Whoohoo, you wrote a thesis, congrats!

  RSS Feed

Now it's time to present it to the world, and defend it to your academic
colleagues! This is exciting, and also stressful. That's normal. Do what you
Categories
can to prepare (give a practice talk at least several days in advance to some
supportive friends and incorporate their feedback for improvements; run All
through the talk at least several times until you are confident you have the Academia
timing down). After that, don't worry about being nervous. My experience Advice
with giving talks is that I am always nervous, and that's ok; I can be nervous Agriculture
and still do a good job.   Climate Change
Conferences
Here's my advice on structuring your presentation.  COP21
Divestment
For the session with your opponent, be prepared for both big picture and detail Early Career
questions, on both your written thesis and oral presentation. The following are Ecosystem
by no means exhaustive, but just a sample of some kinds of questions that Services
have been asked in my experience (of course your own experience may vary). Grantwriting
Policy
It's OK to take a moment to consider your answer, or to ask for clarification Research
about what the opponent is looking for.  Scicomm
Teaching
Here are some questions you can prepare to answer (out loud on your own, Wine
or at the end of your practice talk with friends):  Writing

1. Why did you choose this study system? Archives

2. OK, you work on carbon sequestration in grasslands. What % of the October 2019
global carbon budget are grasslands? Do they sequester more or less September 2019
than forests? Similar question from a friend’s defense: why is it that May 2019
the Ross Sea is so productive compared with other global oceans? (Put February 2019
your work in larger context.)   July 2018
January 2018
3. What is the contribution of your dissertation? [to X field]? November 2016
April 2016
4. How do you know that XYZ assumption you made was appropriate?
March 2016
Why was this method (regression analysis, interviews, etc.) appropriate
December 2015
for the question you wanted to answer?  
November 2015
5. How would you demonstrate X? (Might be a logical next August 2015
step/extension of the work you did, or might be a totally off the wall July 2015
thing that makes no sense, partly testing you on whether you recognize May 2015
this.) March 2015
February 2015
6. What is the mechanism that drives the result you found? Does it apply January 2015
in other systems? How? November 2014
October 2014
7. What does the literature say about your findings/this work? Who are September 2014
 the people at the cutting edge of this field? Who are the people who
would disagree with your findings? Related: So-and-so just published August 2014
a Science paper/gave a talk on X (may be closely or not so closely July 2014
related). How does this relate to your work? Do your findings agree or
disagree with theirs? RSS Feed

8. You should have measured/done XYZ instead. (This is the kind of

thing that reviewers say all the time so I think this is to prepare you for
that. Talk about how that would be interesting to answer a different
question/with more resources, but for your question, your approach
was solid.)  

9. Explain the two-year reproductive cycle of the grapevine, draw the

global patterns of nitrogen availability, temperature & C3 vs. C4
grasses (... various specific things with right and wrong answers... hard
to "study" for these as they could be about anything even tangentially
related... perhaps spend 30 minutes glancing over a grad-level textbook
most closely related to your field to jog your memory, but most
importantly stay calm, use logic, draw on the vast amount of trivia
you’ve been filling your brain with for the last 5-10 years, but admit
when you don't know an answer and say where you would go (or what
you would do experimentally) to find it out.)

10. What are your next steps? (Both in terms of this research, and
professionally, including where do you want to be in 5-10 years.)  

11. What are the management or policy implications of this work? How
have/will you communicate these to managers/policymakers?

12. What are the theoretical implications/contributions of this work? (Put

in context of broad concepts of the field, not just literature but bigger
picture, throw some terms around that relate to theory like
“vulnerability analysis,” “mass balance,” whatever).
 
13. In one sentence, what was the aim of your thesis? 

14. What do you mean by [term used in thesis]?

15. How would your results have been different if you had [interviewed
X/done the work in X case/...] instead? 

16. What literature did you include? For example, was it only from Europe
and North America? How does this affect your conclusions? 

17. Who could potentially benefit from your thesis? How will you
communicate your results to them? 

18. What's the potential your proposed course of action will work? What
 barriers exist? Is there anywhere this has already worked? Where and
why? 

I did not do this… but it occurs to me that it would be helpful to write out a
list of questions that you would ask a student presenting your work. Include
the most gnarly questions you can think of, the ones you hope they don’t ask
that expose the weaknesses or shortcomings. Then get a trusted friend to ask
them to you, and practice your answers. I think this would make you feel a lot
better, and will probably be much harder than the actual defense. If you're
feeling brave you can even incorporate these points in your slides (i.e.,
acknowledge and justify shortcomings or what you'd do differently).

Good luck! You'll do great! 

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