Categories
quick thought work

One Hundred Posts

This is the hundredth post so far on this blog.

No guest posts, no repeats – a couple of round-ups – but a hundred original posts including this one. I started sharing posts on this blog in mid-September last year, with the hope of maintaining a regular schedule. For the most part I think I’ve kept that up, although I think that switching to three posts a week has been helpful to keep a writing habit going but not over-extend myself.

Writing has helped me to find new ideas, write a book, come up with ideas for other writing projects and workshops – and has also helped me to work through some undeveloped ideas that I’ve been exploring in other settings. It’s great to know that some things that I have done so far have resonated with people reading.

I’ve no idea what I will write about in the future – I just hope that I can continue to write regularly, and hope that it keeps resonating. If you have ideas for topics that you think might be interesting to explore, let me know in the comments. Or if you want to know more about the other kinds of work that I do, get in touch!

So if you are or have been, thanks for reading, here’s to the next hundred posts – and more!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

Categories
news viva work

The Viva: Who? What? How? is out!

"The Viva: Who? What? How?"

The Viva: Who? What? How? is out now!

What is this?

An ebook. Twenty-seven chapters, nearly 20,000 words, and answers to the most frequently asked questions about the PhD viva in the UK. I deliver viva preparation workshops, and over the last five years I’ve got a great understanding about the questions that distract PhD candidates. This book helps eliminate those distractions.

There are more details below, but if all you want are the purchase links, here they are!

  • In the UK, The Viva: Who? What? How? is in the Kindle Store here.
  • In the UK and around the world, The Viva: Who? What? How? is available from Payhip here.
Categories
work

Workshop: Viva Survivor

Earlier this week I wrote about two of the workshops that I deliver, How To Work With Your Supervisor and Creativity for Researchers. Aside from some of the Grad Schools that I’m a facilitator for, the workshop that I deliver most often – and which I think I am most well known for – is Viva Survivor. So in the last post for this week I’ll talk a little about how I came to do this, what I do – and most importantly why I love doing it.

Categories
work

Workshop: Creativity for Researchers

I started writing about some of the courses I deliver on Monday. First up was How To Work With Your Supervisor. Today, I want to muse a little on Creativity for Researchers, which is a workshop I’ve been developing since 2010.

Categories
work

Workshop: How To Work With Your Supervisor

To get back into the swing of writing here regularly, I thought that this week I would talk about my day job, which is delivering workshops to postgraduate researchers. I’m aiming to make these a mix of the why and the what – why I do the workshop and what I see and do. First up, How To Work With Your Supervisor, a session I regularly run to help PGRs explore working with their supervisor.

Categories
work

Making the Viva Survivors Podcast

I’ve been producing the Viva Survivors Podcast for around two and a half years now, and every now and then I get asked questions about how I do it and how everything works. One side of it is the interviewees and their stories, and I ask (a lot!) for volunteers to come and share their stories. Then there is the nuts and bolts of how I produce episodes. Podcasting is often seen as a useful means to communicate research and ideas about doing research, so I thought I would take an opportunity to talk about the tools and services that I use. Hopefully this is helpful to someone reading!