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Defending Your Dissertation: A Guide

Written by Luke Wink-Moran | Photo by insta_photos

Dissertation defenses are daunting, and no wonder; it’s not a “dissertation discussion,” or a “dissertation dialogue.” The name alone implies that the dissertation you’ve spent the last x number of years working on is subject to attack. And if you don’t feel trepidation for semantic reasons, you might be nervous because you don’t know what to expect. Our imaginations are great at making The Unknown scarier than reality. The good news is that you’ll find in this newsletter article experts who can shed light on what dissertations defenses are really like, and what you can do to prepare for them.

The first thing you should know is that your defense has already begun. It started the minute you began working on your dissertation— maybe even in some of the classes you took beforehand that helped you formulate your ideas. This, according to Dr. Celeste Atkins, is why it’s so important to identify a good mentor early in graduate school.

“To me,” noted Dr. Atkins, who wrote her dissertation on how sociology faculty from traditionally marginalized backgrounds teach about privilege and inequality, “the most important part of the doctoral journey was finding an advisor who understood and supported what I wanted from my education and who was willing to challenge me and push me, while not delaying me.  I would encourage future PhDs to really take the time to get to know the faculty before choosing an advisor and to make sure that the members of their committee work well together.”

Your advisor will be the one who helps you refine arguments and strengthen your work so that by the time it reaches your dissertation committee, it’s ready. Next comes the writing process, which many students have said was the hardest part of their PhD. I’ve included this section on the writing process because this is where you’ll create all the material you’ll present during your defense, so it’s important to navigate it successfully. The writing process is intellectually grueling, it eats time and energy, and it’s where many students find themselves paddling frantically to avoid languishing in the “All-But-Dissertation” doldrums. The writing process is also likely to encroach on other parts of your life. For instance, Dr. Cynthia Trejo wrote her dissertation on college preparation for Latin American students while caring for a twelve-year-old, two adult children, and her aging parents—in the middle of a pandemic. When I asked Dr. Trejo how she did this, she replied:

“I don’t take the privilege of education for granted. My son knew I got up at 4:00 a.m. every morning, even on weekends, even on holidays; and it’s a blessing that he’s seen that work ethic and that dedication and the end result.”

Importantly, Dr. Trejo also exercised regularly and joined several online writing groups at UArizona. She mobilized her support network— her partner, parents, and even friends from high school to help care for her son.

The challenges you face during the writing process can vary by discipline. Jessika Iwanski is an MD/PhD student who in 2022 defended her dissertation on genetic mutations in sarcomeric proteins that lead to severe, neonatal dilated cardiomyopathy. She described her writing experience as “an intricate process of balancing many things at once with a deadline (defense day) that seems to be creeping up faster and faster— finishing up experiments, drafting the dissertation, preparing your presentation, filling out all the necessary documents for your defense and also, for MD/PhD students, beginning to reintegrate into the clinical world (reviewing your clinical knowledge and skill sets)!”

But no matter what your unique challenges are, writing a dissertation can take a toll on your mental health. Almost every student I spoke with said they saw a therapist and found their sessions enormously helpful. They also looked to the people in their lives for support. Dr. Betsy Labiner, who wrote her dissertation on Interiority, Truth, and Violence in Early Modern Drama, recommended, “Keep your loved ones close! This is so hard – the dissertation lends itself to isolation, especially in the final stages. Plus, a huge number of your family and friends simply won’t understand what you’re going through. But they love you and want to help and are great for getting you out of your head and into a space where you can enjoy life even when you feel like your dissertation is a flaming heap of trash.”

While you might sometimes feel like your dissertation is a flaming heap of trash, remember: a) no it’s not, you brilliant scholar, and b) the best dissertations aren’t necessarily perfect dissertations. According to Dr. Trejo, “The best dissertation is a done dissertation.” So don’t get hung up on perfecting every detail of your work. Think of your dissertation as a long-form assignment that you need to finish in order to move onto the next stage of your career. Many students continue revising after graduation and submit their work for publication or other professional objectives.

When you do finish writing your dissertation, it’s time to schedule your defense and invite friends and family to the part of the exam that’s open to the public. When that moment comes, how do you prepare to present your work and field questions about it?

“I reread my dissertation in full in one sitting,” said Dr. Labiner. “During all my time writing it, I’d never read more than one complete chapter at a time! It was a huge confidence boost to read my work in full and realize that I had produced a compelling, engaging, original argument.”

There are many other ways to prepare: create presentation slides and practice presenting them to friends or alone; think of questions you might be asked and answer them; think about what you want to wear or where you might want to sit (if you’re presenting on Zoom) that might give you a confidence boost. Iwanksi practiced presenting with her mentor and reviewed current papers to anticipate what questions her committee might ask.  If you want to really get in the zone, you can emulate Dr. Labiner and do a full dress rehearsal on Zoom the day before your defense.

But no matter what you do, you’ll still be nervous:

“I had a sense of the logistics, the timing, and so on, but I didn’t really have clear expectations outside of the structure. It was a sort of nebulous three hours in which I expected to be nauseatingly terrified,” recalled Dr. Labiner.

“I expected it to be terrifying, with lots of difficult questions and constructive criticism/comments given,” agreed Iwanski.

“I expected it to be very scary,” said Dr. Trejo.

“I expected it to be like I was on trial, and I’d have to defend myself and prove I deserved a PhD,” said Dr Atkins.

And, eventually, inexorably, it will be time to present.  

“It was actually very enjoyable” said Iwanski. “It was more of a celebration of years of work put into this project—not only by me but by my mentor, colleagues, lab members and collaborators! I felt very supported by all my committee members and, rather than it being a rapid fire of questions, it was more of a scientific discussion amongst colleagues who are passionate about heart disease and muscle biology.”

“I was anxious right when I logged on to the Zoom call for it,” said Dr. Labiner, “but I was blown away by the number of family and friends that showed up to support me. I had invited a lot of people who I didn’t at all think would come, but every single person I invited was there! Having about 40 guests – many of them joining from different states and several from different countries! – made me feel so loved and celebrated that my nerves were steadied very quickly. It also helped me go into ‘teaching mode’ about my work, so it felt like getting to lead a seminar on my most favorite literature.”

“In reality, my dissertation defense was similar to presenting at an academic conference,” said Dr. Atkins. “I went over my research in a practiced and organized way, and I fielded questions from the audience.

“It was a celebration and an important benchmark for me,” said Dr. Trejo. “It was a pretty happy day. Like the punctuation at the end of your sentence: this sentence is done; this journey is done. You can start the next sentence.”

If you want to learn more about dissertations in your own discipline, don’t hesitate to reach out to graduates from your program and ask them about their experiences. If you’d like to avail yourself of some of the resources that helped students in this article while they wrote and defended their dissertations, check out these links:

The Graduate Writing Lab

https://thinktank.arizona.edu/writing-center/graduate-writing-lab

The Writing Skills Improvement Program

https://wsip.arizona.edu

Campus Health Counseling and Psych Services

https://caps.arizona.edu

https://www.scribbr.com/

Preparing For Your Dissertation Defense

13 Key Questions To Expect In The Viva Voce

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) & David Phair (PhD) . Reviewed By: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | June 2021

Preparing for your dissertation or thesis defense (also called a “viva voce”) is a formidable task . All your hard work over the years leads you to this one point, and you’ll need to defend yourself against some of the most experienced researchers you’ve encountered so far.

It’s natural to feel a little nervous.

In this post, we’ll cover some of the most important questions you should be able to answer in your viva voce, whether it’s for a Masters or PhD degree. Naturally, they might not arise in exactly the same form (some may not come up at all), but if you can answer these questions well, it means you’re in a good position to tackle your oral defense.

Viva Voce Prep: 13 Essential Questions

• What is your study about and why did you choose to research this in particular?
• How did your research questions evolve during the research process?
• How did you decide on which sources to include in your literature review?
• How did you design your study and why did you take this approach?
• How generalisable and valid are the findings?
• What were the main shortcomings and limitations created by your research design?
• How did your findings relate to the existing literature?
• What were your key findings in relation to the research questions?
• Were there any findings that surprised you?
• What biases may exist in your research?
• How can your findings be put into practice?
• How has your research contributed to current thinking in the field?
• If you could redo your research, how would you alter your approach?

#1: What is your study about and why did you choose to research this in particular?

This question, a classic party starter, is pretty straightforward.

What the dissertation or thesis committee is assessing here is your ability to clearly articulate your research aims, objectives and research questions in a concise manner. Concise is the keyword here – you need to clearly explain your research topic without rambling on for a half-hour. Don’t feel the need to go into the weeds here – you’ll have many opportunities to unpack the details later on.

In the second half of the question, they’re looking for a brief explanation of the justification of your research. In other words, why was this particular set of research aims, objectives and questions worth addressing? To address this question well in your oral defense, you need to make it clear what gap existed within the research and why that gap was worth filling.

#2: How did your research questions evolve during the research process?

Good research generally follows a long and winding path . It’s seldom a straight line (unless you got really lucky). What they’re assessing here is your ability to follow that path and let the research process unfold.

Specifically, they’ll want to hear about the impact that the literature review process had on you in terms of shaping the research aims, objectives and research questions . For example, you may have started with a certain set of aims, but then as you immersed yourself in the literature, you may have changed direction. Similarly, your initial fieldwork findings may have turned out some unexpected data that drove you to adjust or expand on your initial research questions.

Long story short – a good defense involves clearly describing your research journey , including all the twists and turns. Adjusting your direction based on findings in the literature or the fieldwork shows that you’re responsive , which is essential for high-quality research.

#3: How did you decide on which sources to include in your literature review?

A comprehensive literature review is the foundation of any high-quality piece of research. With this question, your dissertation or thesis committee are trying to assess which quality criteria and approach you used to select the sources for your literature review.

Typically, good research draws on both the seminal work in the respective field and more recent sources . In other words, a combination of the older landmark studies and pivotal work, along with up-to-date sources that build on to those older studies. This combination ensures that the study has a rock-solid foundation but is not out of date.

So, make sure that your study draws on a mix of both the “classics” and new kids on the block, and take note of any major evolutions in the literature that you can use as an example when asked this question in your viva voce.

#4: How did you design your study and why did you take this approach?

This is a classic methodological question that you can almost certainly expect in some or other shape.

What they’re looking for here is a clear articulation of the research design and methodology, as well as a strong justification of each choice . So, you need to be able to walk through each methodological choice and clearly explain both what you did and why you did it. The why is particularly important – you need to be able to justify each choice you made by clearly linking your design back to your research aims, objectives and research questions, while also taking into account practical constraints.

To ensure you cover every base, check out our research methodology vlog post , as well as our post covering the Research Onion .

#5: How generalizable and valid are the findings?

This question is aimed at specifically digging into your understanding of the sample and how that relates to the population, as well as potential validity issues in your methodology.

To answer question this well, you’ll need to critically assess your sample and findings and consider if they truly apply to the entire population, as well as whether they assessed what they set out to. Note that there are two components here – generalizability and validity . Generalizability is about how well the sample represents the population. Validity is about how accurately you’ve measured what you intended to measure .

To ace this part of your dissertation defense, make sure that you’re very familiar with the concepts of generalizability , validity and reliability , and how these apply to your research. Remember, you don’t need to achieve perfection – you just need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of your research (and how the weaknesses could be improved upon).

Need a helping hand?

#6: What were the main shortcomings and limitations created by your research design?

This question picks up where the last one left off.

As I mentioned, it’s perfectly natural that your research will have shortcomings and limitations as a result of your chosen design and methodology. No piece of research is flawless. Therefore, a good dissertation defense is not about arguing that your work is perfect, but rather it’s about clearly articulating the strengths and weaknesses of your approach.

To address this question well, you need to think critically about all of the potential weaknesses your design may have, as well as potential responses to these (which could be adopted in future research) to ensure you’re well prepared for this question. For a list of common methodological limitations, check out our video about research limitations here .

#7: How did your findings relate to the existing literature?

This common dissertation defense question links directly to your discussion chapter , where you would have presented and discussed the findings in relation to your literature review.

What your dissertation or thesis committee is assessing here is your ability to compare your study’s findings to the findings of existing research . Specifically, you need to discuss which findings aligned with existing research and which findings did not. For those findings that contrasted against existing research, you should also explain what you believe to be the reasons for this.

As with many questions in a viva voce, it’s both the what and the why that matter here. So, you need to think deeply about what the underlying reasons may be for both the similarities and differences between your findings and those of similar studies.

#8: What were your key findings in relation to the research questions?

This question is similar to the last one in that it too focuses on your research findings. However, here the focus is specifically on the findings that directly relate to your research questions (as opposed to findings in general).

So, a good way to prepare for this question is to step back and revisit your research questions . Ask yourself the following:

• What exactly were you asking in those questions, and what did your research uncover concerning them?
• Which questions were well answered by your study and which ones were lacking?
• Why were they lacking and what more could be done to address this in future research?

Conquering this part dissertation defense requires that you focus squarely on the research questions. Your study will have provided many findings (hopefully!), and not all of these will link directly to the research questions. Therefore, you need to clear your mind of all of the fascinating side paths your study may have lead you down and regain a clear focus on the research questions .

#9: Were there any findings that surprised you?

This question is two-pronged.

First, you should discuss the surprising findings that were directly related to the original research questions . Going into your research, you likely had some expectations in terms of what you would find, so this is your opportunity to discuss the outcomes that emerged as contrary to what you initially expected. You’ll also want to think about what the reasons for these contrasts may be.

Second, you should discuss the findings that weren’t directly related to the research questions, but that emerged from the data set . You may have a few or you may have none – although generally there are a handful of interesting musings that you can glean from the data set. Again, make sure you can articulate why you find these interesting and what it means for future research in the area.

What the committee is looking for in this type of question is your ability to interpret the findings holistically and comprehensively , and to respond to unexpected data. So, take the time to zoom out and reflect on your findings thoroughly.

#10: What biases may exist in your research?

Biases… we all have them.

For this question, you’ll need to think about potential biases in your research , in the data itself but also in your interpretation of the data. With this question, your committee is assessing whether you have considered your own potential biases and the biases inherent in your analysis approach (i.e. your methodology). So, think carefully about these research biases and be ready to explain how these may exist in your study.

In an oral defense, this question is often followed up with a question on how the biases were mitigated or could be mitigated in future research. So, give some thought not just to what biases may exist, but also the mitigation measures (in your own study and for future research).

#11: How can your findings be put into practice?

Another classic question in the typical viva voce.

With this question, your committee is assessing your ability to bring your findings back down to earth and demonstrate their practical value and application. Importantly, this question is not about the contribution to academia or the overall field of research (we’ll get to that next) – it is specifically asking about how this newly created knowledge can be used in the real world.

Naturally, the actionability of your findings will vary depending on the nature of your research topic. Some studies will produce many action points and some won’t. If you’re researching marketing strategies within an industry, for example, you should be able to make some very specific recommendations for marketing practitioners in that industry.

To help you flesh out points for this question, look back at your original justification for the research (i.e. in your introduction and literature review chapters). What were the driving forces that led you to research your specific topic? That justification should help you identify ways in which your findings can be put into practice.

#12: How has your research contributed to current thinking in the field?

While the previous question was aimed at practical contribution, this question is aimed at theoretical contribution . In other words, what is the significance of your study within the current body of research? How does it fit into the existing research and what does it add to it?

This question is often asked by a field specialist and is used to assess whether you’re able to place your findings into the research field to critically convey what your research contributed. This argument needs to be well justified – in other words, you can’t just discuss what your research contributed, you need to also back each proposition up with a strong why .

To answer this question well, you need to humbly consider the quality and impact of your work and to be realistic in your response. You don’t want to come across as arrogant (“my work is groundbreaking”), nor do you want to undersell the impact of your work. So, it’s important to strike the right balance between realistic and pessimistic .

This question also opens the door to questions about potential future research . So, think about what future research opportunities your study has created and which of these you feel are of the highest priority.

#13: If you could redo your research, how would you alter your approach?

This question is often used to wrap up a viva voce as it brings the discussion full circle.

Here, your committee is again assessing your ability to clearly identify and articulate the limitations and shortcomings of your research, both in terms of research design and topic focus . Perhaps, in hindsight, it would have been better to use a different analysis method or data set. Perhaps the research questions should have leaned in a slightly different direction. And so on.

This question intends to assess whether you’re able to look at your work critically , assess where the weaknesses are and make recommendations for the future. This question often sets apart those who did the research purely because it was required, from those that genuinely engaged with their research. So, don’t hold back here – reflect on your entire research journey ask yourself how you’d do things differently if you were starting with a  blank canvas today.

Recap: The 13 Key Dissertation Defense Questions

To recap, here are the 13 questions you need to be ready for to ace your dissertation or thesis oral defense:

As I mentioned, this list of dissertation defense questions is certainly not exhaustive – don’t assume that we’ve covered every possible question here. However, these questions are quite likely to come up in some shape or form in a typical dissertation or thesis defense, whether it’s for a Master’s degree, PhD or any other research degree. So, you should take the time to make sure you can answer them well.

If you need assistance preparing for your dissertation defense or viva voce, get in touch with us to discuss 1-on-1 coaching. We can critically review your research and identify potential issues and responses, as well as undertake a mock oral defense to prepare you for the pressures and stresses on the day.

Psst… there’s more (for free)

This post is part of our dissertation mini-course, which covers everything you need to get started with your dissertation, thesis or research project. 

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12 Comments

Very interesting

Interesting. I appreciate!

Really appreciating

My field is International Trade

Interesting

This is a full course on defence. I was fabulously enlightened and I gained enough confidence for my upcoming Masters Defence.

There are many lessons to learn and the simplicity in presentationmakes thee reader say “YesI can”

This is so helping… it has Enlightened me on how to answer specific questions. I pray to make it through for my upcoming defense

Lovely to hear that 🙂

Really educative and beneficial

Interesting. On-point and elaborate. And comforting too! Thanks.

Thank you very much for the enlightening me, be blessed

Thankyou so much. I am planning to defend my thesis soon and I found this very useful

Very interesting and useful to all masters and PhD students

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Dissertation Defense: Steps To Follow To Succeed

A dissertation defense is arguably one of the most important milestones in every student’s career. While it signals that your tenure as a student is soon about to close, it validates all your efforts towards your thesis.

Being cautious about including all the necessary details is very important to successfully complete your dissertation proposal defense. This article tells you everything that you need to know about writing a defense that can add great credibility to you as a student.

What is A Dissertation Defense?

The first thing that you need to learn is what is a dissertation defense and what is its purpose. In simple terms, it is a presentation made by a student to defend all the ideas and views that are presented in a dissertation.

The presenter must include details like what is the reason for choosing specific research methods, the theory that has been selected for the paper, and other such points. This presentation is made before an audience that comprises of the university committee, professors and even fellow-students. It is met with questions and answers that gives the student an opportunity to provide more clarity on the dissertation in order to convince the committee to approve it.

Stages of a Dissertation Defense

One of the most important dissertation defense tips provided by several professors is to breakdown the process into three steps:

• Preparation : This stage involves collection of all the necessary information that must be included in the defense dissertation and making all the arrangements for the actual meeting.
• The defense meeting : This is where you decide how you will present the defense. The actual meeting is hugely reliant on the performance, body language and the confidence in your oral defense.
• After the defense meeting : This stage, also known as the follow up, requires you to make the necessary revisions suggested by the university committee. You can even provide bound copies of the whole dissertation to distribute among different members of your departments. In the follow up stage, one must also think about expense that are related to publishing the Ph.D. dissertation defense as well as printing additional copies of the manuscript, if required.

How Long is a Dissertation Defense?

The first thing that a student should know is how long does a dissertation defense last? The length has to be carefully calculated to make the impact that you want. One of the most important steps in the dissertation preparation is to understand how much time each department allocates to the closing oral defense. When you plan in the early stages of your dissertation itself, you can write it in a manner that allows you to defend it in the allocated time.

Usually these meetings including the presentation, the oral defense and the question and answer session last for about two hours. In most cases, these two hours also encompass the time needed by members of the committee to deliberate.

How to Prepare for the Dissertation Defense

Now that you know how long is a dissertation defense, the next step is to prepare well enough to make your presentation impressive.

Here are some tips on how to prepare for a dissertation defense:

• Watch other students in action to learn about different presentation styles. You can attend defenses of different colleagues in your department as well as other departments in your university.
• Get all the details about the deadlines and the rules of your college or university about scheduling your defense.
• Scheduling is also a very important part of your preparation. It is important to note that members of the committee and University chairs need to make time for these defences in a very packed schedule. Coordinate the date, venue and time of your defense as early as possible.
• Prepare a manuscript adhering to the necessary formatting rules. Review your manuscript thoroughly before you hand it in. During your PH.D, your faculty will also assist you with the defense. For this, they must have a crisp and polished copy of your manuscript.
• Most colleges have the facility for a pre-defense meeting. This is the best opportunity to sort out any concerns that you may have about the actual meeting. It is a good idea to ask the chairs what types of questions may be put forward and if there are any problems with the defense that need to be resolved. When you prepare for a pre-defense meeting, think of it as the final one and give it your all.
• Put together all the material that you need for the defense. A detailed, yet to-the-point presentation must be prepared.
• The final stage of preparation is practicing your presentation over and over again. It is not just the presentation but also the approach towards the questions that you must practice.

Tips To Nail Your Actual Meeting

With these tips you will be one step closer towards a successful defense that will help your dissertation pass and be approved:

• All meetings should begin by addressing the chair. Make sure you thank all the committee members and the advisors for the efforts that they have put it. This gives you a professional start to the presentation.
• The presentation should cover the following subjects in brief:
• The research topic
• Literature review
• The methods used for analysis
• The primary findings of the research
• Recommendations of additional research on the subject in the focus.
• Do not get rattled by any discussions among the chairs. They will deliberate on any disagreements or topics of interest. This is a part of the process and is not a reflection of the presentation itself.
• There are two questions that are commonly asked that you should be prepared for. This includes the weaknesses of the dissertation and the research plans that you have made post-dissertation.
• Use subtle gestures when you are talking. Do not overuse your hands when doing so. The whole meeting including the question and answer session should have a very formal appeal.
• The tone of your voice must be assertive without making it seem like you are trying to hard. Be clear and enunciate when you speak.

Once the questions have been answered, the committee will leave the room. Then, after the deliberation, you will be informed if your dissertation has passed or not.

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Preparing for your dissertation defense, published by steve tippins on april 4, 2019 april 4, 2019.

Last Updated on: 30th August 2022, 04:43 am

Preparing for your dissertation defense is one of the most important things you’ll do as a doctoral candidate. Now that you’ve completed your dissertation, it’s up to you to present the results to your committee.

However, the results aren’t just about your study. Your committee wants to see what you learned through the process and whether you are ready to take on the responsibility of being a scholar.

What is a Dissertation Defense?

When you finish your dissertation and your committee has said you are ready to move forward, there is a formal meeting–your dissertation defense–where you have the opportunity to explain what you did and what you found.

Your committee then has the opportunity to ask questions related to your work, the implications of what you found, and your future. It is a chance for you to stand before your peers and be welcomed into the academy. Defending your dissertation is one of the great rites of passage into the world of academia.

How to Prepare for Your Dissertation Defense

Rather than write a quick list of dissertation defense tips, I thought I’d create a comprehensive guide to defending your dissertation. After chairing and sitting on countless dissertation committees, these are the steps I recommend you take.

Cultivate The Right Attitude

Perhaps the most important thing to have as you prepare to defend your dissertation is a revised view of your academic self. You’ve spent years gaining knowledge on your chosen subject, and now is your time to shine. While it’s natural to be nervous — after all, you’re jumping the highest hurdle in academia — keep in mind that this is your moment to shine and that you are now an expert on the topic.

One way to look at the dissertation defense is as a rite of passage. You are being tested, and just as with any rite of passage, the more rigorous the test, the prouder you will be of making it through.

During the process of your defense, keep this in mind: your committee tests you not only to ensure your worthiness but also to enable you to see just how much you know; to step into your new role as “expert.”

Prepare For Your Committee’s Questions

With this attitude in mind, you will want to prepare to demonstrate your expertise. That means anticipating questions the committee may have about your research.

If your dissertation asserts the likelihood of a recession in the presence of particular economic indicators, your committee will want to know what socio-political conditions are linked to these indicators. If you found that high achieving students are more likely to have had parents who volunteered in their schools, your committee members will likely ask you to speculate about how to increase parent involvement in schools.

In other words, you’ll need to be able to participate in discourse beyond your results — questions that speak to the relevance and implications of your research.

This kind of preparation goes beyond creating a PowerPoint of your findings (though that is necessary too); it’s part of your stepping into your expert role.

One thing I always tell my students is “Be able to explain your topic to your grandparents,” because to elucidate someone who knows nothing about the topic (no offense to the grandparents!) you must know it inside and out.

Of course, you’ll also want to know your topic well enough to discuss the topic with the top researchers in the field, but at this stage, you’ll have read enough of their work that you’ll feel you know them personally. It’s usually more difficult for academics to simplify than to complicate.

To ready yourself for potential questions, give your abstract to a few friends outside your academic program and have them ask you questions about your study. The advantage is their “outsider” perspective; you’ll have fun answering their questions and will likely have to make a few new neuronal connections to do so. Practicing like this will also help you relax during the actual defense.

Here are some questions you may be asked during your dissertation defense :

• “What are the strengths and weaknesses of your study?”
• “What was the most surprising thing you found?”
• “What will you do next with your results?”
• “If you could do this over, what would you do differently?”

Organize Your Presentation

Keep in mind that your presentation to your committee can double as your presentation to the faculty at any university to which you apply; your preparation will serve a dual purpose. You’ll need, therefore:

• a concise overview of the literature in which your study is grounded,
• a clear description of your study’s purpose, methodology, and findings,
• and a discussion of the implications of these findings.

Naturally, you will need to consult your department’s and college’s specific requirements, but every dissertation committee (and faculty search committee) will want to fully understand these basic elements of your work.

I have provided a list of questions to help prepare your dissertation defense. If you have time restrictions I would put more emphasis upon your results and the implications of your work. Think of organizing your slides according to these questions:

1. Why did I choose to study this? Don’t be afraid to reveal something personal about your motivation, as long as you can do so with poise and dignity. Your committee members will appreciate this humanizing element but keep it brief!

2. What have other people interested in this topic found? If your study is the next clue in the hunt for answers about this topic, what were the clues that led you here? What paths have past researchers gone down — both fruitful and not? What solid theoretical foundation stands under your study?

This portion of your presentation is the easiest to overdo. You will likely need to edit it again and again to ensure it is both concise and comprehensive. Stick to the major themes in your presentation but be prepared to answer questions about less dominant streams of research.

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3. How did my research question evolve? Answering this question links your research to what has already been established, placing your study in the stream of knowledge. Keep it brief but don’t skip this step, as it is key to showing you as an academic, rather than a student.

4. How did I organize my study? This is a description of the basics of your study and the “whys” of these choices. You can expand a bit here, as the decisions you made at this stage demonstrate your ability to think critically about approaching a research question. Why did you choose your particular methodology? What was the benefit of this design over another option you might have chosen?

5. What did I find? You can begin this section with what you expected to find and why, then explain what you actually found. Keep this section simple and factual.

6. What do the findings mean in relation to the question? Whether or not your findings matched your expectations, they tell you and your colleagues something important about the topic. What is it? Can we speculate that this is a promising area of research, or is this a path we might think of as a dead end? What, exactly, does this study tell us?

7. What’s next for me and for the research? You’ll want to give your committee (and any faculty search committee) a preview of your prospective academic career. What new questions has your study sparked for you? What would you hope other researchers would look at next? How do you intend to fit into the academic conversation on this topic?

Depending on your committee and requirements, you may want to include potential grants you will consider applying for to fund your next study. (This inclusion becomes more important when applying for academic positions.)

Prepare Yourself Mentally

Going back to attitude, remind yourself that a dissertation defense is your opportunity to step into your new role. This is your domain now. Breathe deeply and feel the pride that comes with a job well done. Know that you belong in this realm and the dissertation defense is your chance to prove it. Be humble, too; after all, you stand on the shoulders of giants.

Getting enough rest the night before, drinking water and bringing some with you to drink when your mouth gets dry, and being wise about what you consume prior to the defense (maybe go easy on the carbs and caffeine) are all obvious but frequently overlooked pointers. Your committee members want to know you can handle the pressure and take care of yourself under duress .

You might want to give yourself a few minutes of silence and rest before heading in to defend. Take those moments to recognize whatever you’re feeling, then humbly begin your academic career by presenting your most important work to date. And then get ready to roll up your sleeves for the next one. Congratulations, Doctor!

Steve Tippins

Steve Tippins, PhD, has thrived in academia for over thirty years. He continues to love teaching in addition to coaching recent PhD graduates as well as students writing their dissertations. Learn more about his dissertation coaching and career coaching services. Book a Free Consultation with Steve Tippins

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How to Prepare for Your Dissertation Defense

4-minute read

• 1st August 2023

After years of research and study, you’ve finally reached the grand finale of your PhD years: your dissertation defense. Since defending your dissertation is the culmination of all your hard work, it’s essential to do everything you can to prepare for it.

In this post, we’ll take you through how to ready yourself for your dissertation defense so you can focus on your accomplishments and excel during this crucial professional moment.

What is a Dissertation Defense? 

The dissertation defense is the crowning moment of years of research – the final examination before a PhD student is awarded their doctoral degree.

During a dissertation defense, the student presents their research, methodology, findings, and conclusions to a committee of faculty members and experts in their field. The committee then engages in a question-and-answer session to assess the student’s understanding of the subject matter, the quality of their research, and their ability to defend their work under scrutiny.

Many PhD students consider it to be the defining moment of their academic career and their chance to prove their expertise in their chosen research field.

If all this sounds overwhelming – don’t worry. If you’re a PhD student, you’ll have plenty of time and opportunity to adequately prepare for your dissertation defense. Below are some strategies to help you get ready for this significant occasion in your career.

1.   Know the Requirements

Familiarize yourself with your institution’s guidelines and requirements for the defense process. Understanding the format, time limit, and expectations for the presentation will help you to prepare your material and anticipate any issues.

2.   Review Your Dissertation

Even if you think you know it inside and out, review your dissertation from beginning to end. It may have been some time since you’ve last read and considered certain portions of your research and findings. Consider what your committee might ask about your research questions , data analysis, and conclusions.

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3.   Work on Starting Strong

To begin your defense on a strong note, work on creating a clear and engaging introduction. You can start by briefly outlining the purpose of your study, research questions, and methodology . Try to stay on topic and don’t veer off track by discussing unrelated or unnecessary information.

4.   Practice Presenting

Practice your presentation skills by rehearsing your defense multiple times. Focus on clarity and pacing and try to stay within the allotted time limit. It also helps to record yourself so that you can see yourself from your audience’s point of view.

5.   Practice Q&A Sessions

To build your confidence, enlist friends and colleagues to conduct mock question-and-answer sessions. When practicing, remember to pause before answering questions you’re unsure of. It’s better to take your time delivering a response than it is to give an inaccurate or incorrect answer.

6.   Seek Feedback

Find out if your institution offers mock defense sessions where peers or mentors play the role of the committee, ask you questions, and give feedback . You can also have colleagues, mentors, or advisors review your presentation and offer practical feedback.

7.   Create Visual Aids

Think about any visual aids , such as slides, you may want to use to illustrate your defense and prepare them in advance. Be sure to check that your university allows visuals or images and that they enhance, rather than overwhelm, your presentation.

8.   Stay Calm and Confident

It’s natural to feel nervous but try to stay calm and composed during your defense. Take deep breaths and remind yourself of the expertise you’ve gained through the experience of writing your dissertation.

Expert Proofreading Services

The best way to prepare for your dissertation defense is to have your dissertation professionally proofread. Our editing experts have extensive experience with a wide variety of academic subjects and topics and can help ensure your dissertation is ready for presentation. Send in a free sample of 500 words or less and get started today.

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• CAREER COLUMN
• 30 March 2020

How to defend a PhD remotely

• Alyssa Frederick 0

Alyssa Frederick is a postdoctoral scholar at the Bodega Marine Laboratory in Bodega Bay, California, part of the University of California, Davis.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

In November 2019, I conducted my PhD defence using the videoconferencing software Zoom.

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How to Defend Your Dissertation, Virtually

by Nitasha Mathayas, PhD / Apr 9, 2020

Tips on preparing, presenting, and celebrating from a new PhD.

On March 24, one day after in-person meetings and instruction at the university were halted and moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic, Nitasha Mathayas earned a new title: PhD. She delivered her dissertation defense—on students’ sensemaking using gesture-augmented simulations—via Zoom to her committee of Curriculum & Instruction faculty, her family, and friends. Over the next several weeks, many doctoral students will face the same situation. Here, Nitasha shares her experience and advice for holding a successful virtual dissertation defense.

Prepare Well in Advance

• Online meeting setup and structure: Several days before your defense is scheduled, talk to your dissertation committee chair and decide your conferencing platform and how to structure the meeting. One of my committee members, Dr. Stina Krist, hosted the Zoom video conference call and made me a co-host. She also managed the breakout session for the private discussion.
• Practice, practice, and practice some more on Zoom! (Or whatever video conferencing platform you choose to use.) Don’t just practice your talk like you normally would in person. Try giving the talk a few times to make sure you test everything out. I practiced my talk on Zoom three times with my colleagues and their feedback helped me adjust my pacing and presentation. Shout out to my Education peers for coming online multiple times on late evenings for me. You know who you are!
• Make adjustments: I like to point when presenting in person. But I could not do that remotely, so instead I added subtle animations and bolded things on my slides. While there is a laser pointer option with PowerPoint, it is better that the slides themselves highlight things you need to emphasize.
• Strong internet connection: While practicing, I figured out my home internet was not good enough to run the video call and my presentation, so I went to campus (was the only one there, social distancing was practiced), used an ethernet cable, set up a lamp, and ensured my environment looked professional.
• Professionalism matters: On that note, do everything you can to look professional. Dress formally, use a good webcam that is centered on your face (no weird angles). Use good lighting (add more lamps if needed) and have a clean background (no bright windows, distracting artwork, no pets in the background).
• Last call: Touch base with your dissertation committee a few days ahead of your scheduled defense to see if they have specific requests. For instance, one of my committee members asked me for my slides ahead of time.

Check—and Double-check—your Tech

• Connectivity: Before the defense begins, see if your committee members can hop onto the call 10 minutes early to check for issues on both ends.
• Two screens recommended: In terms of technical set up, I used my laptop and a second monitor. I presented my slides on my laptop and transferred Zoom’s control bar and attendee video to the second screen. This way there was nothing in front of my slides while I used them.
• Single screen works, too: If you use a single screen, you may have to minimize your speaker view to see your slides. If not, you might have to leave some empty space on your slides so you can put the attendee video there. A few people could not see text on my slides as their video panel obscured it.
• Test screen sharing options : Zoom has multiple options and things may get confusing if you use PowerPoint's automatic presenter mode. I set mine to use the primary screen only. I did not have access to slide notes, but I did not need them as I had practiced it well enough.
• Backup hardware: Keep a backup device (or two) ready to go in case you have technical issues. I had a backup laptop with me that I thankfully did not have to use. Yet later that evening, my dock gave out and my second screen went green. I really lucked out there. Phew!
• Record yourself: You can watch video of practice sessions to critique yourself, and you will also want to remember to record your actual defense.

Present, then Celebrate!

• Slides: I shared my final presentation file with my committee a few hours before my defense by uploading it to Box. This way they could access the slides at any speed they wanted, and I got to correct some typos without emailing them multiple versions. The upload file was the final version though, it was not a draft.
• View your committee: Ask other attendees to log off and log onto the call again after all dissertation committee members have joined, so that the committee appears on top of the speaker view.
• Explain the process: My chair described how we would structure the conversation. My presentation was about 30 minutes. He requested that my committee ask me clarification questions during the talk but to hold substantive questions for later.
• Questions: There was time for audience questions at the end from non-committee attendees. Audience members were asked to turn their video off during the talk but to turn it back on while they asked me questions. This really helped keep the committee’s videos up on top and I could see them when I needed to.
• Main room and breakout room: The main room was used for the public portion of the defense and was recorded, and then committee members moved to a breakout room that was not recorded. My family and friends waited with me in the main room while my committee discussed.
• Audience: I am glad I invited my friends to attend my oral defense. I was nervous and having them there made me much more confident when I talked. And they cheered with me when my advisor informed me that I had passed!
• Positive takeaways: There were some unexpected perks of my online defense. My friends and family from India were in attendance, which would not have happened if the talk was on campus. This way they were given the same experience as everyone else. Also, the Zoom session was recorded (a personal choice that everyone agreed to but is optional) so I now have a video of one of the most important days of my life to look back upon.
• Celebrate! Finally, plan to celebrate yourself. You did it! You made it! You deserve it! This is an important milestone, and it is unfortunate that you cannot celebrate in person. I set up a second Zoom party between 6-8 p.m. that evening and invited friends, committee, and family. We all toasted in our respective homes and people hopped on and off the call during that time. I was able to feel thankful and connected for a while. My friends and colleagues have given me so much and I was glad I could cherish that moment.

P.S. I also bought myself a Ph.Diva shirt. It’s not coming off for a few days. No one can smell it but me… phew for social distancing right now! Good luck fellow colleagues. You will all be great!

How to Defend a Dissertation

A candidate for an advanced degree must write up his research in a dissertation and then defend it orally before his committee. The dissertation defense comes after the long and laborious work of writing the dissertation and can be the source of anxiety for the student. Here are some tips to quell the anxiety and make the process run smoothly.

Know Your Material

After several years of research and several months of writing it up as a dissertation you probably know more about the topic than anyone else in the world. Review everything anyway. This has two advantages. First, half-forgotten references and lab work will be fresh in your mind, instead of buried somewhere in a few hundred pages of print. Therefore, you will be able to respond easily and promptly to questions that come up. Second, knowing that you are well prepared will give you confidence when you begin the presentation .

Narrow the focus

Your written dissertation is long, maybe 200–300 pages. The members of your committee have already read it, so there is no need to go over every detail. Stick to the main points, discuss the most important results . If the committee members want to hear more details, they will ask.

Prepare Visual Aids Carefully

Time you spend preparing visual aids will be amply rewarded in the time saved during the oral defense. The usual pattern of a dissertation defense is the same as that of any presentation— introduction, body, conclusion —or as it is often expressed, “tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.” The introduction describes the problem attacked and why it is important. The body describes the plan of attack and the results. Then follows a brief conclusion.

Defending the dissertation may seem old hat. Perhaps you have already given the essence of the defense in group or department seminars. Go through the graphs a few times anyway, speaking the words you will be saying. This will give you a sort of unconscious “muscle memory” of the tongue that will stay with you during the presentation. Even if you know what you want to say, the words might not come easily unless you rehearse .

Don’t worry too much about the defense. Your committee wants you to pass. If there were some major problem with your work, they would almost certainly have told you prior to the defense. Smile, be courteous, and don’t be afraid to interject a touch of humor now and then. I rather enjoyed my dissertation experience. Speaking to a handful of professors that I knew well, answering questions concerning the work, genially agreeing that one experiment was worth ten theories, I felt a glow of collegiality. And when after a short wait in the hallway, I was called in to shake hands with them as a newly minted Doctor of Philosophy, I actually felt like one.

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How to prepare an excellent thesis defense

What is a thesis defense?

How long is a thesis defense, what happens at a thesis defense, your presentation, questions from the committee, 6 tips to help you prepare for your thesis defense, 1. anticipate questions and prepare for them, 2. dress for success, 3. ask for help, as needed, 4. have a backup plan, 5. prepare for the possibility that you might not know an answer, 6. de-stress before, during, and after, frequently asked questions about preparing an excellent thesis defense, related articles.

If you're about to complete, or have ever completed a graduate degree, you have most likely come across the term "thesis defense." In many countries, to finish a graduate degree, you have to write a thesis .

A thesis is a large paper, or multi-chapter work, based on a topic relating to your field of study.

Once you hand in your thesis, you will be assigned a date to defend your work. Your thesis defense meeting usually consists of you and a committee of two or more professors working in your program. It may also include other people, like professionals from other colleges or those who are working in your field.

During your thesis defense, you will be asked questions about your work. The main purpose of your thesis defense is for the committee to make sure that you actually understand your field and focus area.

The questions are usually open-ended and require the student to think critically about their work. By the time of your thesis defense, your paper has already been evaluated. The questions asked are not designed so that you actually have to aggressively "defend" your work; often, your thesis defense is more of a formality required so that you can get your degree.

• Check with your department about requirements and timing.
• Re-read your thesis.
• Anticipate questions and prepare for them.
• Create a back-up plan to deal with technology hiccups.
• Plan de-stressing activities both before, and after, your defense.

How long your oral thesis defense is depends largely on the institution and requirements of your degree. It is best to consult your department or institution about this. In general, a thesis defense may take only 20 minutes, but it may also take two hours or more. The length also depends on how much time is allocated to the presentation and questioning part.

Tip: Check with your department or institution as soon as possible to determine the approved length for a thesis defense.

First of all, be aware that a thesis defense varies from country to country. This is just a general overview, but a thesis defense can take many different formats. Some are closed, others are public defenses. Some take place with two committee members, some with more examiners.

The same goes for the length of your thesis defense, as mentioned above. The most important first step for you is to clarify with your department what the structure of your thesis defense will look like. In general, your thesis defense will include:

• your presentation of around 20-30 minutes
• questions from the committee
• questions from the audience (if the defense is public and the department allows it)

You might have to give a presentation, often with Powerpoint, Google slides, or Keynote slides. Make sure to prepare an appropriate amount of slides. A general rule is to use about 10 slides for a 20-minute presentation.

But that also depends on your specific topic and the way you present. The good news is that there will be plenty of time ahead of your thesis defense to prepare your slides and practice your presentation alone and in front of friends or family.

Tip: Practice delivering your thesis presentation in front of family, friends, or colleagues.

You can prepare your slides by using information from your thesis' first chapter (the overview of your thesis) as a framework or outline. Substantive information in your thesis should correspond with your slides.

Make sure your slides are of good quality— both in terms of the integrity of the information and the appearance. If you need more help with how to prepare your presentation slides, both the ASQ Higher Education Brief and James Hayton have good guidelines on the topic.

The committee will ask questions about your work after you finish your presentation. The questions will most likely be about the core content of your thesis, such as what you learned from the study you conducted. They may also ask you to summarize certain findings and to discuss how your work will contribute to the existing body of knowledge.

Tip: Read your entire thesis in preparation of the questions, so you have a refreshed perspective on your work.

While you are preparing, you can create a list of possible questions and try to answer them. You can foresee many of the questions you will get by simply spending some time rereading your thesis.

Here are a few tips on how to prepare for your thesis defense:

You can absolutely prepare for most of the questions you will be asked. Read through your thesis and while you're reading it, create a list of possible questions. In addition, since you will know who will be on the committee, look at the academic expertise of the committee members. In what areas would they most likely be focused?

If possible, sit at other thesis defenses with these committee members to get a feel for how they ask and what they ask. As a graduate student, you should generally be adept at anticipating test questions, so use this advantage to gather as much information as possible before your thesis defense meeting.

Your thesis defense is a formal event, often the entire department or university is invited to participate. It signals a critical rite of passage for graduate students and faculty who have supported them throughout a long and challenging process.

While most universities don't have specific rules on how to dress for that event, do regard it with dignity and respect. This one might be a no-brainer, but know that you should dress as if you were on a job interview or delivering a paper at a conference.

It might help you deal with your stress before your thesis defense to entrust someone with the smaller but important responsibilities of your defense well ahead of schedule. This trusted person could be responsible for:

• preparing the room of the day of defense
• setting up equipment for the presentation
• preparing and distributing handouts

Technology is unpredictable. Life is too. There are no guarantees that your Powerpoint presentation will work at all or look the way it is supposed to on the big screen. We've all been there. Make sure to have a plan B for these situations. Handouts can help when technology fails, and an additional clean shirt can save the day if you have a spill.

One of the scariest aspects of the defense is the possibility of being asked a question you can't answer. While you can prepare for some questions, you can never know exactly what the committee will ask.

There will always be gaps in your knowledge. But your thesis defense is not about being perfect and knowing everything, it's about how you deal with challenging situations. You are not expected to know everything.

James Hayton writes on his blog that examiners will sometimes even ask questions they don't know the answer to, out of curiosity, or because they want to see how you think. While it is ok sometimes to just say "I don't know", he advises to try something like "I don't know, but I would think [...] because of x and y, but you would need to do [...] in order to find out.” This shows that you have the ability to think as an academic.

You will be nervous. But your examiners will expect you to be nervous. Being well prepared can help minimize your stress, but do know that your examiners have seen this many times before and are willing to help, by repeating questions, for example. Dora Farkas at finishyourthesis.com notes that it’s a myth that thesis committees are out to get you.

Two common symptoms of being nervous are talking really fast and nervous laughs. Try to slow yourself down and take a deep breath. Remember what feels like hours to you are just a few seconds in real life.

• Try meditational breathing right before your defense.
• Get plenty of exercise and sleep in the weeks prior to your defense.
• Have your clothes or other items you need ready to go the night before.
• During your defense, allow yourself to process each question before answering.
• Go to dinner with friends and family, or to a fun activity like mini-golf, after your defense.

Allow yourself to process each question, respond to it, and stop talking once you have responded. While a smile can often help dissolve a difficult situation, remember that nervous laughs can be irritating for your audience.

We all make mistakes and your thesis defense will not be perfect. However, careful preparation, mindfulness, and confidence can help you feel less stressful both before, and during, your defense.

Finally, consider planning something fun that you can look forward to after your defense.

It is completely normal to be nervous. Being well prepared can help minimize your stress, but do know that your examiners have seen this many times before and are willing to help, by repeating questions for example if needed. Slow yourself down, and take a deep breath.

Your thesis defense is not about being perfect and knowing everything, it's about how you deal with challenging situations. James Hayton writes on his blog that it is ok sometimes to just say "I don't know", but he advises to try something like "I don't know, but I would think [...] because of x and y, you would need to do [...] in order to find out".

Your Powerpoint presentation can get stuck or not look the way it is supposed to do on the big screen. It can happen and your supervisors know it. In general, handouts can always save the day when technology fails.

• Dress for success.
• Ask for help setting up.
• Have a backup plan (in case technology fails you).
• Deal with your nerves.

• Graduate School

How to Prepare for a Thesis Defense

You’ve spent years on your studies to acquire your advanced degree, and whether a master’s thesis or doctorate, you need to know how to prepare for a thesis defense. Treat this as more of a siege than a defense, and be prepared to outlast any foe, any siege engine, any army at your gates.

You have already built up a great thesis, with instruction from professors, and maybe even the help of a great thesis writing service , and you are finally ready for your defense. What does that phase of your academic career look like?

In this article, we will give you the tools and tips to make it through. We will start with a preparation section, focusing on various aspects of how to study and what to study, then talk about the lead-up to the big day: preparing materials and handling anxiety. We’ll also touch on what to do on the day and how a thesis defense will, or could, go. At the end of it all, you will have a clear idea of how to approach the preparation for, and the defense of, your thesis.

>> Want us to help you get accepted? Schedule a free strategy call here . <<

Article Contents 12 min read

Know your thesis.

We put this first knowing that it is the most important element of your entire presentation. The crux of your defense hinges on this. You must know your thesis, backwards and forwards. There must be nothing about it that you have forgotten. However miniscule the detail, and however insubstantial to your thesis that detail ultimately is, you must nevertheless know it.

When it comes time to question you, after presentation of your work, questions you cannot answer will strike you down. Knowledge is your shield.

Know the Big Picture: What Are You Trying to Prove?

While you will already be intimately familiar with your research, readings, and revisions of your opus, you should still allot yourself time prior to your defense in which to know crucial elements of your thesis front to back. This is your primary concern.

What are you trying to prove? This is your number one concern, and being able to state this clearly, and back up your efforts with sources and arguments, is the main point of your thesis defense.

So, start with the big picture. Know your main points and the crux of your arguments. You have one, main thrust with this thesis, and you have one, primary tentpole holding it up. No doubt you have more evidence than one primary source, but inevitably one will have more weight and potency than the others. Start there and work your way out.

Don’t memorize words to say, but memorize the web of arguments you have woven together to support your work. Your research was about X, and you have Y as a result, and now you share that and defend your assertions.

You can’t memorize the whole thesis – it will be large – but you can memorize a few, important points that support your main argument, and give credibility to your assertions. Again, you aren’t memorizing a speech to give, but you should know some of your more crucial statistics and datapoints so you can reference them easily.

Know Your Secondary Sources

It’s not just enough to know what your own thesis says, but you must be knowledgeable about its foundations. Your thesis is built on sources and materials that you have cited and referenced throughout. These deserve your attention as well.

If you are being questioned and, without a beat, you can cite chapter and verse on the proofs for your claims, this gives your own arguments depth and clarity. A successful thesis will add to the knowledge base of your field, but it must be built on the knowledge that came before. Knowing your secondary sources demonstrates your knowledge, shows how your thesis connects to that knowledge, and solidifies your arguments through the foundational assertions of prior experts.

Are you looking for grad school tips that will help you succeed in your application and once you get in? Watch this:

Sun Tzu Was Right

“Know your enemy,” wrote the philosopher and military commander Sun Tzu, “as you know yourself, and you will have victory in many battles.”

Your thesis makes a claim, adds to the body of knowledge in your field, and does so with evidence, research – not to mention panache – and is given its gravitas by the myriad of sources and proofs that you have to offer. Great, but don’t forget about those who disagree.

In most fields – certainly all the ones worth studying – anybody who makes a claim will have that claim challenged.

This is, perhaps, the most important step to preparing your defense: know why your detractors will say your thesis is wrong. If you can “steel man” – the opposite of “straw man” – their arguments, and phrase counter-arguments to your own statements – as well as anybody who holds those ideas would – then you have already, essentially, anticipated many, if not all, of the questions the examining board will put to you.

With that knowledge, you will also know to prepare defenses, explanations, and counter-arguments to each of these perceived complaints. Make sure that your counter-arguments would satisfy the majority of reasonable, educated persons in your field – if not any potential naysayers themselves.

Of course, having the main points, secondary points, data, references, detractions, and answers to those detractions all at your mind’s immediate beck and call would be wonderful; but, if you can manage to memorize all of that reliably within your head, don’t count on nothing but pure, rote learning to bring up all of this information. We recommend you keep quick reference notes to help you.

When you’re asked a question, having quick access to well-kept notes will serve you well. Notes themselves are nice, but you also need to be able to access them quickly. Any paradigm that works for you will do, but here is a sample schema for you to consider:

From a dollar store or office supply store \u2013 with reference numbers to bookmark key passages. These reference numbers will correspond to your table of contents. "}]">

Again, use any rubric you want, but pick a system and make sure it works for you. How do you know it works? By testing it.

A Baptism of Fire, and How to Avoid It

That term - “baptism of fire” – refers to being trained via a quick shove onto a battlefield. You might also think of mother and father bird shoving their younglings out of the nest, peeping encouragement at them to fly.

Don’t let this happen to you. Check your wings first.

Mock interviews are extremely useful for interview preparation. Arrange a mock thesis defense. Get professionals who know what they are doing to grill you on your thesis. A professional mock panel will simulate the time, let you run through your presentation, and put you through your paces by asking insightful, challenging questions; they might even ask questions you didn’t anticipate – in which case, lucky for you it was caught beforehand.

Or, not so lucky. Lucky is what happens to a soldier in a baptism of fire, but you’re not doing that. You’re preparing, training, and refining your methods to be bulletproof before anybody fires upon you at all.

A mock defense will simulate the real thing as close as possible, likely even giving you a taste of the nerves and letting you learn how to cope with anxiety. Plus, you can test your filing system for quick recall.

Before the Day - What to Get Ready

The most crucial elements to get ready are anything that you will directly need. That is to say that you should have access to your presentation itself, as well as your notes, and anything else that you’ll require for the defense. Everything else is secondary, and while it’s not a great idea to show up without combing your hair, at least you can still mount a defense with bedhead; you can’t defend your thesis without your critical notes.

With that said, definitely comb your hair. Presenting your thesis is about presenting yourself, as well, so put on some professional-casual clothes so you are comfortable and presentable.

Bring along anything else you need to be comfortable in the room, such as a water bottle or pencils and a notepad – anything you might want to help you succeed.

The exception: don’t overload so much that you are carrying multiple bags around with you.

Want to learn how to prepare for thesis defense questions? Check this infographic:

On the Day - Mental and Anxiety Control

The very nature of the activity of thesis defense means that you will be spending your presentation and your day on the defensive. This is, inherently, a stressful position to take, but a strong aggravating factor is the stakes of the event. This is a momentous occasion. You are at the proverbial moment of truth where you will either advance to the next, major phase of your career, or you will be forced to reconcile yourself to returning and revising – another revision and exploration and another defense.

Naturally, it follows that stress management is going to be one of the most important aspects of your day.

Prevention is the Best Cure

Give yourself an on-the-day boost by planning your studying and preparation well in advance. This will enable you to take a break before the actual day. If the day before your thesis defense can be one spent in contemplation, meditation, or relaxation, you’ll have a much better mental state for the defense itself.

Also of utmost importance: sleep. Maintaining a decent sleep schedule can be nigh-impossible, let alone sporadically getting in the actual recommended hours of sleep that your doctor really wants you to get. Nevertheless, make an extra effort to get a lot of rest, ideally within a sleep schedule, so that you are bright-eyed come defense time.

Long-term Stress Management

The rise of app culture is seen by some as the fall of civilization – particularly those spiritual or personal aspects of life. Tech is really just a tool, however, and finding a good meditation app can give you the right tech-based buddy system to keep you in good mental health. Meditation can be a great stress-management technique, and trying out some basic techniques will help you to stay alert, focused, and calm on your big day.

Physical Health IS Mental Health

How are you eating? Do you get out to exercise?

These are things that can easily fall by the wayside while pursuing higher academics. There is a reason that there is a cliched stereotype of undernourished, sleepless academics: it’s hard to absorb, retain, and study knowledge at this demanding level while maintaining a good balance with the more physical aspects of your life. Nonetheless, good physical health is strongly linked with good mental health, and you should pursue both.

Remember Step One...

Preventing panic is often a case of focus being unable to override insecurity. You’ve already taken care of your knowledge base: know your thesis. With that, you can keep insecurity at bay. Now for focus. What is the first thing you have to do when you get in the room? You’ll have some opening remarks, but even before that, you’ll likely want to quickly introduce yourself and welcome and thank your thesis screening panel. Forget everything else. Stop worrying about it, because you just have to do that first thing.

Concentrate on the Next Thing

After that, keeping yourself from getting distracted by insecurity is a question of focusing on whatever you must do next. You’ve made it through your introduction: great. What’s next? Since you’ve composed a careful set of notes, and carefully arranged those notes on your desk, table, or podium – or computing device – you can glance down and look to “point two” to carry you forward. Focus on doing your best job on that point. Once it’s over, focus on point three. Keep on in this way, and you have exorcised the twin demons of distraction and insecurity.

Fix Mistakes with No Fanfare

What if you misspeak? Just go back over it and fix the error quickly. “I’m sorry, I meant to say that 33% of the population favors blue above other colors, not 30 %. ”

Once you’ve fixed the error, move on. Dwelling on it does nothing at best, and exacerbates your problems at worst.

What if your PowerPoint presentation gums up? What if your computer freezes? What if the projector won’t project?

Remember that everybody in the room deals with glitches and tech errors, just like you, and do your best.

Don’t hide it – it's not hidden – but just briefly acknowledge the problem, “It seems the computer has frozen. Pardon me,” and see if you can fix it. If you can’t, rely on your notes to keep going. If you have infographics or charts and data that you wanted to highlight, offer to show those elements to the thesis screening panel, or to describe the data they need.

You’re being judged based on your logic, reasoning, rationales, recommendations, findings, data, and the effectiveness of your thesis. Nobody’s going to dock points from your presentation if there was a power failure.

Plus, if you’ve followed our advice thus far, you have redundant note systems with you, and you’ll be fine.

How to Stay Calm, Generally

Keep your breath under control. This ties in with meditation, to some extent, but controlled breath will keep your heart-rate down and your anxiety levels far more controlled than they would otherwise be. That is not to say that you won’t feel any anxiety, per se, just that – statistically speaking – you are far more likely to have far less anxiety.

Many people like to imagine a humorous image, particularly of their audience, to calm themselves down. This might work for you, but what this technique is getting at is a way to take your mind off of your anxieties and force it to focus on something else.

To do this, you needn’t go to the cliché of imagining anybody in underwear. Rather, just have a calming image or idea in your head that you can focus on. Pick something that makes you calm, or brings out a smile, and something that you can concentrate on to stop any panic moments and take away the snowball effect that happens whenever you dwell on something negative or that makes you anxious.

A Final Tip on Courtesy

Remember to be courteous, gracious, and polite. It really helps if you remember the names of the people on your thesis panel, so write those down if you have to.

What Does a Thesis Defense Look Like?

A thesis defense consists of a short presentation – about twenty or thirty minutes – on your thesis, followed by a discussion. That discussion is the actual defense of your thesis, as the thesis panel will be asking you questions and challenging you on your research, your conclusions, and your ideas.

The questioning period might take another twenty minutes or an hour, or even longer. There is no guaranteed time duration, so be prepared for a lengthy discussion and debate after your presentation.

Standard format would probably include the use of a PowerPoint-type accompaniment to your summation of your thesis. It is recommended that you provide more than just a lecture. If you want your panel to have anything like infographics, charts, or statistics, you need to provide it, either as part of a visual slideshow presentation, handout sheets, or both.

Common Types of Questions and How to Respond

Knowing what kind of thesis defense questions can come your way will be very advantageous for you because it will help you understand the kinds of answers you need to give.

Probing Questions

These feel your argument out a bit, just to test and see if you know your stuff, or if you’ve just memorized a very specific subset of data. These will seem almost unbearably easy if you have studied extensively while researching your thesis. If you haven’t, they will be painfully difficult. If you cannot answer these basic questions, you will seem as though you have crafted a thesis with blinders on, and it is unlikely you will survive further, deeper rounds of questioning.

Data Clarification

Maybe a chart didn’t go deep enough. Maybe somebody is curious if that statistic you gave was per capita or not. These clarification questions will just seek to clear up any misconceptions or blind spots in your presentation. This is why it’s important to know both your material and the secondary sources and citations you have made. If you understand all of this information thoroughly, you’ll be able to go deeper than any one chart and explain everything. This is also why it’s necessary to keep quick reference cards and tables of contents. If you blank on that per capita question, your index card won’t.

Opposing Viewpoint and Supporting Data

These questions will seek to challenge your ideas and stress your thesis by digging deep. They will present opposing views and find out whether or not you have considered alternate points of view. These are the most crucial questions to have excellent answers to, because these are the questions that directly challenge your work and are what you are “defending” your thesis from. We have already warned you to know your “enemy” as you know yourself. We stress this again here: have top-grade answers to cutting questions, or fail in your attempt.

Arm yourself with knowledge of your own thesis and an anticipation of what your detractors might, or do, say, and then practice, practice, practice.

At the end of a long period of vigorous study, get some rest, keep calm, and fire up a meditation app – or go for a walk.

In short: follow our advice, your common sense, and trust to your knowledge base and the research and readings you’ve done over the past years, and you’ll have a solid thesis defense.

Ideally you will dedicate several weeks to thesis preparation. Start about three to five weeks ahead of the defense and put aside some time every day to work on some aspect of your defense.

There isn’t really such a thing as too much prep. You could take too many notes and wind up with a very large, unwieldy reference binder, but even that is mitigated by your “table of contents.”

Err on the side of “too much” rather than “not enough.”

They’re probably just testing your knowledge of the material versus whether or not you just memorized a speech. Treat this as a probing question and answer in reference to your work. If this is an accident, don’t draw attention to it, and don’t get exasperated.

Say it’s outside of your field or area of study, but explain why you didn’t go there. So, if they ask about something peripheral, acknowledge that this isn’t part of what you’ve learned, why you are aware of it, and why you didn’t pursue further research into that area. Above all else, don’t fake knowledge you don’t have.

Numbers may vary, but three to five is fairly typical.

If you need a short break, to use the restroom, for instance, you can ask for one.

Have talking points and a firm knowledge of your facts and ideas, but don’t memorize set speeches. You can come off sounding robotic and impersonal. Worse, if you are asked a question and you find yourself getting lost, you might not remember details of your speech without the “ramp up” into any given part. Better to know the data, rather than the exact words.

In the event that you are not awarded your master or doctorate, you will most likely be given the chance to revise your thesis and try again. The committee will give you feedback, and you will revise accordingly.

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How to Defend a Dissertation Virtually

Hosted by priya parker, produced by magnificent noise, isolation paves the way for community..

I just sat there. I was really shocked.

I knew not to run up and get her a hug even though I wanted to really bad.

This is a story about Mrs. Ricca, a teacher in Panama City, Florida, and her first-grade student, Hannah. Mrs. Ricca has been a teacher for the past seven years, and she loves her job. Since her school switched to remote learning a couple of weeks ago, she’s been holding story time on Zoom every evening for her students. One night last week, she noticed that Hannah looked really sad.

I messaged her mom. I said, hey, can I come over? I promise I’ll sit in the driveway. I’ll stay six feet away from her. We’ll still honor our social distancing guidelines.

She came and sat down with me. We both sat on the driveway, and we read books.

We sat, and just talked and caught up. And asked her what she was feeling, what was going on. At first she told me that she was feeling happy, but then I told her how I was feeling. And then she disclosed that she was feeling a little sad and that it’s hard when you don’t get to see your friends every day and you’re stuck in the house. These kids have really been through a lot because last school year, this same group of kids had Hurricane Michael. There was a category 5 hurricane that hit our town, and we were out of school for a month then. However, we had no power. There was no way to see anybody. We didn’t have internet, so we couldn’t do these kinds of things. So it’s been kind of like a reminder of that all over again, that, you know, we still can’t go see our friends. And it’s really hard on them.

In partnership with The New York Times, this is “Together Apart.” I’m Priya Parker. When it comes to gatherings, teachers are the OG gatherers. These are people who, every day, are in charge of bringing together an entire group of students. They have to figure out, day in and day out, how they’re going to start the class, how they keep a certain amount of discipline so that the students can learn but enough openness to let them grow. They have to figure out not only their relationships to each student and to the class as a whole, but also the interactions among the kids. And this is just the daily gathering of the classroom, but there are also dozens of interstitial gatherings that also do a lot of work to bind a community. Many teachers are also coaches of a class club or volunteer at football games or the prom or graduation. What do you do at a time like this when you’re forced to limit the number of things we can actually do collectively? Which gatherings are essential this year, and what might it look like not just to salvage them, but to transform them based on what is true right now? This week, in turning to school gatherings, I spoke with teachers around the country and heard questions like

How do I create this space of connection with students as a teacher before the end of the year? How do you reach those select few students that have just kind of turned off during this time? There is not really a protocol on how you will now switch to do things digitally, right? And how do you support a 10-year-old whose dad died?

Now that we have the situation in which technology is needed, computers are needed, how to engage students who have not yet had the opportunity to share with us?

The last voice you heard is a teacher named Tanisha. She teaches sixth-grade writing in New Haven, Conn.

I come from a pretty big family. I have six brothers and five sisters. I’ve always had some sort of a passion for working with kids. I just believe that when you educate yourself from within, that there is deep power there for you to live out your dreams and to change the world. And then I also have to believe that our better days are ahead of us. And so, like, when I think about teaching the youth of this country, there’s something special about seeing them realize their true vision for what our world can be.

Whenever I do a coaching call, I first spend a few minutes getting to know the person and trying to figure out what makes them tick. And I do this in part to figure out what then might motivate her as a host. What is her purpose? Every gathering and if we think of the classroom as a gathering starts with one simple question. What is the purpose of this gathering? Now, you may be thinking, a classroom is a gathering? I define a gathering as any time three or more people come together for a purpose with a beginning, middle and end. It’s an event. And so in that way, every classroom experience every day is a gathering that you can shape. And in this case, I’m asking a teacher, Tanisha, what her purpose as a teacher is why does she do this in the first place? so that we can use that insight to identify the gatherings that she should uniquely be hosting in her way.

And pre-COVID-19, you’re in your classroom. You have these students in your charge for the academic year. What is it that you most want them to learn or to be able to do because they interacted with you?

Getting kids to be invested in the concept that we are all writers. We can use our writing to change the world. We can use our writing to express our feelings. We can use our writings to convey ideas. And so that’s the biggest boiled down point of what my class was all about.

Tell me a little bit about now, what it’s like to how are you teaching? Paint a picture for me now, if I was in your digital classroom, what it’s like.

It was very comfortable in the brick-and-mortar school system. And so if you come in now, you’ll see elements of some of the same things that I was trying to do where I’m trying to preserve time. And we have an hourlong meeting class for students to write. But it is not we don’t have the same engagement in terms of my ability to quickly pop in and check in on students’ work throughout a given class. It is more of me I’ll give an assignment. So last week, we wrote “This I Believe” essays just as a way to re-engage students. And so it looked like me having a small group of students come to me at a pre-assigned time, and talking through, and looking at their writing via Google Classroom.

Let me pause for a second. I have a couple of ideas for you. But do you have a specific question that I can help you with within all of this?

I’m still trying to figure out a lot of our units are built around so we’re in enslavement in the Americas, and at the end of this unit, we would have some type of a Juneteenth celebration where kids would share their writing, and it was, like, a huge thing. We had a band play last year. It was like a community event. And so how can we still build community? That’s one question I have. I have a couple of questions.

At the mention of Juneteenth, my little gathering heart began to pitter patter. Despite the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, enslaved people in many parts of the States did not see their freedom for years after. Juneteenth is a gathering that commemorates the day Union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas, letting the last enslaved people know that they were free on June 19, 1865. While this date is not recognized as a national holiday today, 46 out of the 50 states still celebrate it. And I asked Tanisha to describe what Juneteenth is in her words, and she explains that this is something she’s carried with her since college.

In college, it’s presented as, like, this is the true, what should be the 4th of July. This is the true freedom of everyone, the moment in which the last enslaved person was essentially “freed.” And an understanding of the deep legacy that black Americans have played in this cultural fabric of America. The second question that I have is around I feel like this situation has exacerbated the inequity in our society. And prior to Covid-19, we did have some attendance issues at school. We were always trying different strategies to make sure that our students were coming to school and that our school-wide, our goal was, like, 96 percent. And so and we hit that we were under our goal for the year before this hit. And so now that we have this situation in which technology is needed, computers are needed, potentially a quiet space at home is needed you might be taking care of siblings, or you might have some household responsibilities how to engage students who have not yet had the opportunity to share with us? I have a number of my students who I haven’t been able to connect with. And I can share what I’ve done, but how to engage students in the midst of what we’re all experiencing?

Absolutely. I mean, they’re such sharp questions that are very wise and relevant to, I think, probably many teachers around the country. So first, with the Juneteenth celebration, you know, one of the things I actually think particularly if it was a if it has always been something people look forward to, something that, for you as a writing teacher, was almost like a carrot to get students to be excited, to sharpen their writing to a point where they know that they’re going to read their writing in front of the community, I actually think that I would still host it. And I would think about how do you digitally host it, and we can talk about that. But I actually think that in a sense, that if people feel excited and feel like there’s still an opportunity to present their writing in a meaningful way for the Juneteenth, that might also help with attendance. Right? So all I mean, when you’re in well, I shouldn’t say real life. This is all real life. When you’re in person together, all of these community gatherings become meaningful, and things we look forward to, and almost goals, whether they’re academic or whether they’re social, you know? You’re training for a marathon, or you’re getting ready to read in front of your peers, right? These are all motivators that help you go against the part of us that is resisting that.

I realized that these two questions Juneteenth and attendance might actually have a relationship to each other. In other moments on this podcast, particularly when we were looking at baby showers, I talked about gatherings having legs, meaning because of what happened at the gathering, people leave differently. They walk out differently than when they arrived because of something that happened during the gathering. But gatherings are powerful in another way too, which is that a future event can change behavior before it. There’s a wedding coming up. The groom starts cycling again to get into that suit. The first home game is this Friday. Players bring a different enthusiasm to practice. You see, gatherings aren’t just powerful for what they change after, but also what they can change before. The anticipation of a gathering can be transformative. In a moment, Tanisha and I find a way to transform the Juneteenth celebration into something new. This is “Together Apart.” I’m Priya Parker.

Tell me let’s spend just a few minutes on this Juneteenth celebration. So tell me what usually happens.

So there’s two different prompts that they can or projects that they can present or write about. The first one is imagining that they are running for office. And I usually say president. And they would have to argue whether or not black Americans should receive reparations and use evidence and facts to support however they feel. And then the second one that they used to work in groups around was just, like, that a lot of people don’t understand that enslaved Africans actually there was a large body of work that reports that they resisted against the institution of slavery. And so then they would create a writing piece or a writing project to better help teachers and students understand how enslaved Africans resisted slavery in everyday ways. And then we invite our parents and guardians and families to come in. I save at the beginning of the year, each teacher gets, like, $150 to be able to purchase school supplies. And I don’t use mine. I use that money to purchase food for this event. So it’s a big community celebration where kids are giving speeches. They’re presenting projects. Families are there celebrating. And last year, we had the band perform.

What she’s describing here they get their posters ready, they double check their facts, activities that they need to do to become stronger writers are motivated by the idea that there are some stakes to actually doing this, which is presenting to their communities. Gatherings matter when there are some stakes involved. And in this case, it’s the stakes of pride, of the vulnerability of reading your own work to people you care about and doing well in front of your community. Tanisha sent us a couple of moments from last year’s Juneteenth celebration.

This school has taught me a lot in my seven years of being here. And the one I will cherish the most most is no matter what you face in life, you have two options A, to continue to persevere and show that you are more than your mistake, or B, to quit.

So then I try and get her to name what the power of the event is.

And at the end of the celebration when it works really well from year to year, what do you think people leave feeling or thinking?

Oh, my goodness. I feel like after last year, people left feeling and thinking we need to take this school-wide. And so that was going to be my charge this year was, like, how to give this into the school. There’s a deep sense of pride because a lot of the experiences that students are sharing in this Enslavement and Resistance in America unit, our students reflect this history. And so there’s a deep sense of pride not only in the history of who we are as people, but also in the accomplishments and the work. And so if you’re thinking about the course of a year, students come into the classroom writing at any given level, and then you learn a couple of things. And so this is kind of like I wouldn’t say it’s a peak, but it’s a really, it’s a big moment in which students are sharing not only what they’ve learned in the unit, but how much they’ve grown as writers. But it’s a deep sense of pride that students have and a deep sense of, like, wow, that feels good. Look at what I did. And I’m even smiling right now because I’m seeing the pictures that I’ve posted online previously about this event, and it’s, it’s I don’t know how to feel. It’s like the energy is palpable.

This Juneteenth gathering isn’t just a beautiful experience. It’s doing a lot of work for the community, for the students and for this teacher. She says students are sharing not only what they’ve learned in the unit, but how much they’ve grown as writers. For this teacher, this is the gathering that’s essential. More than prom, more than volunteering at the end-of-the-year picnic, for Tanisha, Juneteenth is the gathering that is the embodiment and the proof of her purpose as a teacher. Like, did this work? Did what I set out to do to build the confidence in my students to express themselves through the written word work? And because it serves that purpose, this is absolutely the gathering she should be focusing on this year. And it got me thinking about this larger question. If you’re an educator, how do you decide which gatherings are essential? To know what is essential, we have to understand what the role of the gathering actually plays in the community, what it does for a community. And I’m working at two levels here with Tanisha. And similarly, if you’re thinking about gatherings in your community, the first level is just to ask what is essential, to really think about what is the role of this gathering in our community. What has it done for us in the past? And this year, when it’s really complicated to gather, what can go by the wayside, and what is truly essential? And it may not be the gatherings that you assume. And then, and only then, to begin thinking about how to make it transformative in a way that’s unique to this moment.

So I have a couple of ideas for you, and particularly for this Juneteenth celebration, and then we can go to your other questions. You know, I think one of the things that is that’s unique about this time is that there are absolutely many, many ways in which our gatherings, our in-person gatherings are suffering because we can’t actually be together. And then there are certain ways in which gathering digitally or virtually open up certain options that were never thought of before. And I’ll give an example. I actually want to read something to you. There’s a poet named Clint Smith.

Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of Clint Smith before.

And he recently got his PhD, his doctorate. And he posted on Instagram a couple days ago. So the picture is basically his grandfather watching Clint Smith conduct his dissertation defense. And he wrote this. “A photo for my dissertation defense that I keep revisiting is this one of my grandfather watching back home in New Orleans. Born in Monticello, Mississippi in 1930, almost 90 years old, grew up in town where people were lynched, where the Klan rode by his family’s house at night and told the black folks in the neighborhood to stay away from certain parts of town. Through it all, he managed to get his PhD from Howard University in 1965. Only recently, as I’ve interviewed him for another project, have I gotten a sense of all that he overcame in order to make a new life possible for our family. The same is true for my grandmother. I felt so lucky to have them there with me to be able to celebrate this moment that they made possible. My maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather have passed, but I felt them there with me too. None of this would have been possible without them.” And then there’s this image of this elderly African-American man with a blue plastic cup set on a napkin on a tablecloth watching his grandson defend his dissertation that pre-Covid, you know, wouldn’t have occurred to them to put a video into the dissertation, right?

And I wonder if because and part of what technology allows, I wonder if you could experiment this year where you still host Juneteenth, you figure out how and who’s going to read what, and you help your students get to the point where they feel ready to read. And maybe you invite not the entire school, but maybe you invite the entire community or sixth grade classes in six other schools to join and bear witness.

Hm. I love it.

And you know, it’s one thing to try to salvage, to kind of water down this really beautiful, clearly powerful gathering and just say, OK, well, it’s still going to be us, but we’re all going to be alone watching each other in our rooms, but to pivot a little bit and say, what would it look like if we invited 10,000 people, from our grandparents and our aunts and our cousins and our siblings in other towns and cities, and all of the teachers and all of the classes to watch, and to invite them to invite their teachers and other schools to watch? And what if this year, Juneteenth happened online with your students? And you’d have to figure out, like, some of the coordination and who’s going to read what, and I would say still music. But perhaps it’s a completely different audience, and you expand in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise have thought to expand.

Yes. There is something there that I really that excites me. Because, I mean, Juneteenth is the message and the pride that can definitely be spread virtually.

I mentioned salvaging to Tanisha. I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot. What is the goal of a virtual gathering? Are we trying to make the best out of a bad situation, or are we trying to create new situations?

You know, maybe you announce it publicly. But I think part of with the students, to keep it focused also on their writing and the confidence of writers, is to maybe to have each student invite 10 guests that aren’t in the school.

Or that wouldn’t normally be there, right? So that all of the community is actually an extension of your students, and then you become sort of the MC of sorts and connect this very unusual Juneteenth to the moment that we are actually in rather than pretending we’re not all suffering a global pandemic, to say here we are, and here we are still celebrating freedom.

Oh, I love that. I’m kind of at a loss for words because I’m so excited right now. But I guess my first thought is, like, OK, which schools would I invite? Who would I invite? And you know, how would I message this to kids? And this is a unique opportunity to be able to invite in even siblings who even if you go to our school, you haven’t been able to participate if you weren’t in sixth grade. And so just thinking about all of the different layers of people, or for parents who might have been working parents who weren’t able to come, how they can come in and then invite their friends, and so how to truly turn this into a community event and so generate that pride that students have around the work that they complete. When you said “so celebrating freedom,” that seems like it would be a theme that truly resonates with where we are because it’s kind of the irony there that we’re all in different places, and it can feel a little congested and tight, but understanding what freedom is and the cost and the price, at times, of freedom is that line, I might be taking it as this year’s theme.

Take it. And I think one of the ways to create gatherings right now in this time is to not try to do middle-of-the-road gatherings where you kind of invite everybody to everything, but you go small, and you go big. So what I mean by that is, like, I think this is actually an opportunity, perhaps, to have each student share their writing with their community before they join this massive celebration.

So I’m thinking here again in the vein of creating new situations. This is true for all types of gatherings right now. And my thinking here is to not stay in the middle. Go big and go small. This is what megachurches do, for example. There’s a large, perhaps 10,000-person service. But the larger the church grows and the more awe-inspiring that collective experience becomes, the more necessary it is to have something many churches call small groups, a group of six or so people you meet with every week to ground the experience and make people feel like they’re not only part of a crowd. The collective shouldn’t be at the cost of the small, and the small shouldn’t be at the cost of the collective. And so I mapped out for her how she might do this. And as I do that, here are the questions I’m thinking about in my head. What is going to be the right experience to warm people up? How do you meaningfully connect each student to their own community before they connect to the larger? How do we make this both small and big?

So maybe you even invite the first 20 minutes before people log in at 3:00 PM or whatever time it is, you invite each student to invite 10 people from their community and do a small gathering offline, like over the phone or on FaceTime or on whatever technology they have access to, or through a phone tree everyone adds a caller— where they just read what they wrote to their people for 20 minutes. And then they enter into this collective mass gathering that you coordinate. But I think you could really embed the community, and coming back to this core goal for you, which is to give your students the confidence to express themselves as writers. And to be able to express oneself as a writer to the people who know you is a deeply vulnerable act, right? It’s actually one thing to express it to strangers. It’s another to express it to, like, your cousins and worry that they’re not going to laugh at you, right?

This is where the stakes come in because we’re all part of the individual’s rise.

I actually think that Juneteenth celebration could actually perhaps increase attendance, right? Because it ties the students to something that they care about and feel a little pressure around.

For you, I would first just get really clear on what is your primary purpose. If you can’t do everything, what is the need you most want to take care of right now?

It is always my bottom line is to build the confidence of writers. That is it. And so when I talk about attendance, it’s because it’s in service of this desire for kids to be able to use writing to emote and to share their thinking and explore who they are. And so my bottom line is around this community and this culture of writing that we’ve been developing throughout the year. My first next step is to really think about invitations and who we can invite. And I’m sure that our school leaders will be on board with this 100%.

After the conversation, I found myself thinking more about Clint Smith’s Instagram post, and I decided to call him up and ask him about that dissertation experience.

Hey. Thank you for hopping on with us. And thank your wife, please.

OK. I shall. I shall, sure.

Well, first, congratulations. I discovered you were a doctor through Instagram, that town hall bulletin board.

Yeah. Thank you so much. It was a really, really remarkable day, and I’m kind of still floating from it. It’s a thing where I for so long, I had imagined that my dissertation defense would look a certain way. And I think I was feeling a lot of disappointment and despair from this moment that had kept me going for so long no longer being possible because of physical distancing. But it ended up being better than I could have ever imagined because I got to share the moment with so many people from every part of my life.

So first of all, what is your what’s the title of your dissertation?

So the title of my dissertation is “What If They Open That Door One Day: What Education Means to People Sentenced to Juvenile Life Without Parole.” So it’s the exploration of people in and around greater Philadelphia who were sentenced to life without parole as children, and trying to get a sense of how they what education means when you are told you are going to spend the rest of your life in a cage, specifically when you’re told you’re going to spend the rest of your life in a cage when you are a teenager.

One element of that’s so powerful even to have so many people watch you defend your thesis, defend your dissertation they watched the, they watched the ideas portion, right? We usually get to watch the celebration, but not the ideas part. How many people were on your Zoom call?

So to actually have 175 people listen to these ideas and defend the core of your thesis as not just a way of being proud of you, but of having 175 people listen to the rigor, pay attention to these ideas through the vessel of their love for you it’s already cracking outside the bounds of academia.

You know, to have 45 minutes where I could sort of lay out both the impetus and the vision and the analysis of the thing that I’ve been spending so much time on, I think it gave a level of clarity to my friends and family. They’re like, OK, now I know what he’s been doing all these years. I also

Why he was canceling Sunday brunch. [LAUGHS]

Right. [LAUGHS]

^ Walk me through the experience of entering that Zoom room. What actually happened in the gathering?

Yeah. So during the gathering so I was presenting my work, and I could only see the three committee members. And then at the end, my committee said, everyone can turn on their cameras. And so everybody began turning on their cameras, and it was, like, small light bulbs popping up across the screen. And I saw people who knew me since I was in diapers. I saw people who shaped what my graduate school experience was like. I saw people who just from every corner and pocket of my life speckled across the screen. And it was this really powerful, remarkable moment. And then my kids came in the room. My wife came in the room. They made a sign that said, “Congrats, Dr. Dad,” which now hangs above my, above the windows in my office. And it was just, it was a special moment.

After they came in and said, you are now officially Dr. Smith, everyone clapped, and my parents cried. My grandfather was there, my grandmother was there, my cousins and my friends. And it was a really special thing. And then everybody kind of stayed for another hour and a half. And then just one by one, everybody went around and just said how proud they were of me. And I feel so lucky. And I have it recorded. Harvard recorded the entire thing. And so I’m so fortunate to have this sort of time capsule that I can always go back to.

I’m so proud of you. Congratulations, Clint. Wonderful.

In years past, have other dissertation defenses been live streamed?

I think this is the first time that it’s ever been live streamed in a systematized, university-sanctioned way. I mean, I think people in the past have had their grandparents on speakerphone. But to this extent and this sort of systematized way that was facilitated by the university, I believe this is the first time. My sense is that there’s no going back from this because they found how special it is for people from all parts of these folks’ lives to have the opportunity to tune in. I think this moment that we’re experiencing has pushed us to think about why certain things, both on a micro and macro level, weren’t offered beforehand. And it’s hard to imagine going back to a scenario in which people say, OK, well, now your grandparents aren’t going to be able to tune in because it can only be the people in the room. I mean, that would seem absurd.

And actually ask this larger question of, well, who should be there?

Absolutely. And I think, you know, part of it is fracturing and breaking down the antiquated notions of what university life and the sort of ceremony of university is supposed to be like and who should and should not have access to it, which speaks to a broader point that you were making about who and who should not have access to the sort of larger set of knowledge that exists in academia. It pushes us to reconsider what access is and what access looks like, I think.

Who gets to participate in a gathering? Who deserves to attend? Who gets to bear witness, and who is worthy of the information or wisdom or knowledge in a gathering? We are in a moment where, out of necessity, live streaming dissertations are not the only place where we’re stepping into unprecedented territory of who can participate in a gathering. The Supreme Court is now meeting virtually, and for the first time, live streaming their hearings to the public. And it raises fundamental questions, like who is this for? Who should be hearing this? What does it mean to open up a closed-door gathering to anyone? Does it change the nature of the gathering? With all of these gatherings being canceled like prom and graduation around the country, I think this could actually be a very interesting moment to see what it might look like to have a national, countrywide graduation ceremony for our seniors this year. Could we, in our own way, go big and go small, create a new situation this year for students and their families, and frankly, for the rest of us? A few weeks ago, a student, @lincolnjackd, went viral with a tweet in which he requested Barack Obama to consider giving a national commencement speech to the class of 2020. Might there be a national commencement speaker this year, whether Barack Obama or someone else, that is the speaker for every school across the country in these strange times? Might we all gather with our loved ones virtually at home, invite our family members and friends and neighbors to a smaller virtual graduation ceremony, and then all collectively Zoom in to an unprecedented collective moment to honor our seniors, together apart? This might be a totally wild experiment, but if we as a country could pull something like this off, who would you nominate to be this year’s commencement speaker? You can share your thoughts on Twitter with the hashtag #TogetherApartPodcast and the hashtag #NationalCommencementSpeaker to build on a conversation that has already been started there. You think about that. But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a poem Clint wrote. It’s called “Counting Dissent,” and he’s offered it this year for Tanisha’s Juneteenth.

And this is a poem entitled “Counting Dissent.” My grandfather is a quarter century older than his right to vote and two decades younger than the president who signed the paper that made it so. He married my grandmother when they were four years younger than I am now and were twice as sure about each other as I’ve ever been about most things. They had six children separated by nine years, three cities, and one Mason-Dixon line. There were twice as many boys as girls, but half as many bedrooms as children, which most days didn’t matter because poor ain’t poor unless you name it so. And kids prefer playing to counting, so there was never much time to wallow in anything but laughter. My mother was the third oldest or the fourth youngest, depending on who you ask. She was born on a federal holiday, which my grandmother was thankful for, said the good lord only got one day off when he built the world, so one day is all she needed too. Mom says Pops was persistent, wouldn’t give up when he asked if he could take her down the street to get some coffee, which back then cost $2 less than it does now. Now Mom has stopped drinking coffee, but she still loves Pops. They’ve been married for 31 years and have three kids who are six years and 1,517 miles apart. My birth took 12 hours and 43 minutes, which is probably because my head was five times too big. Mom said my head was big because I needed enough room to read all the books in the library, which seemed like infinity even though I didn’t really know what infinity meant. But I heard my teacher say it once when she talked about the universe, and books felt like the universe to me. I was pretty good at math too until about fifth grade when they started putting numbers and letters together which didn’t make much sense. My brother is 17 months younger than me but is taller and knows more about numbers, so it doesn’t always feel like this is true. My sister is 24 years of loyal and eight years of best friend. I am the oldest of three, but maybe the most naive. I still believe that we can build this world into something new, someplace where I can live past 25 and it’s not a cause for celebration. Because these days, I celebrate every breath. I tried to start counting them so I wouldn’t take each one for granted. I wish I could give my breath to the boys who’ve had theirs taken, but I stop counting because it feels like there are too many boys and not enough breath to go around.

You can gather digitally with Priya every week, where she will share practical and creative advice for these unprecedented times. To RSVP, go to timesevents.nytimes.com And if you have a professional meeting or work-related gathering that you would like some help rethinking, tell us about it at priyaparker.com/podcast. “Together Apart” is produced by Jessie Baker and Eric Nuzum at Magnificent Noise in partnership with The New York Times. Our production staff includes Hiwote Getaneh, Destry Sibley and Noor Wazwaz. The executive producers of “Together Apart” are Priya Parker and Jesse Baker. And this show would not be possible without Choire Sicha, Joanna Nikas, Anya Strzemien, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin and Sam Dolnick.

Clint Smith, a writer, teacher and poet, dreamed for more than six years of the moment he would defend his dissertation. But instead of standing in front of his three committee members at Harvard University, Dr. Smith obtained his doctorate from his kitchen table in Maryland over Zoom. And he did it with 175 friends and family listening in virtually, joining from all over the world.

One of those people was Dr. Smith’s 89-year-old grandfather, who was watching from his home in New Orleans. His grandfather was born in Monticello, Miss. in 1930, during a time when there were lynchings of black people and “the Klan rode by his family’s house at night and told the black folks in the neighborhood to stay away from certain parts of town,” said Dr. Smith. His grandfather got his own Ph.D. from Howard University in 1965.

“It’s hard to find silver linings amid everything going on right now, but one thing that’s true is that my grandfather wouldn’t have been able to watch my defense if it had been held in person. But because it was held over Zoom, he got to be a part of this moment,” wrote Dr. Smith on Twitter. “I’m grateful for that.”

I keep revisiting this photo of grandfather watching my dissertation defense. Born in 1930 Mississippi, in a town where ppl were lynched, where the Klan terrorized the community, where there was no protection for Black folks. My life is only possible because of all he overcame. pic.twitter.com/HGFcvFqxGz — Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) April 26, 2020

For 45 minutes, three committee members listened to Dr. Smith defend his thesis, which focused on people who were sentenced to life without parole as teenagers and what education meant to them when their options are severely limited. As he completed his final sentence his community was invited to turn their cameras on: “It was like small light bulbs popping up across the screen.”

In this pandemic, Dr. Smith, like countless other students around the world, is experiencing a new form of gathering. And while certain elements were conspicuously absent during the defending of the dissertation — no celebratory hugs and clinking of champagne glasses, for instance — a new ritual was invented: watching the defense be given in real-time.

Dr. Smith, who won the National Poetry Slam Championship and published his first full-length collection of poetry, “Counting Descent,” in 2016, considered this to be a milestone in his career.

“For so long I’d imagined that my dissertation would look a certain way, and I think I had been feeling a lot of disappointment and even despair for this moment that had kept me going for so long, no longer being possible because of physical distancing,” he said. “But, it ended up being better than I could’ve ever imagined,” he said, “because I got to share the moment with so many people from every part of my life.”

In this pandemic, institutions including Harvard and the Supreme Court are opening up gatherings to people who would have never previously have access to them.

This moment has people considering which of these experiences we will be able to bring into the future, when IRL gatherings are allowed again. “It’s hard to imagine going back to a scenario in which people say, ‘OK, well now your grandparents aren’t going to be able to tune in because it can only be people in the room,’” Dr. Smith said. “I mean, that would seem absurd.”

He thinks we’ve reached a point of change in how these ceremonies are carried out and who can attend them. “There’s no going back from this,” he said, “because they found how special it is for people from all parts of these folks’ lives to have the opportunity to tune in.”

Hi. This is “Together Apart” — you can subscribe on Apple or Spotify . Our host is Priya Parker , a professional conflict facilitator and the author of “ The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters .”

How Does a Teacher Decide Which Gatherings to Save?

Man teachers are discovering innovative ways to keep their students as engaged and motivated as anyone can be amidst a pandemic. but how should they think about the school events that hinged on the community coming together.

An earlier version of this article misstated the location where Clint Smith, a writer and teacher, defended his dissertation. He did so from Maryland, not Washington, D.C.

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What to Expect When Defending Your Dissertation

For many graduate students, defending their dissertations seems like a worse fate than facing off against a horde of angry gladiators. The word “defense” implies an attack, which isn’t really the case. Your job while defending your dissertation is to demonstrate your mastery over the subject matter. That’s all your committee cares about.

How much time will it take?

In most cases, students defend their dissertations for 1.5-2 hours. There are always exceptions to the rule, but this is what you should expect. In reality, most graduate students discover that it seems to take less time than it actually does. This is because they have spent months or years with their research, and they are passionate enough that discussing it makes time fly.

Who will be there?

The most important attendees are your dissertation committee members. Other attendees vary depending on the university and graduate program.

In some programs, candidates are allowed to invite personal guests, such as faculty support, significant others, and even family members. In others, the defense is open to the public, and anyone interested in the research can attend. Make sure to ask about this ahead of time and to clear any guests with your committee chair or adviser.

What happens?

The schedule for a dissertation defense usually includes several stages:

Committee Discussion:  Without the candidate, the committee might discuss the dissertation and voice any concerns that the candidate isn’t ready for a defense.

Presentation:  The candidate gives a presentation lasting 20-30 minutes. It is essen-tially an overview of the thesis, methodology, and results of the paper.

Questions:  Members of the committee ask the candidate questions about the re-search. This segment is sometimes divided into rounds based on types of questions (e.g. pre-existing research, future inquiries).

Deliberations:  After the candidate leaves, the committee debates over the results of the defense.

Results:  The committee informs the candidate of the results.

When are you ready?

An adviser will tell you if you are not ready to defend your dissertation. This is why it is important to think of the defense as an opportunity to share your findings rather than an attack by committee members to discount your research.

Take a deep breath and focus on finishing your dissertation. If you know your material, the defense will come naturally.

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Defending Her Dissertation, at a Social Distance

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Defending a dissertation is always stressful. But when the threat of the COVID-19 virus forced economics Ph.D. candidate Amanda Grittner to attempt it remotely this past Monday, she was unfazed. 

And in doing so, Grittner became the first Duke economics student to complete her dissertation defense entirely online.

She realizes it’s a sign of how scholars are already adapting on campus to the new environment brought on as the campus establishes best practices for staying safe in the pandemic.

“One of my committee members was already scheduled to participate remotely, so I had a Zoom call set up more than a month ago,” Grittner said in an interview this week. “Since I wanted to do my part in reducing the spread of COVID-19, I reached out to the Graduate School via our department coordinator last Monday and asked about logistics for dissertation defenses. I was also prepared to do the defense completely remotely. 

“Once the Graduate School gave permission to have defenses completely virtually on Thursday afternoon, I was able to react quickly. I informed my committee that we would do the defense as a video conference and helped committee members to set up and test the software if necessary.”

It turned out the logistics weren’t overly. challenging. Grittner used the video conferencing functions to share her slides, just as she would if she were presenting it in person. The video panel showed all dissertation committee members, and when the committee wanted to talk among themselves, she simply left the video meeting.  They contacted her by email when it was time for her to return.

Her dissertation was on “Essays in Labor Economics: Effects of Immigration Policy on Vulnerable Populations,” and the committee chair was professor Marjorie McElroy.

Grittner said she thanked the dissertation committee, her department faculty and the Graduate School for helping to make this happen.

“I hope everyone uses this option to do their milestone exams (dissertation, thesis and prospectus defenses) and helps to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our community at Duke, Durham and beyond,” she said.

Grittner shared some tips for other students who will inevitably find themselves in the same situation:

• Make sure ahead of time that every committee members has set up Zoom (or any other software you use). If necessary, help them setting it up through a phone call. I also did a test call with some members of my committee.
• I shared my slides on Zoom by using the share feature while also having everyone on video on the side panel. When my committee wanted me to leave to discuss in the beginning and at the end, I just left the Zoom conversation. One of my committee members then emailed me when they were done and I could join back.
• Make sure that your internet can handle the video call. If you share your home with roommates or family members, consider asking them to stay offline or at least not use services that take up a lot of bandwidth, such as streaming Netflix or doing video calls themselves.
• I still dressed up as I would have for my in-person defense. I feel that helps you put you into the right mindset – and it feels a bit more official and celebratory, even if you are in your living room.
• At the beginning of the call, make sure everyone can see and hear everything they need to. Encourage people to speak up if they have a technical issue, e.g. can’t hear you well.

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Inside the new world of online dissertation defenses

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Call it another MIT innovation. When PhD student Jesse Tordoff passed her dissertation defense this month, she learned about the outcome in a new way: Her professors sent a thumbs-up emoji on the Zoom screen they were all sharing.

Welcome to the new world of the online dissertation defense, one of many changes academia is making during the Covid-19 pandemic. For generations, dissertation defenses have been crowning moments for PhD candidates, something they spend years visualizing. At a defense, a student presents work and fields questions; the professors on the dissertation committee then confer privately, and render their verdict to the student.

Which, in Tordoff’s case, was delivered in good humor, via a familiar little symbol.

“That was my most 2020 moment, learning I passed my defense by Zoom emoji,” says Tordoff, a biological engineer specializing in self-assembling structures.

With the pandemic limiting activity on the MIT campus from mid-March onward, moving dissertation defenses to Zoom has been a necessary adjustment. MIT students who defended dissertations this spring say they have had a variety of reactions to the change: They appreciated that family members could suddenly watch their defenses online, and some felt more relaxed in the format. But students also felt it was more challenging to engage with their audiences on Zoom.

And, inevitably, social distancing meant students could not gather in person with advisors, friends, and family to rejoice, as per the usual MIT tradition.

“That feeling of celebration — it is not something you generate by yourself,” says André Snoeck, who in late March defended his dissertation on last-mile issues in supply chains, for MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics.

That moment when you learn you have passed your doctoral dissertation defense. Congratulations to @MITSloan 's Dr. Maarten Meeuwis! @MIT @MITGradStudents @MIT_alumni @MITSloanAlumni pic.twitter.com/U7wNdmBPx7 — MIT Sloan PhD (@MITSloanPhD) April 21, 2020

On Zoom, grandparents in the room

Dissertation defenses are typically quasipublic events, where an audience can attend the student’s presentation but then leaves before faculty tell a student if the defense was successful. Many MIT departments stage parties afterward.

A defense on Zoom means the circle of attendees is no longer restricted by geography — something students appreciated. 

“My mom logged on in South Africa from her retirement village and watched online,”  says Ian Ollis, from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, who in May defended his dissertation about public perceptions of mass transit in the Boston area. “She wouldn’t have been able to do that if it was done in person.”

Julia Zhao, a Department of Chemistry PhD student, says the defense was a unique opportunity for family and friends to watch her in a professional setting.

“It was nice to see all my friends, and my family could attend too,” Zhao says, whose research focuses on polymers that have both metal and organic components. “They were going to fly in for graduation but not attend my defense, so they got to sit in on that and listen to me talk about what I’ve been doing the last five years. So that was really cool.”

Tordoff also felt that on Zoom, she could focus more easily on her remarks.

“I was less nervous than if I had been standing up there in front of a group of people,” Tordoff says. “I was sitting on my couch.” One reason for that good feeling, Tordoff adds, is that when she logged on to Zoom before the defense, the only other people already there were her grandparents, watching from England.

“I was so happy,” Tordoff says. “That never would have happened in person.”

And in Snoeck’s case, his advisors did orchestrate a virtual toast after the defense, so they could celebrate simultaneously, if not in the same room.

Congratulations Dr. Julia Zhao ( @jouleszhao )!!! Today was her defense through zoom!!! We are so proud of how you finished your PhD through a pandemic in such an impressive fashion!!! @ChemistryMIT #PhDone #AcademicChatter pic.twitter.com/En5gCtDZjQ — The ~Remote~ Jeremiah Johnson Group (@johnsonchem) May 1, 2020

Kudos from strangers

At the same time, MIT students note, being on Zoom limited their interaction with the audience, compared with the nature of an in-person talk. 

“You can’t read the room,” Ollis says, adding: “It’s different. You don’t have a complete perspective on the audience — you see squares of people’s faces, whereas if you do it live, you get a sense of who you’re talking to by seeing faces you recognize.”

The slightly mysterious nature of Ollis’ audience became apparent to him almost immediately after he wrapped up his online defense.

“There were quite a few people watching, who, well, I didn’t know who they were,” Ollis says. “I’ve been staying in the Ashdown grad dorm, and I was walking to the elevator after doing the defense, and somebody walked past who I didn’t recognize, and said, ‘Hey! Good job! I enjoyed that!’ I had no idea who the person was.”

Overall, Ollis says, “I thought it was a good experience. I got good feedback from people.” Even so, he adds, “I prefer being in a room with people.”

For his part, Snoeck, who has accepted a job with Amazon, felt his defense was somewhat “more like a series of Q&As, rather than a conversation” — simply due to the dynamics of the format, like the segmented nature of Zoom and its slight delays in audio transmission.

“It is weird to have a conversation with some lag in it,” notes Zhao, who will soon begin a job with a Boston-area startup, developing hydrophobic coatings. “But I made an effort to say, ‘If I interrupted, please continue.’ It is a little awkward.”

I am very happy, honored and thankful to announce I successfully defended my PhD at MIT last Monday! Special thanks to all mentors and colleagues for your guidance and support during the last five years. pic.twitter.com/bsn4RA2nbk — Felipe-Oviedo (@felipeoviedop) May 14, 2020

The blended defense

That said, for years now, academic faculty have sometimes been participating in dissertation defenses via Skype, Zoom, and other platforms. That typically happens when dissertation committee members are located at multiple universities, or when a professor is traveling for research or a conference. In Snoeck’s case, one of his committee members was already going to join remotely from the Netherlands anyway.

Zhao noticed a student in her department webcasting their defense last year, which seemed “a little out of the ordinary” in 2019, she recalls. But from 2020 onward, it may become standard.

“It’s kind of nice to have an extra component of people who aren’t in town but want to participate in the closing of your degree,” Zhao says. “It will definitely be more normalized, I think.”

Not all MIT PhD students defend dissertations. In MIT’s Department of Economics, the thesis consists of three papers that must be approved, and there is no formal defense, although finishing students do give fall-term presentations. Still, even for economics students, this year seems different.

“The biggest challenge has been a feeling of a lack of closure,” says Ryan Hill, a graduating MIT PhD in economics, who studies the dynamics of scientific research. “It’s been a long road.” In that vein, Hill adds, “I was really looking forward to commencement, and the doctoral hooding ceremony.” Those events will take place on May 29, online, with an in-person ceremony to be held at a later date.

To be sure, Hill is keeping matters in perspective. “In the grand scheme, it’s not bad,” says Hill, who will spend a year as a Northwestern University postdoc, and has accepted a tenure-track job at Brigham Young University.

For any new PhD, crossing that academic finish line is a huge achievement — and relief. Zhao, for instance, had to scramble to complete her lab research before MIT shuttered, and then finish writing the thesis, before the dissertation defense could occur.

“It’s been a pretty crazy two months,” Zhao reflects. “I’m just happy to be done with it.”

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Rejection is an important part of an education and of this MSU Ph.D. candidate's skirt

EAST LANSING — Rejection is part of any successful career — and of Caitlin Kirby’s skirt.

The Michigan State University graduate student wore a skirt she made using rejection letters she received through the course of her doctoral program in earth and environmental sciences while defending her dissertation last week.

It took 17 rejection letters to make the skirt, rejections from scholarships, academic journals and conferences. To make the skirt, she printed them out and folded each one into a fan, connecting them in rows until they resembled a skirt. Kirby still had many left over.

“The whole process of revisiting those old letters and making that skirt sort of reminded me that you have to apply to a lot of things to succeed,” she said. “A natural part of the process is to get rejected along the way.” 

Those rejections and what she learned from them weighed heavy on her mind when the day of her dissertation defense came. Kirby wore the skirt to continue the work that she, her adviser and colleagues did to normalize rejection.

Rejection can be disappointing, she said, but it can also lead to bigger and better things.

“It seems counterintuitive to wear your rejections to your last test in your Ph.D.,” Kirby said. “But we talked about our rejections every week and I wanted them to be a part of it.”

Rejection can be a positive thing, said Julie Libarkin, Kirby’s adviser and an MSU professor of earth and environmental science.

She encourages her students to apply for every opportunity that comes across their desk. Getting into the habit of applying for things and getting used to the feeling of being rejected gives her students the experience they need to gain acceptance.

“It’s a learning experience,” Libarkin said. “It’s part of life.”

All of her students have been rejected from something, and it led to gains in the end, she said. Kirby and another student repeatedly applied for small grants but kept getting rejected. Along the way, their proposals kept getting better, leading them to submit for an even larger grant that they secured.

“All of my students have been rejected from something and all of my students have earned significant accomplishments,” Libarkin said.

Kirby ended up securing a grant through the Fulbright Program, an international educational exchange program that builds connections between United States citizens and people from other countries, for research on urban agriculture.

Many students who come to MSU never really faced rejection, said Karin Hanson, director of employer relations for the MSU Career Services Network. They’ve always gotten the jobs they applied for, whether it be a high school job or their first job on campus.

It can be tough for them face rejection for the first time, she said, but it ultimately makes them stronger.

“When I think about rejection, I think about how it builds grit,” Hanson said.

Kirby will leave for Germany in January. She’ll start applying for jobs once she gets back.  

“So I’m gearing up to receive a few more rejection letters along the way,” she said. “Maybe I’ll make a longer skirt.”

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Contact Mark Johnson at 517-377-1026 or at  [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson.

clock This article was published more than  4 years ago

A doctoral student wore a skirt made of rejection letters to defend her dissertation

Caitlin Kirby was greeted with curious looks from her professors when she walked into the room where she would defend her doctoral dissertation at Michigan State University. She opened by explaining her attire: Her skirt was a handmade, knee-length garment made out of 17 rejection letters she had gotten in the past five years.

The letters, which Kirby strung together with ribbons and attached to tulle, were email rejections from other PhD programs, scholarships and from academic journals where she had hoped to get articles published. She had others, but she used the best ones for her skirt.

Kirby was literally wearing her failures, and it was cathartic.

The skirt communicated what her presentation didn’t: the grueling, bumpy process she went through on her way to her major moment in front of a committee of five professors on Oct. 7.

“The dissertation presentation is in this narrative form, where … it looks like everything went smoothly in my process from start to finish,” said Kirby, 28, who for the past 4½ years has been a doctoral student in environmental science and policy. “So I wanted something in my presentation that shows that really isn’t how it goes. There are a lot of roadblocks along the way.”

Both the audience and her professors loved it. The professors chuckled at her ingenuity and bravery. She was grateful for that, and even more so that they accepted her dissertation, which examines how people and organizations make decisions about the environment.

“It definitely resonated with people more than I expected,” Kirby said about her outfit.

Hundreds of students said goodbye to their lunch debt thanks to one man’s donation

Kirby’s adviser, Julie Libarkin, who heads the school’s Geocognition Research Laboratory, found the paper skirt clever and educational.

“I thought it was perfect,” she said. “It fits our lab culture really well, and Caitlin is delightful. She embraces trying and failing and trying until you achieve a success — which is sort of what we do in the lab. It’s all about failure.”

Libarkin added: “Science is all about going in directions that turn out to be dead ends and then having to turn around and start over.”

Kirby, who lives in Lansing, Mich., and grew up near Kalamazoo, got the idea for the skirt after seeing photos of people at graduation wearing dresses made out of posters they made and accumulated during their PhD work.

“Somewhere along the way, I decided that doing the rejection letters would be an interesting twist on that,” said Kirby, who received her undergraduate degree in environmental biology from Michigan State in 2013.

The show “Parks and Recreation” also inspired Kirby: Character Leslie Knope made a wedding dress out of paper articles written about her.

Kirby gathered her electronic rejection letters by searching in her email for the words “unfortunately” and “regret” — words she knew would be in messages telling her she didn’t make the cut. Her search turned up about 25 rejections from places such as the University of Colorado, the National Science Foundation and the journal Agriculture and Human Values. She printed them out and used 17 of them for her project.

A kid was teased for his homemade University of Tennessee logo. Then UT made his drawing into a real shirt.

To construct the skirt, she made accordion folds in the letters and punched holes at the top, then strung them together with white ribbon. She attached the ribbon to the white tulle, and reinforced the punched holes with packing tape in the two-tier skirt, which she could only wear while standing up. She drove to her presentation wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and once she got there, she went to a bathroom and slipped on her black-and-white skirt. She paired it with a red ribbon, a gray top, a black blazer and black shoes.

Kirby said the creative project felt like a curative way to handle her many rejections. And it also struck her as funny.

“This doesn’t mean that I’m totally okay with all rejections now,” she said. “It’s still just as painful when it comes across through my email. … But sitting down and spending time with your rejection letters to make a craft out of them is kind of therapeutic.”

Some of the letters, she said, stung more than others.

“But when I put them together, they didn’t really seem as painful anymore,” she said.

In a bonus, she posted a photo of her skirt on Twitter with an explanation, and it was much celebrated, getting about 23,000 likes.

Successfully defended my PhD dissertation today! In the spirit of acknowledging & normalizing failure in the process, I defended in a skirt made of rejection letters from the course of my PhD. #AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter #PhDone THANK YOU to everyone involved in my journey pic.twitter.com/FQbXYQ1Oov — Caitlin K. Kirby (@kirbycai) October 7, 2019

Like a wedding dress, the paper skirt is pretty much a wear-once clothing item. But, Kirby said, Halloween is coming up — so, she may just make a scary costume out of the skirt, perhaps by pairing it with a shirt that says “Unfortunately.”

In January, Kirby leaves for the final stage of her doctoral degree. She will be spending about eight months in Dortmund, Germany, working at the Research Institute for Urban and Regional Development. She received a Fulbright Scholar grant for the project.

Kirby has been preparing by learning German for the past year. When she finishes her European stint and her PhD becomes official, Kirby intends to return to the United States, most likely to the Midwest.

“I’m sure there will be a lot more rejection letters between now and then,” she joked.

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Charlotte Keniston Successfully Defends her Dissertation

Posted: March 12, 2024, 1:58 PM

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Lucy graduated after successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation.

Congratulations Dr. Lucy Yoon! Celebration photo:

• dissertation defense three essays applied microeconomics sarah papich

Dissertation Defense: “Three Essays in Applied Microeconomics” Sarah Papich

Sarah Papich, PhD Candidate, University of California, Santa Barbara

This dissertation consists of three essays in applied microeconomics. While the topics vary, the three papers are united in their use of causal inference techniques and their relevance to policy: each paper either evaluates effects of an existing policy or examines whether new policies are needed for consumer protection.

The first essay examines the effects of access to Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) on financial well-being. Many American consumers have limited access to credit, raising the question of whether an increase in credit access would make them better off. Fully rational individuals would use an increase in credit access to smooth consumption, yet real consumers may make financial mistakes by accumulating debts they cannot repay. I study the effects of making BNPL accessible to American consumers, including those who otherwise have limited access to credit. This paper provides the first causal evidence of how access to BNPL affects severe measures of financial distress and credit scores. Using credit bureau data and a two-way fixed effects identification strategy that exploits geographic and temporal variation in availability of BNPL at a large retailer, I find that access to BNPL reduces financial distress arising from late or missed debt payments. The total amount past due decreases by 2.4% and the number of current delinquencies decreases by 0.2%. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that these effects are strongest among consumers with “fair” credit scores, the second- lowest credit score category. I also find that BNPL access increases credit scores by an average of 1.6 points and increases use of non-BNPL credit. These results suggest that access to BNPL reduces financial distress rather than causing consumers to accumulate unsustainable debts.

The second essay studies how public financing for political campaigns affects political participation and campaign contributions. Seattle’s Democracy Vouchers program provides a unique form of public financing for political campaigns in which voters decide how to allocate public funding across candidates. This paper is the first to study the effects of public financing for political campaigns on political participation. I estimate that the Democracy Vouchers program increases voter turnout by 4.9 percentage points, suggesting that public financing programs can increase political participation. I also find that campaigns become more reliant on small contributions. For city council candidates, dollars from small contributions under $100 increase by 156% while dollars from large contributions over $250 decrease by 93%.

The third essay examines how legalizing marijuana affects fertility. State-level marijuana legalization has unintended consequences, including its effect on fertility. Marijuana use is associated with behaviors that increase fertility as well as physical changes that lower fertility. In this paper, I provide the first causal evidence of the effects of recreational marijuana legalization on birth rates using a difference-in-differences design that exploits variation in marijuana legalization across states and over time. The main result is that legalizing recreational marijuana decreases a state's birth rate by an average of 2.78%. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the largest decrease in the birth rate occurs among women close to the end of their child-bearing years. I find suggestive evidence of increases in days of marijuana use per month and in the probability of being sexually active. Together, these findings show that the physical effects of marijuana use have the dominant effect on fertility. Finally, I examine the effects of medical marijuana legalization on fertility and find a smaller, statistically insignificant decrease in the birth rate, which is consistent with the smaller increase in marijuana use that results from medical legalization.

JEL Codes: G2, G21, G23, H20, H40, H70, I1, I18

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Congratulations Dr. Kazumi Homma

Congratulations to Dr. Kazumi Homma on successfully defending her dissertation!  Her dissertation research was on  Female Representation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) at College in India

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Dissertation Proposal Defense of Dante Furioso

Princeton University School of Architecture

announces the Dissertation Proposal Defense of

Dante Furioso

Hammer & Machete: The Plantation in the Nineteenth-Century Urbanization of Havana

Committee Jay Cephas (Princeton University, Co-Advisor) Rachel Price ( Princeton University , Co-Advisor) Beatriz Colomina ( Princeton University ) Sylvia Lavin ( Princeton University ) Spyros Papapetros ( Princeton University )

9:15 a.m. Wednesday, March 20, 2024, Architecture room S-118

The destruction of forests for cane fields and the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of Africans during the Second Slavery (1800–1860) made plantations the essential fact of Cuban life in the nineteenth century. Considering the lateness of abolition in 1886 and the continued growth of the sugarcane industry into the twentieth century, historians have long stressed the role of wealthy plantation elites in fomenting urbanization and architecture. In the past decade, scholars have identified the special role of Black Cubans in the construction and maintenance of the colonial city, yet most accounts stop there. “Hammer & Machete” seeks to fill a gap in scholarly literature through a history of the labor that transformed Spanish colonial (and US-occupied) Havana into an Atlantic metropolis in the nineteenth century.

While recent Foucauldian histories of the architecture of sugar mills emerging from the US academy see plantations as the materialization of discipline, control, and racial oppression, seminal Marxist accounts written in Cuba argue that plantations deindustrialized Havana by drawing skilled, urban labor and technical innovation away from the city. Nevertheless, the methods of discipline and control developed for sugar production transcended sugar mills’ discrete architecture, complicating the historical division between the city and the countryside. Indeed, urbanization was produced by an evolving cast of builders, overseers, administrators, and emerging design professionals operating in a plantation society that bridged the urban and the rural in a complex web of racialized labor. Liberal economic development groups supported the education of builders and the importation of European craftsmen while mobilizing circuits of enslaved and incarcerated workers to labor on roads, canals, and railroads. Elite clients, engineers, and contractors reconfigured architectural production as enslaved and free Black, indentured Asian, and immigrant European workers labored and resisted during their work transforming Havana. Analyzing class, race, and the environment, the plantation can be read as a way of organizing workers across interconnected sites of production that coalesce in the growth and transformation of the colonial city.