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Useful Tips For Students On How To Prepare For A Dissertation Defense

In your final year of study, you will most likely have to draft a thesis and prove it before a committee to achieve a pass. Most of the times, drafting the thesis can be a pretty difficult thing, but even after managing to draft it, there is still the process of having to prove it to a committee. This is the most crucial part of your research as your success in it determines whether all the time you put in your research was worth it. It is therefore very essential to pass and to do this, there are a few things that you need to be aware of:

1. Familiarize with the format of presentation

Defenses for various theses types take different procedures. As such, you should be careful to familiarize yourself with the format in which the task ahead is going to take. This will help you have a rough idea of what to expect and also will help boost your confidence when beginning the process.

2. Thorough practice

Before standing in front of the committee you need to build up your confidence and look very convincing. The only way to do this is to practice thoroughly. You may choose to speak to an empty hall, before a mirror or even before a group of peers. Your confidence on the stage is an added advantage as most committees expect you to be nervous during the process, but if you convince them with your confidence, there is a better chance of passing as you capture their attention fully.

3. Hard questions

In a defense, all that happens is answering questions to prove your research. Somewhere on the course of the presentation you are bound to get a difficult question. Most committee members will ask a difficult one to see how you take difficult situations. When this happens, you should be very careful and make sure not to panic. In case you don’t know the answer to the question, you need to intelligently accept that you don’t know the answer, but in the process give a possible suggestion on what the answer could be.

4. Content

In most cases, the determinant of a pass is usually the content of your research and not basically the defense you give for it. Therefore, you need to be very careful to ensure that your research is extensive and adequate. Most committees give a pass to student despite a bad presentation due to the content of the thesis you present.