really quick but, there wasn’t, there wasn’t one on every other page, it wasn’t too many that I would get, it would start to look cluttered. So, some post its I found were quite easy and quite useful.

F1: Great, thank you. How long did your viva last? Can you remember?
MS: My viva lasted one hour and ten minutes, I passed with a [inaudible, audio cut off  - 6:59].

F1: Did you have someone with you whilst you were waiting?

MS: I went to see my supervisor, he was, I think, just down stairs in our department, which is, literally, a five minute walk, so we just chat. I was pretty adamant that I would, I would pass but it would be major corrections, so, and she was kind of, comforting me and saying no, it’ll be fine, if it’s six months, don’t worry, we’re here and then, they, we went back upstairs, both of us went back, along with another supervisor so, the outcome. You can have your supervisors there for the outcome because they usually give you feedback, so we thought it would be useful to have at least one supervisor there, if no, both of them, to actually listen to what they say. And then my external examiner asked me to stand up and he said, he shook my hand and said, ‘congratulations Dr Sidhu, you’ve passed outright’. I was in utter shock, I made a complete, I was literally, fifteen minutes, where my jaw was you know, next to the ground, it was ridiculous, I was in utter shock really.

F1: So, it sounds like you obviously had a very successful viva. Do you have any piece of advice you would give to any postgraduate about to take theirs?

MS: About to take their viva? I think, it’s, the mock viva was, is, it really helped me too settle my nerves. If you can do it, it’s something that’ll be really useful in terms of, how you actually see yourself in a viva, it would be good to know what you actually sound like and how you should answer the questions, what, how well you think you can answer questions when you’re not expecting it and that’s probably the biggest key, a lot of people might panic, get really dry, dry, dry mouth. But, if you’ve had that experience the next time will be much more prepared. Other things I would probably say, are, really prepare and read your thesis and know it really well. Don’t worry too much about little mistakes, don’t worry about spelling mistakes, missing references, if apostrophes are in the wrong place, just don’t worry about it, really know your method section very well, that’s probably one thing that everybody normally picks up on but other than that, its, not too worry too much about the outcome, but, worry about how you’re going to answer the questions, as the outcome you can’t do anything about really. 

RF: Okay, my name’s Robert Foster, my research topic was in the New Testament of the Bible, it was biblical studies, on the book of James and I basically was looking at how the author of that letter used some Old Testament characters and what that might tell us for interpreting, the, that letter.

F1: Before your viva, how did you feel leading up to it?

RF: Well, it’s always a question of feeling unsure of how things are going to go, you know, what’s going to be asked etc and I went on a viva preparation course which I found was helpful, but, such things are always a little bit artificial at the end of the day but, it, you know, it pointed me in the right direction. One of things you recognise, that it’s not fool proof and so you, you identify, what I did, I identified with my supervisor, the areas that were potentially weak, that could be challenged and so, I sort of prepared myself as well as I could, to try and deal with those, those, particular parts, so that was one thing I did. The other thing I did was to, go through my viva and identify what I thought were the really strong points and the page references etc. So when you’re there, in the room, you can quickly, you know, when you get the chance to say something, that you want to say, you can sort of, point at the areas you feel may not have been covered, that would actually put you, put you in a good light.

F1: Were you involved in selecting any of your examiners?

RF: I was, but the thing was, in my particular area, though [laughter – 1:49], most of them were over in the States, there were a couple over here and in the end, I, I went with the recommendation of my supervisor.

F1: Can you tell us a bit about what your viva was like?

RF: Length wise, it was about an hour and a half. It was, I have to say, it was, one of the most stressful actually, experiences I’ve had. It was, I had a tough viva, it was strange because it started off, I mean, you’ve got your internal, your external and your chair there, and we started off pleasantly enough and, and the external examiner basically said, almost at the beginning that he was going to pass me without actually saying the words, he said that and I thought, oh, that sounds okay and then he sort of, he sort of laid into me. [laughter – 2:38] It was uncomfortable because, the problem with, I mean, it’ll be different for different disciplines, but one of the problems with Theology is that you have, you know, experts okay, you have scholars, who are, if you like, hold a particular faith perspective and obviously don’t have any and this particular scholar had a particular faith perspective which as, in many ways, which I actually shared, but the thing was, that in my, in my thesis, I had taken a minority view on, on a particular part of the book and interpreting it, and, he didn’t like that and so, he attacked me on that and I defended it and I defended it and I defended it and I knew I was in the minority, but, it was very much a secondary part of my thesis. It was, it was part of an introductory chapter that I had done, laying, laying the sort of, groundwork, setting the scene and I was a bit surprised to be, actually, attacked so, so much on that one, but anyway, I kept, I defended it and so, things moved on. [Pause – 3:49] He also pointed out a particular verse; I’d done my own translation from Greek to English, he pointed out to me that it was wrong, the idea was wasn’t so wrong but I’d actually got the wrong translation and I looked at it and I felt myself, yes, he’s right, you’re right, I acknowledged it and you just move on, you know. There’s no point in sort od going, oh dear, I’ve really messed up here, I mean, and, it wasn’t it wasn’t, you know critical to my argument or anything, it was just I, you know, made a silly mistake and I hadn’t spotted it and you just say okay and you move on.

F1: And did the fact that you’d got your list of, kind of, strong points in your argument, help in that case because you could maybe, look and say, well I can talk about this point next instead.

RF: It did, it did, towards the end as I was asked if there was anything I wanted to, you know, to say, to support, you know, my, my [inaudible – 4:47], so I picked up on the points that, I can’t remember what they are now but, I picked up on the points that I felt, hadn’t been covered in there and which I felt were relevant to, you know, to the, actual viva.

F1: Right, okay. So, towards the end, did they ask any other, kind of, questions?

RF: It was quite a range, they were probing, I think too, you know,  the probing was there, to see, sort of, the breadth as well as the depth of, of, what I’d covered. So, I was asked questions about why I’d interpreted certain things a certain way, these were not necessarily things that the, the, press, no, the examiners disagreed with, they just wanted to know why I’d gone a particular way and so I then talked through that, I was fairly comfortable with that, to be able to do that. So, you know, I was able then to put my argument together and as long as they seemed then, happy enough with the argument, whether they agreed with it or not, so there was that kind of thing that came up. I was also asked why I’d interpreted a couple of words in a certain way and I gave answers on that and I, you know, justified it as I saw it anyway, I, whether again, they agreed with it or not, it didn’t come out, but I did justify myself. So, it covered a range of things and then also, about, you know, one or two, scholars, works, you know, what I felt about a particular perspective of somebody else and I had to talk about that, so, it was really showing, you know, what have I, what did I really know. I don’t think there was anything I couldn’t answer, a couple of things I didn’t think I answered well [laughter – 6:33], but I don’t think there was anything I felt I couldn’t answer. All the way through, I kept, sort of, reminding myself that, you know, as a good a scholar my external examiner was, when it came to this particular topic, I did know more than he did, I kept saying to myself, you do know more than him.

F1: And was that a useful thing to keep in mind?

RF: Oh yes, you’ve got to, I think, you’ve got to keep saying that, I do know more.

F1: So, how did you feel at the end of your viva?

RF: I felt drained [laughter – 7:02], absolutely drained to be honest, I came out of there and I think I might actually have been shaking a bit, I’m not sure, but, strangely enough, I mean, despite what was said at the beginning, I came out thinking, you know, I’m going to have to resubmit this, I’m sure that’s what going to happen, you know. I’m sat outside and of course, you’re waiting out there and I can’t remember how long it was now, it must have been about, something about, like, a quarter of an hour or so, twenty minutes maybe and they you get called back in. [laughter – 7:31]

F1: And what was the outcome?

RF: The outcome was that I was passed with, I had major corrections, it was one of those situations with about two to three months worth of work. It was my own fault actually, in that, my supervisor had pointed out one area in a chapter that she felt I hadn’t done enough work on it and I, I had already revisited this chapter a couple of times before and thought, no, I’m going to run with it, and I ended up having to do more work on that particular chapter, so it  was, it worked out that I had to, sort of, do quite a bit of a rewrite on one chapter, regarding a couple of ancient clauses that I ought to have spent more time on and then the other thing was, I didn’t come down on a dating of the letter. The problem with the book of James is that they date it anywhere, from about, fourty CE to about a hundred CE and for the purpose of my argument, what I was arguing, that dating wasn’t actually relevant to my argument and so I tried not to go down that route, but, both the external and internal told me, you need to come down one way or another and I had to go then and come down and do something on dating and then go through the, whole of the thesis then and pick out those areas, where, I had referenced to dating came in and then I had to alter them according to the position I had adopted. I chose to adopt the position mainly of the external examiner, mainly, it didn’t really bother, I didn’t have a particular perspective, which is, and so I went with what he asked, so.  I made those changes, you know, I did a whole amendment sheet with every change listed and I did all the minor amendments that they wanted and Indicated who’d actually asked for the amendments and I basically handed it back to them on a plate. I just, I ran the amended portions passed my supervisor, who was, you know, seemed happy enough with what I’d done compared to looking at what was asked. And then, all I had to was submit, I had to submit to internal and external with a major, with major corrections, the external has to be brought back in again and he’s got too or she’s got too prove that it’s been done to her satisfaction. In fact, what I did, immediately after the viva, I actually went on, I was actually going to a conference actually. But, I didn’t go back, I didn’t start on the work on it, for about a month, I just wanted to put it away and just get it out of the system a bit before, going back and tackling it because I’d worked out that I wouldn’t need the whole six months, so it was okay.

F1: Would you have any pieces of advice?

RF: Well, I think that some of the bits that I’ve already said and that is, you really need do need to note and recognise where your own thesis has weakness or where it is controversial and you really need to be, you know, to have something prepared on that, you know, a chapter and verse ready for when you are going to be tackled, so, I think you do need to be aware of that. Obviously, also, again, the whole question of strengths, be ready with your strengths. Just try and be relaxed I mean, you know, before, or before; I had an afternoon viva and I had lunch with my supervisor, we had lunch, we didn’t talk about it, we just relaxed, we just talked about everything else but [laughter – 11:03], and in a strange way actually, yes, I was fairly relaxed beforehand because I’d worked on the basis that I’ve done my preparation, you know, you cant afford to go into the viva thinking, I haven’t done the preparation, I’ve done my preparation, I’m as armed as I can be for this, as I see it, I’ve got to go in and do it now before and I think you, sort of, have to, really be like that and remember, that you know, you’re going to be very, very, unlucky, if your external examiner knows more than you on your particular, little topic, little field.

EH: Viva interview, twenty first of November, twenty thirteen, Brian Ford-Lloyd, Erica Hawkes. Morning Brian, if you’d just like to introduce yourself to the audience, just to get us going.

BFL: Yes, I’m Brian Ford-Lloyd and I’m an emeritus Professor of Plant Genetics in the School of Biosciences at the University of Birmingham and for several years before I became emeritus, I was the director of the University’s Graduate School.

EH: Okay, thank you. So, this is one of our series of podcasts helping postgraduate researchers preparing for their Viva. Could you tell us a little bit about what the purpose of the Viva exam is?

BFL: Well, without any doubt, the purpose is to find out, that, you know quite a bit about the subject that you’ve been researching. So, the idea that the examiners will have in their minds is to find out, to some extent, are you confident in being able to answer questions regarding your research, are you a competent researcher,  have you got views and knowledge about the area that you’ve been researching?[Pause – 01:11]

EH: And you were a Viva examiner for a number of years, so, what kind of things did you do to prepare when you were ready to examine a thesis?

BFL: Well, quite clearly what you do as an examiner is read the thesis. Personally, I may have never have read the thesis very far ahead of the Viva. I like to know when the Viva is going to be, so that, a week before that, I can read the thesis thoroughly. I’ll make notes on separate sheets of paper and those notes will suggest to me what sorts of questions I should be asking the candidate during the Viva. The notes may also record whether I think there are errors of any sort. If there are minor typographical errors, then I will normally put those in pencil actually onto the thesis.

EH: And, could you tell us a little bit about the difference between being an internal examiner and an external examiner? Is there a difference, or is it broadly the same?

BFL: In Birmingham, there is a difference because the external examiner will have been appointed as somebody who is, hopefully, very familiar with the field that you’re working in and hopefully, will be a bit of an expert, like yourself. The internal examiner may not be quite as highly qualified in the area that you’ve been working in, simply because there may not be other members of staff within your school or department who are, very familiar with your area, so they may be less confident, in terms of asking you questions and knowing whether you’re giving, you know, good answers.

EH: Thank you. So you’ve mentioned that you would read the thesis and think of some potential questions to ask the author of the thesis. What kind of questions are typically asked, or is that really possible to say?

BFL: It’s, that’s a difficult one to say, because, you know, if you’re a research student coming up to your Viva and you say to your supervisor eve, what are they going to ask me, your supervisor is probably, not going to be able to say what you’re going to get asked. Having said that, from my point of view as a examiner, I would quite often, perhaps, normally, start off a Viva by asking some fairly general questions, where have you come from, what are you doing after you’ve completed your PhD and so on and then, perhaps, some general questions about the broad subject area and then of course, those questions, to some extent, are the most difficult because you can’t prepare, you have to depend upon the knowledge that you’ve, sort of,  gained over the many years that you’ve been studying in your area.

EH: Thank you. And, last question, would you have any specific advice for people starting to prepare to do their Viva?

BFL: Well, preparation for the Viva can be varied. If, if, there’s a long time between when you’ve submitted your PhD and the Viva, then you may well need to refresh your memory by reading the thesis again. If, if there’s a few weeks or whatever, then you probably won’t feel like reading it from front to back, so, those are options, certainly. There are things you should do, you should know who your external examiner is, know what they do and perhaps, be quite aware of their areas of research, so that you could, you know, counter some of their questions by asking about their work. So, knowledge of your examiners’ research is good and your examiners will be impressed, obviously, by that knowledge. I think, other than that, it’s very difficult, you have to bear in mind, that the decision as to whether you get a PhD or whether you have to do minor, major corrections etc is largely going to be based upon research that you’ve done and how you’ve written your thesis. The Viva and I hope this sounds comforting, but the Viva is sort of a back up, in the sense that, the examiners have to make sure that your work is being presented and that’s one of the major things. If there is any doubt about you getting a PhD, in the examiners minds, having read the thesis, then, the Viva is an opportunity to convince them that you should get the PhD, but, it’s never going to work the other way around, you’re not going to fail your PhD because of your Viva.

TP: I’m Tom Penfold, I’ve just completed my PhD in African Studies.

F1: Okay, and how long ago was your Viva?

TP: That was September, end of September this year

F1: And do you mind telling us the outcome?

TP: It was pass with minor corrections.

F1: Before your Viva, how did you feel?

TP: Slightly nervous, I’d heard a few mixed stories about what the Viva experience is like which sort of plays on your mind and I never had complete confidence in my thesis which is natural, always worrying about certain aspects, things you could have improved, extra bits you could have read.

F1: And when you say you heard stories, do you mind sharing some of those with the audience?

TP: I’d hear a few really, like, long ones which had lasted all day, like nine till five and things and I’d heard of people coming out not feeling that brilliant about it.

F1: So, you said you didn’t have that much confidence in your thesis, which you thought was natural. Did you do any special preparations before your Viva?

TP: I did quite a lot, I reread my thesis about two times, just to, sort of, know it, inside out. I made, sort of, summary paragraphs of each chapter and a list of questions I thought might be asked which I could practice answers for.

F1: What kind of questions did you think might be asked?

TP: More to do with my theory and use of theory, certain gaps I noticed that I could have expanded on, improved on, certain points I’d not followed through with or linked across chapters.

F1: Did you have anything like a mock Viva?

TP: No, the only preparation I had really was official preparation, I went to the graduate School’s Viva preparation course.

F1: And, was that something that you would recommend to other people?

TP: Yes, I think it was really useful, to sort of, be guided through the process of the Viva.

F1: So, you’d said that you’d heard stories about the Viva lasting all day and people not being confident at the outcome of it. Can you describe what your Viva was like?

TP: Mine was the exact opposite to most of the stories I’d heard actually. It was painless, it was two hours, I can’t remember much of it as it is quite intense.[Laughter – 02:05]

F1: So, no ‘whole day Viva’ feeling?

TP: No, no whole day Vivas.

F1: And did the questions that you’d prepared get asked?

TP: No. [Laughter – 02:12]

F1: What kind of questions did you get asked?

TP: I was asked, to sort of, guide through the thesis, overall intent was in the end, what it added to the area of knowledge I was looking at, how I was different to other people, those, sort of, standard questions. And then, a bit more in depth on certain points.

F1: Were there any questions asked that you weren’t able to answer?

TP: Yes.

F1: And what did you do, in that case?

TP: I suppose mine was, I sort of agree with the examiners in what they were asking and I must admit, it was probably a short coming but they emphasised perhaps why you haven’t done that or why it’s there and talk around it but don’t disagree with them, I think is something to take away.

F1: Do you think that’s the right approach to take?

TP: I think so as I passed with minors, so… [laughter – 03:01]

F1: So, you passed with minor corrections, how did you feel at the end of your viva?

TP: Half asleep, I think. [laughter – 03:09] Really, extremely relieved, extremely pleased but also, because it is quite, intense, there’s a lot of mixed feelings when you come out of there.

F1: So you said that you’d spent some time re-reading your thesis and preparing questions. Would that be advice that you’d give to other post graduates about to do their Viva?

TP: Yeah, I think sort of, asking questions, reading it in depth, preparing the list of questions is really useful , even if they don’t come up because you can, sort of, tune your brain into looking analytically into certain points and going over things, which, perhaps, you’ve taken for granted or you’ve read enough times that you just, sort of, breeze over it.

F1: And, do you have any other advice for people about to take their Vivas?

TP: Don’t panic about it, talk to people. I think, talk about it informally as well, both your Viva experience and what that might be like but also, just your thesis, just explain what it’s like and have confidence in it because there’s a point your supervisor says to submit it and, so, you have to trust your supervisor.

F1: Even if you can’t trust yourself?

TP: Yep. [Laughter – 04:13]