Mary
★★★★★
“It's packed with exercises and worksheets to help you prepare for the Viva. There is also a guide on every page to help you get through the activity.”
Read on Amazon →Home › Shop › Finishing and defending › The Viva & Oral Defense Workbook
For doctoral candidates with a viva or defense date
Walk into your viva ready, not hoping.
The Viva & Oral Defense Workbook
Most candidates prepare by rumour. This workbook turns the viva into a system you can work through: 53 fill-in templates, each with a worked example, and the 50 questions examiners most often ask, with a way to plan every answer.
- Say your contribution to knowledge in one clear sentence
- Know which questions are coming, and how you will answer them
- Rehearse with scored mock vivas until nothing in the room is new
By Dr. Rafiq Muhammad, MD, PhD · 190 pages · UK viva, US defense or online · Paperback $27.99 · ★★★★★ 4 reader reviews
What readers say
Reader reviews
★★★★★ 4 reader reviews from Amazon
Kristi D.
★★★★★
“The mock defense section goes further than telling candidates to practice. Its scoring sheet separates command of the thesis from composure under challenge, and the debrief ties each gap to a specific fix.”
Read on Amazon →Loves a Good Book
★★★★★
“Every doctoral candidate should purchase and use this workbook. Defending one's work, is work. This helps take the guesswork out of the equation and solidifies the presenter as the expert.”
Read on Amazon →Amanda
★★★★★
“this book was very helpful and interesting to read.”
Read on Amazon →Sound familiar?
The viva is the one exam nobody teaches you to sit
“I know my thesis. I just don't know what they're going to ask.”
“Everyone has a horror story, and nobody can tell me how to actually prepare.”
“What if they find the weakness I've been hoping nobody notices?”
“I've read the advice. I still don't have a plan for the next six weeks.”
Here is the reframe the whole book is built on: by the time you reach the viva, you are the world expert on your thesis. The examiners are not there to know more than you. They are there to confirm that you can defend it as a peer. That is a skill, and skills can be practised.
How it works
Know it. Defend it. Rehearse it.
Three stages, in the order the examination tests them. Each chapter ends with a checkpoint that tells you exactly what to have ready before you move on.
Step 1
Know your thesis cold
Re-master the whole thesis and build summaries at one sentence, one minute and five minutes.
Step 2
Defend every decision
State your contribution in one sentence, justify each choice, and name your limitations before anyone else does.
Step 3
Rehearse for real
Run hard mock vivas, score them, and track your readiness across rounds.
What you will have
Ten things ready, written down, in one place
- Your exact examination decoded: format, panel, possible outcomes
- A profile of each examiner and what they are likely to probe
- One-sentence, one-minute and five-minute summaries of your thesis
- Your contribution to knowledge, stated and elaborated on demand
- A defense for every design, method and scope decision
- Your limitations, named first and framed with confidence
- Answer plans (not scripts) for the 50 most-likely questions
- A short, contribution-first presentation, if your format needs one
- Scored mock vivas and a readiness tracker across rounds
- A day-of checklist and a corrections plan for afterwards
Look inside
Every template comes with a worked example
One fictional candidate's defense runs through the whole book, so you see each page done before you do your own. These are real pages. Tap to enlarge.
When is your viva?
Enter the date and get a preparation plan that fits the time you have.
Is it for you?
Built for the doctoral oral examination
It is for you if
- You have a viva voce or final oral defense coming, in any field
- You are a professional-doctorate candidate (DNP, EdD, DBA) defending a capstone
- You supervise students and want a structured way to run mock vivas
It is not
- A guarantee of a result. No book can promise that.
- A replacement for your supervisor or your own thesis
- A book of scripted answers. You plan answers; you don't memorise them.
Dr. Rafiq Muhammad, MD, PhD
Clinician-researcher, PhD from Karolinska Institutet, and author of the Mastering Research books and workbooks, used by graduate students from the research question to the viva. The guidance in this book draws on the published research on how doctoral theses are actually examined.
Choose your format
Ways to get it
Paperback
$27.99 on Amazon
- The same 190 pages in print
- Write in it by hand
- Shipped by Amazon
Viva & Oral Defense Template Kit
$19 instant download
- Every fill-in template, as a fillable PDF
- Type, save and print; US Letter and A4
Not ready to buy? Get the free toolkit for finishing and defending by email and start today. Get it free
Questions
Before you buy
Does it work for a US-style defense, not just a UK viva?
Yes. It covers a UK-style closed viva, a US-style public defense and an online examination, and you decode your own format in the first chapter.
My viva is in two weeks. Is it too late?
No. Use the date planner on this page: with less than three weeks it points you to the chapters that matter most, or to the kit, which is built for a short sprint.
My thesis is qualitative, clinical or in the humanities. Will it fit?
The templates are field-neutral. The worked example is one dissertation, and the book shows how the same process applies to a qualitative thesis or a clinical study.
Will it give me answers to memorise?
No, on purpose. Scripted answers break under follow-up questions. You build an answer plan for each likely question, and rehearse it in mock vivas.
Can my supervisor use it to run a mock viva?
Yes. The mock-viva setup kit and scoring sheet give you and your mock examiners a shared way to score each round.
Make sure nothing in the room is new to you
The format, the questions, and your own answers: prepared, written down and rehearsed.
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