Your dissertation project doesn’t start with topic research and end with the dissertation writing. You also have to go through the defense stage, where you try to convince a review panel that you project is up to the standard and therefore worth an approval and good grades.
The dissertation defense is often an intense session whose outcome you can never be sure about. But it’s an important, last step to complete before you can submit your manuscript to earn a doctoral degree.
In this guide, you’ll learn everything you should know about dissertation defense. In particular, you’ll learn:
- What dissertation defense is all about
- What’s involved in the dissertation defense
- What happens at a dissertation defense
In other words, if you’re searching for a complete guide that looks at dissertation defense front to back, then you’ve come to the right place.
What is Dissertation Defense Exactly?
A dissertation defense is a formal meeting between you and your school committee where you get the opportunity to explain the dissertation topic you chose, how you did your research, and what you found.
It’s during your dissertation defense that the committee asks you questions about your research, the impact of what you found in your investigation, and your future.
The dissertation defense can be a highly intense session. Because, even if you’ve given your dissertations project all the academic attention it deserves, you can’t be too sure it will earn the best marks, let alone a base pass level, until after the committee has made their judgment.
But even if you feel like you lack total control of the committee’s opinion on your work, the dissertations defense phase is a great chance for you to appear before your fellow students and share your knowledge with the academia.
How to Get Ready for a Dissertation’s Defense
Even if you’re not sure of what to expect in a dissertation defense, it’s important to prepare for the session as best as you possibly can.
1. Start by Cultivating the Right Attitude
Look:
You’ve spent years in College or University studying a subject that interests you. And in the last couple of months, you’ve had the opportunity to research your topic and put your findings in a 150 to 300 pages dissertation.
If anything, you’ve come so far that a dissertation defense shouldn’t scare you. While it’s natural to be nervous, this is your last moment to shine before the committee and your fellow peers.
So you have to cultivate the right attitude.
Think of the defense phase as a stage where you have to go through rigorous testing because you’d made it through the previous ones. Understand that it’s in your committee’s best interest to see you pass your dissertation.
And if you can keep calm, demonstrate your worthiness, and show the committee how much you know about your area of study, there’s no reason why they won’t consider you an expert in your field of investigation.
2. Get Ready to Answer Your Committee’s Questions
To stand out in a dissertation defense, you have to demonstrate you’re an expert in the subject you’ve spent months working on. And the best way to do that is to get ready to answer your committee’s questions.
By participating in discourse beyond your results, you’ll have to answer questions that demonstrate the relevance and impact of your dissertation research.
Getting ready to answer your committee’s questions goes beyond creating a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes your findings.
Remember, you can’t for sure anticipate what kind of questions the committee will ask. But if you know your topic inside out, you’ll have solid responses to every question asked in the dissertation defense.
If it helps, have a few of your friends read the abstract of your dissertation and ask them to pose some significant questions about the study you conducted.
They’ll more often give you the outsider perspective, which will be extremely useful in giving you a glimpse of the kind of questions to expect when you step into dissertation defense.
3. Create an Organized Presentation
The document may serve a dual purpose: a presentation to your school’s committee and to the faculty of any university to which you wish to apply. As such, you need make sure the presentation is well organized long before the dissertation defense stage.
Your project’s presentation should include:
- A summary of the review of existing literature you used to develop a foundation for your study.
- An explanation for the purpose, methodology, and findings of your study
- A discussion of the impacts of the findings
The presentation doesn’t have to be longer like the dissertation itself. Rather, make sure it’s comprehensive enough for the dissertation committee to understand the basic elements of what you’ve done.
Some of the questions you might want to add in your presentation may include the following:
Some of the questions you might want to add in your presentation may include the following:
- Why did I choose this topic for my dissertation project?
- What have other people who’ve studied the topic found on the subject?
- In what way did my research question evolve with respect to what has already been established?
- How did I organize my study and what exactly did I find?
These are just sample questions to ask, so they may differ from what you have in mind. The idea is to make sure your presentation is as comprehensive as possible.
4. Prepare Yourself Psychologically
Think of your dissertation defense as the final moment to demonstrate how hard you’ve worked on your project and be proud of a job well done. You’re going to step into a new role and you’ll have to treat this moment as your domain.
You want the session to start and end smoothly. So make sure you prepare yourself mentally to tackle the day. You’re going to stand in front of giants in a defense room. If you’re psychologically prepared, we’re confident that you’ll easily present your case and score the best grades.