PhD viva

A couple of months ago I undertook the 'viva voce' for my PhD. Throughout my four years of postgraduate study, many friends and family have asked how my coursework is going or exams are going, and while I did have to pass a progress review - a meeting with academics in the department - both 6 and 18 months in, the only formal examination at the end of a PhD is the viva voce, or just viva. Viva voce is a Latin phrase literally meaning "with living voice"; as this derivation suggests, it forms an oral examination in which a student must ‘defend’ their thesis. Examination is almost the wrong word though, because while this does culminate in the moment that you effectively find out whether you pass or fail your doctorate, the viva should feel more like a thorough discussion or a narrative - the story of your research.

After handing in their PhD thesis, it is sent to two appointed examiners of the prospective Dr - one internal examiner, a member of the department of your own research institute (but not one you have collaborated closely with), and one external examiner, an experienced academic who is an expert in your chosen field of study. I was lucky enough to have two very nice ladies conduct my viva; Annette Broderick and Barbara Mabel. Annette is an Associate Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Exeter, where I studied, and has a wealth of applied experience in the conservation and ecology of marine life, especially turtles (http://biosciences.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=annette_broderick&tab=profile). Barbara is a Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at the University of Glasgow, and possesses a formidable knowledge and publication record in mating systems, molecular ecology and evolutionary biology in a broad variety of plant and animal life (http://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/bahcm/staff/barbaramable/).

Having read my thesis – entitled Reproductive and molecular ecology of the European lobster: implications for conservation management – Annette and Barbara had come to the viva armed with their own copies, both of which were filled with post-it notes inscribed with a raft of queries (and the odd spelling correction!) that I was tasked with answering. While this seems a daunting prospect on the surface, I was calmed by my supervisor Prof Dave Hodgson, who had reminded me to approach my viva as an exciting opportunity – never again would I have the opportunity to sit and talk to people about my research, in painstaking detail, without them falling asleep, walking off, or begging me to shut up!!!

There are a number of ways to impress your examiners and successfully defend your thesis during a viva (https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/jan/08/how-to-survive-a-phd-viva-17-top-tips), but they are essentially looking for three things: that your research is a novel contribution to science (i.e. you investigated something new, or something old using a new approach); that your research is of sufficient quality (i.e. it would survive peer-review and is publishable); and that your research is your own (i.e. you understand it’s strengths and weaknesses, and you have researched and written it yourself, not just paid a really smart friend to do it for you). I had written my work up, and submitted much of it for publication in journals, along the way, and this strategy really paid off during my viva. While it takes a lot of extra time (and money) to get a paper written up to journal specifications, submitted, and through the peer-review process, it does mean that your paper has already survived (and normally been improved by) a rigorous review and the constructive critique of experts in the field. I went into my viva with 4 of my 8 PhD chapters having already been published by academic journals (and a 5th submitted and under review), so my examiners did not really need to spend too long on ensuring that they were novel or of publishable quality. And fortunately I was able to talk with enough confidence and enthusiasm about lobsters, genetics and fisheries conservation to convince them that the work was my own!

Even so, my viva lasted almost 4 hours, and Barbara and Annette left me with plenty of tips for how to develop my skills as a researcher. When they were satisfied that I had covered everything they wanted to know about my research (or were just plain exhausted), they asked me to briefly leave the room while they came to a decision. Thankfully, they were happy to accept my thesis pending minor corrections (there are 4 common decisions resulting from a viva: accepted without revisions, which is a straight pass reserved for the serious geniuses; accepted with minor corrections, which requires some relatively quick edits such as the inclusion of unpresented data or the alteration of sentences which are unclear; accepted only after major corrections, which often requires a lengthy reworking of the thesis or even repeating experimental steps, after which another viva is required; and fail, in which case the student has failed to produce the revisions previously requested and is consoled by the award of an MPhil, but doesn’t even get that if suspected of major plagiarism).

Acceptance with minor corrections is considered as a pass in academia, so I was delighted to emerge from my viva and into the congratulatory arms of my friends and colleagues at Exeter’s Cornwall Campus, where my doctoral right of passage was celebrated with bubbles and the gift of a giant and elaborately decorated chocolate lobster. This celebration must have cake, which tradition dictates is decorated in the form of something synonymous with their research, and mine didn’t disappoint, my co-supervisor Amber Griffiths having made a fantastically curved white chocolate-covered cake indented with pools of passionfruit sauce and pips, which made an uncanny resemblance to any of the numerous sample tubes filled with lobster eggs that I had processed during my research! I also had the dubious honour of a photo montage compiled by fellow student Lewis Campbell, made up of unsavoury images that he worryingly claimed to have sourced from the internet. I was also so unprepared that I could barely manage anything resembling a short speech upon request (to the disbelieve of my examiners who had struggled to get a word in throughout my 4 hour viva!). However, later that evening my friends, supervisors and examiners enjoyed a fantastic evening of frivolity in Falmouth, with a fine meal (a topical shellfish feast, of course) followed by many too many drinks in the pub. Despite the mental exhaustion of the viva process, I certainly enjoyed my first night of being Dr Ellis….