Your Defense: Closer Than You May Think

Soon the day will come when you stand before a room full of peers and speak in defense of your project.  That is, you’ll sit (and stand) for the oral defense, the final exam for your degree.  Whether your oral defense is scheduled next month or not yet scheduled, think ahead and plan carefully for this important event in order to reduce stress and ensure success.

Who Will Be There?

In almost all cases, more people will be present than at your proposal defense.  For thesis writers, the final oral defense features at least four participants: you and your three committee members.  For dissertation writers, the smallest number of participants will be five: you, your minimum of three committee members, and the exam’s designated reader, who is appointed by the dean of the Graduate School.  (In almost all cases, you won’t know who the designated reader is until you show up at your oral defense.  For an official explanation of this non-voting faculty participant, see information at this link under “Designated Reader, Dean’s.”)  Of course, you’ll likely invite friends and family members to experience the proceedings.  But you should expect others to be in attendance as well.  Both the Graduate School and your department will announce an oral defense of a dissertation ahead of time, and the event is open to all interested parties.  Colleagues from your graduate program, former professors, and perhaps even people from other departments may be in the audience.  Various public-speaking skills will no doubt come into play.

When 

When it’s time to defend, you’ll know.  Not only will you have a sense, as a writer, that the argument you advance in your document is suitable for public airing, but your director and committee members will have communicated to you that your work is ready to be defended.  At least three weeks before the examination (a Grad School deadline), you need to submit a Request for Oral Defense of Thesis or a Request for Oral Defense of Dissertation.  Note that the Graduate School also has several strict deadlines, including a deadline to submit the post-defense version of your thesis or dissertation.  Ideally, schedule your defense more than three days before this deadline.  That way you’ll give yourself ample time to make any needed changes to your document before submitting it electronically to the Thesis Office for final review.  Your committee may request that you make changes during or after your examination.  In addition, you may need to reformat your document so that it meets the Graduate School’s format requirements.  (See Thesis Format Guidelines or Dissertation Format Guidelines.)  Here in the Thesis Office, we often assist writers editing their documents during the post-defense phase.  We strongly advise that you plan ahead so that you have more than three days to prepare your final copy.

How

Procedures during the 90 minutes or so of an oral defense vary slightly, depending on expectations of your department and committee.  But, as noted in the Graduate School’s Quick Guide for Faculty (see “Defense, Oral”), all defense meetings consist of two main parts: an examination session and a public presentation with opportunity for Q & A.  The order of these parts is determined by your department.  Last year, when I attended a colleague’s dissertation defense in the Department of English, the candidate opened the meeting with an overview of her work (a presentation that lasted about 12 minutes).  Then the examination began.  Each committee member—as well as the designated reader, who came from the Department of History—asked probing questions about the dissertation’s content and its relation to other studies in the field.  The session was formal and rigorous but never became overly tense.  The Q & A was lively and enlightening, with questions from several colleagues and guests in the audience.  The event was also “traditional,” in that each committee member was there in person.  However, these days, it’s not uncommon for a “nontraditional” defense to take place, whereby one or more members participates via Skype or some other internet-based communications program.  Here in the Thesis Office, we’ve recently become aware that such virtual participation is often unavoidable in fields like anthropology, in which faculty members and even degree candidates routinely spend extended periods of time away from campus to conduct field research.  On this note: if your oral defense will require internet-based communications, you may wish to look into alternatives to Skype.  For a recent list of such options, see this link.

Final Thoughts

Once you’re past the halfway mark on your big writing task, earnestly start thinking ahead to your defense.  As soon as you start on the last segment of your document, get back in touch with your director to determine when to schedule the important day.  Best of luck to each of you defending sooner or later—this summer and beyond!

Embracing Academic Conferencing

When you present at an academic conference, scope out your room before your session starts.

Many of you have likely attended an academic conference during your graduate program, and several of you are probably planning on presenting at one in the near future.  Conferences are of course major components of academic life but also common in research and/or knowledge-based fields.  The unstoppable conference phenomenon naturally gives rise to plenty of guidelines for presenters and speculations on past, present, and future uses for conferences.  For a recent overview of such concerns, see this short but informative 2013 article that ran in The Guardian.  Conference etiquette, or seeming lack of it, is another topic of interest to conference goers, as noted in this 2015 piece that appeared in Chronicle Vitae featuring an interview with Anna Post, the great-great-granddaughter of famed etiquette guru Emily Post.

In contrast to such general-interest articles, this post offers some conferencing food for thought specifically targeted to you, the NIU thesis or dissertation writer.  Photos and most anecdotes come from my experiences this past week presenting and attending the 54th Allerton English Articulation Conference in Monticello, Illinois.

Traveling

In addition to obvious preparation musts such as practicing your planned speech (at least three times) and identifying sessions to attend before and after you present, double-check your travel arrangements with the goal of arriving at the venue at least an hour earlier than registration time.

Ordered rows in the gardens at Allerton.
Beware: routes to conference sites may not be so orderly.

Commonsense advice, yes, but nevertheless worth repeating.  You may have fairly clear directions, but expect to run into complications during the actual journey and plan accordingly.  Case in point: the drive down to the venue in Monticello (not my first trip there—I also presented at Allerton four years ago) took longer than planned because I got lost.  My memories of the route off the interstate were fuzzy, my printed directions turned out to be slightly out of date, and access to directions via phone or GPS device is wonky in this rural area.  A related anecdote: last April I presented at a conference in San Diego.  Accomplishing the first trolley ride from hotel to venue there also took a bit longer than expected.  Once on the scene I found myself relearning how waiting to cross busy streets can add minutes to your walking time and that trolleys don’t always arrive or depart exactly when scheduled.

Surveying

The small but adequate Butternut Room at Allerton.
Room size naturally affects your speaking approach. 

After registering and donning your name tag, wander and mingle but also check out the room you’ll be presenting in.  A common bit of advice is to test equipment you may need such as computer, OHP, screen, or microphone.  The earlier you can do this, the better.  Ideally, you should visit your room well in advance of your session so that you can also get a feel for its size and layout in relation to your talk.  A large space naturally requires a different speaking approach than a small one does.  If you can scope out the room while it’s empty, stand at the front or at the lectern.  Practice parts of your presentation.  If chairs or tables are movable (and if your session is the next one), consider ways you can rearrange the speaking and/or audience areas to suit your needs but especially those of your expected attendees.  Also consider lighting.  Depending on the sun’s position during the time of your session, window shades might need to be adjusted.  Before the presentation at Allerton this past week, my speaking partner and I went through all these steps.  As a result, our presentation ran smoothly and featured engaged participation from attendees.

Presenting 

Food line at Allerton.

Surely you’ve heard plenty about practical approaches to delivering a presentation.  Let me add a reminder that your planned speech, though very important, is still a minuscule moment within the overall time you’ll spend sharing your ideas at a conference.  Before and after your session and during other sessions, you’ll have numerous chances to speak with others about your work.  At Allerton, I met and chatted with several attendees during lunch; I met and conversed with several others between various sessions, during walks in the gardens, and over dinner.  In so doing, I naturally discussed aspects of my joint presentation but also my dissertation, teaching, and career plans.  Remembering that presenting at a conference means more than just speaking formally for a short time can actually help you when it’s your time to stand and deliver.  Share main ideas in your planned speech.  Expect to elaborate on these and other ideas during Q & A and during other interactions throughout the event.
     
Reflecting

How did the presentation go?  Were the follow-up discussions and later sessions constructive and helpful?  Was it all worth it?  You’ll have various answers to these questions immediately after your session and as the conference moves to a close.  But you can expect a different set of answers in the days and months that follow.  These later reflections will be most useful to you in the long run.  Expect to reevaluate your studies, your stance on issues important in your field, and your ongoing thesis or dissertation project during and after your next academic conference.  If you can, spend some time outside the venue during and after the event to foster these healthy reflections and to add to the overall experience.  Allerton is especially rewarding in this regard.  But no matter where your conference is held, there is always much to explore within but also beyond the center.

Path to the Walled Garden at Allerton.
Heed your long-view reflections after an academic conference.