My defence or viva is coming up and I want to be ready
Prepare for the final exam in your system: reread with fresh eyes, practise answering out loud, and know what happens on the day.
In short
Start here, today. Find the official description of your exam in your graduate school regulations or from your graduate coordinator: format, length, who attends, whether you present, and the possible outcomes. Write it on one page. This takes about 20 minutes.
After that, work through these steps. Choose one to jump to it.
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Learn the format and the people
Confirm the date, the room or video platform, the length, whether there's a presentation and how long it should be, and who chairs. Read your examiners' recent work. It suggests what lens they'll bring, although they'll still ask about the whole thesis.
Reread the thesis with fresh eyes
Leave a gap after submission if you can, then read the thesis straight through as an examiner would, with a pen. Keep typos and errors on a separate list, flag the pages you'd most want to defend, and write a one-line summary at the start of each chapter. If you're allowed a copy in the exam, small tabs on important pages help you find things quickly.
Write a one-page summary
On a single page, set out your research questions, your main argument, what each chapter contributes, your methods in a sentence, the main limitations and what you'd do next. Practise saying it in about two minutes. Many defences and vivas open with some version of “Can you summarise your thesis for us?”
Prepare for the question types
Expect questions on why you chose this topic and approach, how your work relates to the main authors in your area, what your contribution is, the limitations, what you'd do differently, and where the work goes next. There will also be detailed questions about particular pages, and usually one or two you can't fully answer. Add likely questions to the Q&A Practice Bank and draft short answers, then say them out loud.
Do a mock defence
Ask your supervisor, a committee member or two senior students to run a mock exam for about an hour. Ask them to be searching rather than kind. Answer out loud and notice where you ramble, apologise or hedge everything. Speaking your answers matters more than polishing your notes.
Plan the day itself
Know where you're going and arrive early, or test your camera, microphone and connection if it's online. Bring water, your annotated thesis, your list of errors and paper for noting down long questions. You can ask for a question to be repeated, take a moment before answering, or say “That's a fair point, and here's how I'd take it forward.”
Know the possible outcomes
Outcomes differ by institution, so read your regulations and learn what terms like “minor corrections”, “major revisions” and “revise and resubmit” mean where you are, and what deadlines follow each. In many systems, passing with corrections is the usual result and passing with no changes at all is uncommon.
Words you can use
Is this you? Signs to look for
- You submitted the thesis weeks ago and haven't opened it since.
- You aren't sure what format the exam takes or who will be in the room.
- You keep rehearsing, in your head, the one question you won't be able to answer.
- You've spotted typos and a mislabelled figure since submitting, and it's bothering you.
Why this happens
The final exam looks very different from one country to the next. In much of North America, the defence includes a short presentation followed by questions from your committee, and it may be open to the public. In Canada the examiners usually include an external examiner from another university; in the US an outside member from another department is more common. In the UK and many Commonwealth systems, the viva is usually private, with an internal and an external examiner, and can last from about an hour to several hours. Many Australian universities examine the thesis through written reports alone, with no oral exam. In some countries, examiners submit written reports first and the public defence that follows is closer to a ceremony. Find out exactly which system you're in, because the preparation differs.
Whatever the format, examiners mostly want to see that you did the work, understand it, and can talk about its limits and its place in the field. They will have read the thesis closely and will ask about specific pages. Your task is to say what you already know clearly, out loud and under some pressure, and that is a skill you can practise.
Finding errors on a reread is normal. Examiners expect some, and a short list of corrections you've already noticed reads as care, not weakness.
Worth a look (5)
- How to Survive Your Viva, by Rowena MurrayPractical preparation for the oral exam, including likely questions and how to answer them.
- The Thesis WhispererInger Mewburn's blog on doing a PhD, with plenty on the final stages.
- Think. Check. Submit.Simple checklists to help you judge whether a journal or book publisher can be trusted before you submit. They're available in many languages.
- Open policy finderCheck a journal's open access policies, including which version of your paper you can share and where. It replaced Sherpa Romeo, so older guides may still use that name.
- DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)A curated list of peer-reviewed open access journals in every field. Use it to find journals to read and to check that a journal you're considering is legitimate.
When to bring someone in
Your supervisor should brief you on the format and your examiners, and your graduate coordinator or graduate school can explain the procedure and the outcomes. If you have a disability or health condition that affects how you sit the exam, contact your accessibility or disability services office early about accommodations. If anxiety before the exam is getting hard to manage, the counselling service can help.
Find the right person, or talk to Ify