Defending Your Thesis

Once your thesis has been written, proofread and submitted, you need to prepare your oral defence. Your defence is an opportunity to move beyond your thesis, provide more detail in certain areas, and to demonstrate your understanding of the work you conducted. Additionally, the defence is your last opportunity to improve your final grade, so leave adequate time before your defence to prepare yourself.

Before you begin

Know the formalities. This involves speaking with your supervisor, talking to the study advisor and reading up on your department's thesis defence protocol. You should inform yourself about the following:

What is expected in my department for a thesis defence?
How much time is allotted for the presentation?
How much time is allotted for answering questions?
Where will the defence be held? (A classroom, supervisor's office, over Skype?)
When will the defence be held?
Who will be the external examiner?
Am I expected to give a slideshow/multimedia presentation?
Will I have access to a computer or must I bring my own?
Will I have access to a projector?

Getting prepared

A word of advice. Before you sit at your computer to make a multimedia presentation (Powerpoint, Prezi, or other slideshow programs)...STOP. You will only waste your time staring at a computer screen if you do not have a plan for your defence. Do not begin making a slideshow presentation until you know exactly what you want to discuss in your defence.

Structure the thoughts you want to present

Much like an outline for your writing, take the appropriate amount of time to prepare your defence. A 10-15 minute defence presentation may take several days to prepare. The longer you take to prepare your presentation, the better your defence will be and the more confident you will feel.

Start by outlining the most important aspects of your thesis that you want to discuss. An outline will help you structure your thoughts in a logical way, and guide your oral presentation. You will not have enough time to talk about every part of your thesis, so you must decide what information and ideas are most relevant, interesting, or important to present. Just like your thesis, your defence presentation should reflect the structure of what you have written. Using the IMRaD approach, begin identifying the most crucial information and ideas from your Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion and Conclusion.

Improving your grade requires moving beyond what you have written in your thesis. This involves reflecting on the work you conducted, the methods you used, the results you achieved and the application your research has within your scientific field. Reflection is a form of critical thinking that you apply to yourself and your own research. Ask yourself a few questions about your thesis:

What are the strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of my research? If there are weaknesses and limitations, why are they present and how could I improve my research?
Are there any gaps or missing information? If so, why are they present and how could I avoid them if I conducted this research again?
What challenges did I face when conducting my research? Why were those challenges present and how could I avoid them next time?
What new insights do I have now that I did not have when conducting my research and writing my thesis?
What would I do differently if I conducted this research again?
What should be done with my research?

Is more research required?
Are my findings valid and reliable enough to be applicable in a real-world situation?
Who holds the responsibility to act upon my findings now that my research is complete?

Why did I do what I did?

This may be the most important question. Justify your topic choice, the reason for conducting your research and justify your methodological selection.

All of these questions will help you reflect on your work, and provide insight into key areas you may want to discuss in your defence. Think about these questions for each section, and try to provide answers where they logically fit. It makes little sense to move from your Introduction to Conclusion, and then spend several minutes at the end of your presentation talking about your research weaknesses and limitations. Ending with limitations means ending on a weak note, so try to address limitations and weaknesses in the appropriate section of your oral defence. For example, if you faced a challenge with your methodology, address that challenge when you are discussing your methods.

Lastly, remember that your oral presentation should move the audience from an Introduction to your Conclusion. This involves beginning with general background information in the Introduction, narrowing to your research question(s) and/or hypothesis, and broadening back to the general applicability of your findings (or lack of findings) in your Conclusion. By preparing an idea outline for your presentation that mirrors your thesis structure, and by reflecting on your work and critically addressing the research you conducted, you will emerge with a strong structure for your presentation.

Use your structured ideas to prepare a script or speaking notes. Once your ideas are logically ordered and you can confidently reflect on your work, you can move to the next step.

Applying Rhetoric

Practice your defence

Practice makes perfect. Practicing through your defence presentation will help you improve in several regards. Standing up, speaking out loud and setting a countdown timer to practice to will:

Help you identify what information needs to be omitted due to time constraints
Polish your presentation until you can give the same speech consistently in the same amount of time
Build your confidence
Reduce nervousness

Once you feel confident talking through your defence, and rely less and less on your script or cue cards, try presenting in front of friends, classmates, and family. This simulates a real public speaking experience. You should consider filming yourself with your smartphone at this time. A film of yourself will help you identify further ways to improve your presentation, such as improving eye contact, body language and your voice. Both filming and presenting in front of others will help you cope with nervousness. You may receive useful feedback and questions from your trial audience that improves your presentation and prepares you for the question section of your defence.

Preparing Visuals: Slideshows and Props
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yiJyMAF6IE&ab_channel=BrightCarbon Links to an external site.

Answering Questions

Defending your work is a difficult task. However, if you are well prepared, answering examiners' questions is nothing to fear. The examiners are looking for your ability to think critically, and your first option should always be to clarify as much about your research, including limitations and challenges, in your oral presentation. This way, you may have answered some questions the examiners could have asked you, making the question period less stressful.

Keep in mind, examiners are not interrogating or attacking you personally. They are critically examining and testing your knowledge of the topic, research and analysis methods. Examiners may not always agree with your approach, results, or findings, but you must justify your research choices in a polite and professional manner, and be open to constructive criticism. Consider your defence as a dialogue instead of a debate or examination. Expect some difficult questions, and remember that critically examining research is part of the scientific method.

You cannot be certain about what questions you will be asked. When answering questions, you want to provide clarity to your research, not confusion.There are some techniques that will help you prepare for questions.

First, do some background research on your supervisor and external examiners:

What are their academic backgrounds and interests?
What can you expect them to already know about your research?
What can you expect them to not know, and therefore what information must you provide them in your presentation to ensure they understand your research?

Second, think about your research and identify the weak areas:

How can weaknesses be reduced?
What other methods for data collection and/or analysis could have been used instead?
What approaches could have improved your results?
Are my methods and results replicable by others?
Is my conclusion logically connected to my results?
Does my conclusion appropriately connect with broader research or have a practical application within my study field?

By answering these questions, you will develop a well-rounded view of your research. This wider understanding will prepare you to answer questions.

Lastly, practice in front of others before your defence:

Encourage friends, family, or classmates to ask you questions about your research
Write these questions down and try your best to answer them clearly and concisely

Your friends, family, and colleagues may have additional insights that will help you in the defence.

What if I do not know the answer?

We are not encyclopedias, we are human. No matter how hard we try, there will always be questions we cannot predict and cannot answer. Commonly, people will try to guess the answer. While this is not the worst thing you can do, if you do not indicate that you are guessing, you may be told that you are wrong.

Avoiding this situation is easy. Using a very simple approach, you can attempt to answer questions that you are unsure of:

Begin politely: "That is a great question"
Admit that you do not know: "... I do not have an exact answer" or "I do not know..."
Demonstrate critical insight: "...but, if I had to make a guess" or "...however I am reminded of a similar situation" or "...if I could assume"

By using this approach, you inform the examiners that you are uncertain of the answer. They will be more considerate of your answer and they may give you hints, or the question may become more conversational. This is a good opportunity for both you and the examiner to learn something new, to engage in a dialogue, and to clarify uncertainty.

Follow up

Regardless of if you thought the defence went well or poorly, follow up with your supervisor after. Ask them any lingering questions you had about either your presentation, your defence or your final grade. It is better to be clear than to be left wondering what you could have done better. Your supervisor's perspective may make you feel less stressed after your defence.

Additional Resources
How to prepare for your Phd defense Links to an external site.