学步园

2.8 Lost in Abstraction

To be worthwhile your research work should contribute to solve a
hard problem in Informatics: e.g. making computers easier to use,
smarter, more dependable, or better able to model natural systems. But
to achieve anything you
must tackle these abstract problems in a concrete situation, that is
you
must build a program that is easy to use, smart, dependable or a good
model. Trying
to tackle the problem in the abstract will only lead to paralysis and
frustration.

2.9 Ambitious Paralysis

It is good to have high standards for your finished product but do
not apply the same standards to your initial attempts, or you may never
get started . Do something simple, then apply your standards to refine
it into something worthwhile.

2.10 Methodology does not make a Thesis

Since Informatics is a relatively young field, and is
interdisciplinary in nature, it does not have a single methodology. One of the difficult
tasks that you face as an Informatics research student is the development,
consciously or unconsciously, of a suitable approach to the problem(s)
being tackled. In the course of evolving an appropriate methodology,
you will encounter many other methodologies and philosophical
positions, many of which will seem outrageous or hopelessly
misguided. You will nevertheless find that these bizarre viewpoints
have strong proponents, perhaps at the next desk in your
office. Hence, much of the formative period for your own methodology
is spent having heated arguments with fellow researchers. Out of
this struggle, your reading, your attendance at seminars, your
debugging, and other hard work, will emerge your world view on Informatics and
related philosophical issues. In later years, you will probably come
to take this outlook for granted, perhaps modifying it occasionally in
some way; however, it is quite likely to loom very large in your life
during the period of your project, and when you come to write your
thesis you may feel compelled to expand upon your philosophy of life
at length. Restrain yourself - the examiners won't be all that
interested. Give a brief summary of your methodological assumptions,
giving references across to existing arguments or frameworks where
appropriate, and confining yourself to the points which are essential
to the understanding of the substance of your thesis. If your view is
so wildly radical that you really need to spend fifty pages expounding
it, it may be slightly suspect.

2.11 The Discovery Route is not a Justification

In the course of your project, you will come to certain beliefs
about technical issues, some of which will be novel, and many of which
will be rediscoveries (or new understandings) of established concepts.
In presenting your thesis, it is important to distinguish between the
justification (for instance, generality, efficiency, perspicuity,
practicality) for some position or technique, and the route by which
you happened to come to favour this idea (such as that it seemed
similar to your ad hoc program, it was better than the theories you
were taught as an undergraduate). The readers and examiners aren't
particularly interested in reconstructing how you became convinced of
an idea - they are interested in the general arguments in favour of the
idea. When you have just become convinced of some point, your own
discovery route will seem like the dominant reason for it, so you may
need a cooling-off period before you can detach yourself sufficiently
to write a reasoned support for the idea, particularly if it is your
own idea as opposed to enthusiasm for someone else's.

3. Psychological Hurdles

Doing research shares the same psychological difficulties as other
creative endeavours such as writing novels and plays or painting
pictures. Some of these difficulties and their antidotes are set out
below.

3.1 Mental Attitude

Part of a researcher's skill includes an appropriate mental
attitude to his/her work. This can be learnt, if you know what you are
aiming for and are determined enough. One of the main ingredients of
this mental attitude is a belief in what you are doing. Do not be
afraid of a little egotism! You must believe that the problem you are
tackling is important and that your contribution to the solution is
significant. Otherwise, how are you to generate the energy to see
yourself through the long hours of hard work required? The first step
in obtaining this self-assurance is to pick a research topic you can
believe in (see section 4). Of course, you must not become so arrogant
that you can no longer listen to criticism. You must be prepared to
modify your ideas if they are wrong.

3.2 Research Impotence

For many people, research prowess is a kind of virility symbol.
Lack of success at research is accompanied by the same feelings of
inadequacy as sexual impotence and, like it, can be a self fulfilling prophecy. Doubts
about your own ability can put you in a frame of mind where the
dedication (Edison said that genius was 1% inspiration and 99%
perspiration, and he should know.) and enthusiasm necessary to produce
results evaporates. The way out of this vicious circle is to realise
that research ability does not depend on some magic essence. It is a
skill which can be learnt, like any other. You too can do original
research by following the instructions in this guide.

3.3 Dealing with Criticism

We all find criticism hard to take, but some of us hide it better
than others. If you are to make progress in your research you will have
to learn to seek out criticism and take it into account. You will have
to learn to differentiate between valid and invalid criticism. If you
feel too close to the subject to decide, ask a friend for a second
opinion. If the criticism is invalid, maybe the critic has
misunderstood. Can you improve your explanation?

You are going to have to learn to take some knocks: rejections
from journals; rough rides in question time. Take it with a smile.
Learn what you can. Don't be tempted to give up - you are in good
company. If you study the lives of famous scientists you will see that
many of them had to endure very heavy criticism. In fact some of the
best work is the product of personal feuds - each scientist busting to
outdo the other. This is where your faith in yourself will be tested to
the full.

3.4 Early Morning - Cold Start

Almost everybody finds it difficult to start work at the beginning
of their working day, but once they have started, it is relatively easy
to keep going. The remedy is twofold:

1. Make yourself a regular working schedule - and stick to it. It
   doesn't have to be 9-5, but there should be a definite time of day
   when you expect to start work. Otherwise, you will find yourself
   postponing the evil moment with endless, routine, domestic chores.
2. Make sure you leave some non-threatening, attractive task to
   do
   first thing. For instance, do not leave off writing the day before at
   the beginning of a new hard section. Leave something easy to start
   writing: a paragraph which is routine for you, a diagram to draw or a
   simple procedure to write.

3.5 Theorem Envy

You have chosen a new field where the research methodology has not
yet been worked out. You may get a hankering for the methodology you
were brought up on. For mathematicians this might be the longing to
prove clean, clear theorems - theorem envy. For engineers this might be
screwdriver envy, etc. Be wary! Only try to prove a theorem if it is
clearly relevant to your overall purpose. For instance, proving the
termination of a procedure you have found to be useful may well be
relevant. Finding a procedure whose termination you can prove, but
which is not otherwise interesting, is not relevant.

3.6 Fear of Exposure

You have a great idea and it only
remains to test it by proving a theorem, writing a program, explaining
it to a friend etc. But something is holding you back. You find it
difficult to start work. Could it be that you are secretly afraid that
your idea is not so great after all? Hard experience has taught you
that ideas that appear to be solutions to all your problems in the
middle of the night, evaporate in the cold dawn. Courage! Research is
always like this. Ten steps forward and nine steps back. The sooner you
subject your idea to the acid test, the sooner you will discover its
limitations and be ready for the next problem.

4. Choosing a Research Project

Your research project must fulfil the following criteria:

1. You must be enthusiastic about it.

    

2. Solving the problems it entails must be worthy of a Ph.D.

    

3. It must be within sight of the state of the art, i.e. it must be `do-able' in three years.

    

4. There must be someone in the School willing to supervise it.

The importance of 1. cannot be overestimated. You are going to
need all the enthusiasm you can muster to give you the perseverance and
motivation to see you through what will be a hard, lonely and
unstructured period. It will help if you choose to tackle a problem you
consider of central importance (though you cannot expect to bite off
more than a small chunk of it). It will also help if you choose an area
which utilizes your already proven abilities, e.g. theoretical
computing for mathematicians; computational linguistics for linguists.
Beware of
choosing an area new to you because of its superficial appeal. The
gloss will soon wear off when you are faced with the hard grind
necessary to get a basic grounding in it.

Having chosen the general area or problem you want to work on,
you must try to define a specific project. This is where your
supervisor comes in. Find a member of academic or research staff whose
interests lie in this area and who is prepared to advise you. S/he may
have some projects to suggest and will also be able to pass an opinion
on the worthiness (2) and doability (3) of anything you suggest. On the
whole, beginning students tend to underestimate the worthiness and
overestimate the doability of projects - quite modest sounding projects
prove harder than they look. So do listen to your supervisors advice
and don't fall into `solving the world', standard pitfall no. 2.1.

Get your supervisor to suggest some reading material. You will
find suitable projects in the future work sections of papers and
theses. It is good research methodology to continue working on a
problem from where someone else left off. You may find some work you
consider badly done - consider redoing it properly. You may be able to
simplify someone else's program, relate it to other work or build a more powerful
program.

Have a range of ideas on the boil. Try to construct a hierarchy
of research goals. This imposes a structure on the work and also acts
as a safety net when you find (inevitably) that you have attempted more
than is possible in the time available.

Projects to avoid, because they lead to bad research, are
programs which do a task without addressing any important issues and
programs which are not based on previous work (also see the section on
standard pitfalls).

5. Research Methodology

Informatics is a young science which draws on the
methodologies of many fields and is gradually evolving its own
methodology. See the
Informatics Research Methodologies course
for more
discussion of these issues. This methodology supports a variety
of approaches to your research project. For example, you might
start by trying to build a theory of how some task might be
automated, or by improving somebody else's theory, or you might
try to rationally reconstruct someone else's work. The `rational
reconstruction' approach is often fruitful, since it is still
regrettably often the case that Informatics research will focus
on implementation and performance while leaving the assumptions
and principles behind the work implicit and vague. But, however
you start, get yourself a theory!

6. Writing Papers

Research papers are the major product of the School. They are the
yardstick by which our individual and group progress and success are
measured. They are therefore very important and you should expect to
devote a large part of your research career to writing them. Writing
papers is the main way of communicating with the rest of the Informatics world
and it is also a good vehicle for clarifying and debugging your ideas.

As well as the dizzy heights of books, theses and journal
papers, there are various lesser forms of writing. You should
understand what these are so that you can make full use of them.

You should make writing a regular part of your life. Keep
records of everything you do: notes of ideas you have; documentation of
programs; lecture notes; notes on papers you read. These serve several
purposes: an aid to your memory (you will be amazed at how quickly you
forget); a vehicle for clarification (how often you will find that
problems appear and are solved as you try to explain things to yourself
and others) and as a starting point for a working paper. Make sure you
write them legibly enough to read later and that you file them
somewhere you can recover them. Recording and storing these notes electronically works well.

6.1 Informatics Technical Reports

The School has a technical
reports series
to which you are strongly encouraged to
contribute. In particular, papers submitted to journals, conferences,
etc should be included in this series. If you are asked to sign a
copyright form by a publisher check it first with your local Service
Manager to ensure that the School will retain the right to make your
paper available electronically via our web pages.

6.2 Publishing Papers

When you and your supervisor think that you have something worth
publishing externally you should submit a paper to a conference or
journal. In preparing a paper
for publication make sure that credit is given to everyone who has
helped with its preparation, e.g. your supervisors and anyone else who
has contributed ideas, others who have commented on the draft, and so
on. Where a contribution is significant (for example, your supervisor's
contribution) consider joint authorship. Remember to acknowledge
sources of support such as source of your research studentship and
related support for facilities used for the research and so on. If
uncertain consult your supervisor about these points. Washington
University in St Louis has a policy on authorship
that reflects the scientific consensus on who should be the authors of a paper and what their rights and duties are.

A submitted paper will be vetted by several referees chosen by the journal editor.
Do not be too downhearted if your paper is rejected - you will be in good
company. Read the referees' comments carefully. Are they right or have
they misjudged you? Is your rejection absolute, or have you been encouraged to resubmit after corrections or further work?
Was your choice of journal appropriate? Consider
submitting your paper elsewhere, but first take into account those
criticisms you consider valid.

6.3 Conference Proceedings

A lesser form of publication is the proceedings of a conference.
Conferences will often consider descriptions of work in progress. They
will usually be refereed just like journal papers. Both papers and
verbal presentations usually have strict length limits (from 5-15 pages
and 10-30 minutes), so be prepared to be concise. Presenting a paper at
a conference will be very valuable for you: you will get feedback from
a wider audience than usual; you are more likely to meet people than a
non-participant and you will find it easier to get funding to attend.

Advice about expressing your ideas to a large
audience in plain English see [Orwell68].

7. Guide to Writing

During the course of your research project you will need to
write many documents: a thesis proposal and thesis outline,
research notes, records of papers you have read, conference and
journal papers, and finally the thesis itself. A badly written
thesis is not usually a cause for total failure, but can cause
soul-destroying delays while it is rewritten and
reexamined. Poor writing will also make it difficult for others
to understand your work. It is, therefore, quite important that
you learn to write well. This section contains some tips and
rules to improve your writing. Nobody knows enough about good
writing to do more than that. There is a good guide to style
and presentation of scientific papers in [Booth75]. Helpful
information about writing theses is given by [Parsons73]. Useful
references for writing technical reports can be found in
[Cooper64]. Advice about writing Computer Science papers is
given in [Zobel 04]. The College Transferable Skills Programme
runs a
course on paper production
for Informatics postgraduate
students, which you should consider attending.

There are no hard and fast rules of good writing, but if you
are going to break one of the rules below you should have a good reason
and do it deliberately, e.g. you want to overwhelm the funding agency
with jargon rather than have them understand how little you actually
achieved.

• Your paper should have a message, i.e. an argument that you are
  advancing, for which your research provides evidence. Make sure you
  know what this message is. Summarise it in a few words on paper or to a
  friend. Make sure the message is reflected in the title, abstract,
  introduction, conclusion and in the structure of the paper.

   

• Putting your case so that it can be understood is not
  enough -
  you must present it so that it cannot be misunderstood. Think of your
  audience as intelligent, but (a) ignorant and (b) given to wilful
  misunderstanding. Make sure that the key ideas are stated
  transparently, prominently and often. Do not tuck several important
  ideas into one sentence with a subtle use of adjectives. Do not assume
  that any key ideas are too obvious to say. Say what you are going to
  say, say it, and then say what you just said.

   

• Do not try to say too much in one paper. Stick to the main
  message
  and only include what is essential to that. Reserve the rest for
  another paper. A reader should get the main idea of the paper from the
  first page. Long rambling introductions should be pruned ruthlessly.

   

• The basic framework for a scientific paper is: what claim/hypothesis am I making and what is the evidence for this claim.

   

• To keep the technical standard of paper uniform, have a particular
  reader in mind as you write.

   

• You do not have to start writing at the beginning. In
  particular,
  the introductory remarks are best written when you know what will
  follow. Start by describing the central idea, e.g. your main technique,
  procedure or proof. Now decide what your hypothetical reader has to
  know in order to understand this central idea and put this information
  into the introductory sections/chapters.

   

• Use worked examples to illustrate the description of a
  procedure. Do not use them as a substitute for that description.

   

• Clearly state what is new or better about what you have done. Make
  explicit comparisons with closely related work.

   

• If you find yourself using a long noun phrase to refer to the same
  entity or idea several times then you should probably define a new term. Do not define a new term unless you really need it.

   

• Learn to use a keyboard (all 9 fingers), a screen editor,
  a text
  formatter, a spelling corrector and a grammar correcter. Type your paper into a computer,
  either directly or from notes or from a handwritten manuscript. This
  will save time when it comes to alterations, corrections, etc. Run the
  finished product through spelling and grammar correcters.

   

• Ask several people to read the draft versions. Expect to spend time incorporating
  their suggestions into the text. If they did not understand it is your
  fault, not theirs. It is discourteous to ask anyone to reread a paper
  if you have not yet considered their previous comments. Draft theses
  should be read by supervisors, but
  should not
  be read by examiners. The remarks below are relevant to all writing, but are particularly addressed to thesis writing.

   

• Your thesis should not be a `core-dump' of all you know
  about
  everything remotely related to the topic. Instead, there should be a
  single message, and you should carefully consider how each part of your
  thesis contributes to putting over this message. Remember that you are
  not writing specifically for your examiners. You should be addressing
  yourself to researchers following in your footsteps, who will be
  grateful for a good but relevant scene-setting and a clear argument.
  They will also be considering the state of knowledge at the time you
  were writing, which may be different from the state at the time they
  are reading it, and you should give sufficient detail to fix this
  without boring them rigid. It is also wise to remember that researchers
  around the world will also, implicitly at least, be judging the quality
  of the University and of the School when they read your work. Your
  examiners will be bearing this in mind even if you don't - so you
  should too.

   

• You can write your thesis top down, bottom up, or
  bi-directionally. Top down you start with some notes, and gradually
  unpack them into thesis chapters. Bottom up, you describe different
  aspects of what you have done, and then put these parts together to
  form the thesis. Neither of these approaches is very successful on its
  own. Top down tends not to work because your opinion as to what you
  have done changes as you unpack your ideas. Bottom up produces a dog's dinner of
  unrelated snippets. A bi-directional combination is more successful.

   

• As you do your research you should write your ideas and
  results up
  as a series of notes and working papers. Some of these papers may be
  worthy of publication in a conference or journal. Collect these notes
  and papers into a single file (paper or electronic) entitled `thesis'.
  This is enough bottom-up work to start with. Now work top down.

   

• Build your thesis `message'. This should have the following
  properties.
  - It should consist of a few sentences, i.e. be of abstract length. -
  The sentences should form the steps of an argument. This argument is
  the message of your thesis.
  
  - Each sentence should outline the contents of some part, roughly a
  chapter, of your thesis.
  
  - The message should serve as a guide to the: title, abstract,
  summary, conclusion and the whole body of your thesis.
  

   

• The thesis message should help you in the following ways:
  
  - It should ensure that the parts of your thesis hang together in a
  coherent manner. It should suggest how to reorganise the various notes
  and papers in your `thesis' file so that they form an argument.
  
  - It should answer the questions `What have I done?' and `Why does
  this work deserve a degree?'. You should now know what to emphasize in the abstract, introduction, conclusion, title, etc.
  
  - It should answer questions like `What should be discussed in
  'related work' ?'. In fact, you should know precisely what role each
  chapter is meant to play in the whole, i.e. what it is supposed to
  prove.
  

   

• The thesis message is short and easy to edit. You can play around
  with it until you get something you are happy with.

   

• Now you can go back to bottom up activity - reworking the existing
  material, and writing new material, to fulfil the demands of the `message'.

To give a flavour of the `message' described above, we give an
example from the Ph.D. thesis of a famous AI researcher, Fr. Aloysius
Hacker.

Example of a Thesis Message.

"The Computational Modelling of Religious Concepts"

by Fr. Aloysius Hacker

1. We apply ideas from Informatics to the understanding of
   religious concepts.
2. Previous attempts to explain religious concepts, e.g. the holy
   trinity and miracles, have often encountered philosophical problems.
3. These problems arose because the appropriate terminology was not
   available. Computational terminology often provides an appropriate analogy.

    

4. Although some problems still remain, e.g. free will,
5. We are
   seeing the beginning of a new, computational theology.

Each of these 5 points corresponds to one or two chapters of the
thesis. Chapter 1 introduces the general notion of computer modelling
and how it might be applied to religion by drawing analogies between
computational concepts and religious ones to suggest consequences and
non-consequences of religious positions, and hence debug some of the
theological debate of the last two millenia.

Chapter 2 is `related work'. It surveys the more important
theological positions on a variety of `problem' concepts, e.g. the holy
trinity, miracles, free will, and points out the contradictions
inherent in these positions.

Chapter 3 and 4 are the heart of the thesis. Chapter 3 draws an
analogy between the trinity and trebly recursive functions, and uses
this to resolve philosophical difficulties about God being both one and
three entities, simultaneously.

Chapter 4 develops an extended analogy in which the universe is
seen as a program for which God is the programmer, and in which
miracles are seen as run time patches inserted during interruptions.

Chapter 5 is `further work'. Outstanding problems are
mentioned. There is a discussion of the problem of free will and
possible computational accounts of it.

Chapter 6 is the conclusion. The results are summarised and the
relative success of computational approaches to religious problems are
summarised. The current work is seen as the humble beginnings of an
important new approach to theology.

8. Guide to Reading

Staying in touch with related research is one of the main subgoals
of obtaining a Ph.D. Some of the difficulties were raised at a
Department of Artificial Intelligence `research difficulties' meeting
in the context of reading habits. Here is the relevant quote from the
minutes of that meeting:

`Reading is difficult: The difficulty seems to depend on
the stage of academic development. Initially it is hard to know what to
read (many documents are unpublished), later reading becomes seductive
and is used as an excuse to avoid research. Finally one lacks the time
and patience to keep up with reading (and fears to find evidence that
one's own work is second rate or that one is slipping behind).'

Clearly there are ways of staying in touch other than
reading, but similar difficulties apply. One still has to maintain a
proper balance between learning about other people's work and getting
on with your own.

It may be helpful to think of the work of others as arranged in
concentric circles around your own, where the relevance of the work
decreases as you get further from the centre. For instance, if you were
studying anaphoric reference, then the inner circles would
consist of other work on anaphora; the middle circle would consist of
work in natural language understanding and computational linguistics
and the outer circle would contain other work in Informatics and linguistics.
You can add extra circles to taste. Obviously, you can afford to spend
less time keeping in touch with the work in the outer circle than that
in the inner circle, so different study techniques are appropriate for
the different circles.

8.1 Outer Circle

You can achieve an appropriate level of familiarity with the work
in this circle by skimming papers or reading the abstracts. It is a good idea
to set aside an hour each week for visiting the library (physically or
electonically) to skim the
latest arrivals. An alternative to skimming is attending conferences to
listen to both the short presentations and the longer tutorial
addresses. It is also very valuable to corner people in the coffee room
or corridor and engage them in a short conversation about their latest
ideas.

8.2 Middle Circle

Here you need to spend some more time. The methods described for
outer circle are still applicable, but are not sufficient - you will
also need to read some papers right through and engage in some longer
conversations. You will want to read some more specialized textbooks
and attend seminars etc. It is worthwhile keeping a record of papers
you have read and some comments about them, otherwise the benefits
derived from reading them will evaporate as your memory fades. It helps
to write your literature survey in parallel with the rest of your
research. Write a paragraph on each paper as you read it; this will
save you re-reading it again when you come to write up your thesis.

8.3 Inner Circle

For a really deep understanding, reading a paper once is not
sufficient. You should read it several times and get involved in it.
Work through the examples. Set yourself some exercises. Get in touch
with the author(s) about it. Talk or write to them with a list of queries
and/or criticisms. One invaluable way to get a deep understanding of
some work is to try to teach it to others. Offer a seminar, either
formal or informal. You will need your own personal copy of papers you
are making heavy use of. If you don't have one, photocopy someone
else's.

When reading a paper you will find that you understand it
better if you have a question in mind which you hope the paper will
answer. The precise question will depend on the circumstances, but
might be: What claim is being made? What is the evidence for this claim? Is it
convincing? How can I use this work in my own research project?
etc.

Finally don't be afraid to admit your ignorance by asking
questions. Everybody feels sensitive about their areas of ignorance and
in a field as multi-disciplinary as Informatics we all necessarily have wide
areas of ignorance. People enjoy answering questions - it makes them
feel important. You can usually get a far better feel for a piece of
work by engaging in a discussion with someone who understands it than
just by reading the paper alone.

9. The Examination of Theses

When you have written and rewritten your thesis to your
supervisors satisfaction then you are ready to submit. Inform the
College Office of your intention to submit. Make sure that your thesis
is in accord with the University's postgraduate regulations
. Get two copies
bound in the approved manner and take them to the College Office.

Your supervisor will suggest suitable internal and external
examiners. They may consult you informally about the choice. The
College will send your copies to the examiners. When the examiners are
ready - and that could take several months - the internal examiner will
arrange an oral examination or viva.

The viva is a question-answer session between you and your
examiners, lasting several hours. Your supervisor may attend, as an
observer, at the examiners' discretion. It will normally be in an
office in the School; the external examiner (and possibly you) will
travel up for the day. Dress is normal office wear and the occasion is
fairly relaxed. Dress up a bit if it makes you feel more comfortable.

Before and after the viva the examiners have to submit reports
to the College. The post-viva report is a joint one and contains a
recommendation taken from Regulation 3.10.4
. Rougly speaking, the options are:

1. Accept the thesis as it stands.
2. Accept with minor alterations or with deficiencies that can be remedied without further study.
3. Accept the thesis, but not the oral, and examine the candidate
further.
4. Reconsider after a further period of supervised study and
resubmission.
5. Reconsider a Ph.D. as an M.Phil..
6. Reject.

You will usually be told the recommendation informally, with the
understanding that it can be overturned by the College or Senate (and
this is not unheard of).

Recommendations 1, 3 and 6 are very rare.

Recommendation 2 is to allow correction of errors that do not require further research. These can vary from minor
typographical errors and
spelling mistakes to major rewrites (there are actually two separate recommendations covering the two extremes).
Typically, just the internal examiner will check that the thesis has been completely
corrected and will then inform the College who will process your thesis
and inform you of the outcome. This may take several months.

Recommendation 4 is to allow further research, usually requiring
a major rewrite. You will have to rewrite, rebind and resubmit your
thesis and
go through the whole procedure again with the same examiners. This is
your last chance. Recommendations 4 and 5 are not available the second
time
around.

Recommendation 5 is for theses which are not considered suitable for a
Ph.D., but which are considered suitable for an M.Phil.. We are not
supposed to say it is a consolation prize. You may or may not have to
undertake further study and rewriting. You will have to get it rebound
(in M.Phil. covers!), resubmit and have another viva.

The purpose of the viva is for the examiners to satisfy
themselves
that the thesis is acceptable as a Ph.D./M.Phil.. In particular, they
will have raised various doubts in their pre-viva reports, which they
must satisfy themselves about during the viva, and which they must
discharge on the post-viva report. If they do not discharge these
doubts in their post-viva reports then it is not unknown for the
College to override their recommendations.

The examiners will ask you questions to try to satisfy their
doubts. Because of time pressure, they often start with the most
serious and/or most general questions. For instance, they might start
by asking you to summarise in your own words what you consider to be
the key contributions in the thesis. It is worth having a succinct
answer ready to this one. You and and your supervisors can try to
anticipate other questions, but frequently the things you are most
worried about have now been adequately covered in thesis, and the
actual questions will surprise you. Thus it is better to have spent the
previous night getting a good sleep, so that you are fresh and alert
for the viva, than to have spent it rehearsing answers to question that
you will not be asked.

Do not ramble. Pay attention to the examiners questions and
statements, and respond pertinently and succinctly. If the examiners
can see that you are coherent, intelligent and aware of the issues in
your field then they will be keen to award you your degree, and may be
more prepared to overlook minor faults in the thesis.

Sitting a viva is a little like debugging a program. The thesis
is the program, you are the programmer, the Ph.D./M.Phil. standards are
the language syntax, and the examiners are the interpreter. During the
viva you will get various error messages. These messages do not need to
be taken at face value - they may be based on a misunderstanding - but
they cannot be ignored. Assume that each error message will lead to
some alteration in your thesis. Of course, you hope that this will only
be a minor alteration, but do not let this hope blind you to the
possibility that the problem is more fundamental. Do not get aggressive
or defensive with your examiners. You cannot bludgeon or sweet-talk them
into passing you, any more than you can force or persuade the computer
to accept your buggy program. What you have to do is: clarify your own
thinking, clear up any misunderstandings between you and your
examiners, make sure you understand how to correct your thesis, and
then correct it. The viva is a cooperative process. Your examiners want
to pass you. Give them all the help they need.

10. References

• [Bligh72] Bligh D., What's the use of lectures?
  , Penguin, 1972
• [Booth75] Booth V., "Writing a scientific paper", in
  Biochemical Society Transactions
  , vol 3, 1975
• [Cooper64] Cooper B., Writing Technical Reports
  , Pelican, 1964.
• [Orwell68] Orwell G., The Collected Essays
  , Penguin, 1968.
• [Parsons73] Parsons C.J., Theses and Project Work
  , George Allen and Unwin, 1973.
• The University of Edinburgh's Code of good practice in research.
  
• [Zobel 04] Zobel J., Writing for Computer Science
  , Springer, 2004.