3 Stages to Prepare for and Present Your Defense—Guide by UK Dissertation Help Services
Your thesis defence may be the last and final step towards your degree and, as such, may become a major stressor for you. Our qualitative research dissertation UK experts have noticed students panic more because they’re too focused on worrying about how they will defend their work. Instead of doing so, it’s better to concentrate more on preparing the presentation. And to make sure you get through it okay.
So, here’s a guide on how you can work on your defence:
Stage One: Preparation of Content
When sitting down to craft your defence, the first step is to discuss things in detail with your advisor:
- Take an appointment and go prepared with questions
- Ask them if they have any tips to share (they may even let you in on some helpful ways to get through the presentation!) and how you should approach the task
- Take notes. This will help you when you’re working on and reviewing your work
Now, when you work on your presentation content, it’s important to go chronologically to follow your dissertation chapters. Confirm the time range and breakdown with your advisor (for the presentation and Q&A session).
Now, create your presentation content depending on your hours or minutes. Make sure it covers everything a panellist would need to know about your dissertation. Remember, they won’t have the time to read through each page of your paper and will usually rely solely on your demonstration.
This stage may take the majority of your time. If you need professional assistance with it, you can request a dissertation writing help London service to support you.
Stage Two: Preparation of Slides
The content on your slides will reflect the content you present, but it shouldn’t include everything you say verbatim. Your slides should work as a visual aid, not as a presentation transcript. So, when you prepare the slides, include graphs, charts, tables, and other helpful images to describe your process and deliver your findings. Of course, there should be content to guide the viewers, but that’s all its purpose should be.
Slide Templates
You can use presentation tools like Prezi to create slides, but we’d advise you to choose PowerPoint templates for the most authoritative results.
Following are some of the best online tools we’ve found that are entirely free! And while these are specifically for dissertation presentations, you can also use templates from other categories:
- 250+ thesis templates on Slidesgo
- 800+ templates on Free PowerPoint Templates Design
- 30+ thesis-specific templates on Slidesmodel
You can also use any of the existing premium PowerPoint templates if you have an Office 365 account.
Slide Structure
Follow the same outline as your presentation. For example, some students like to use animations in the transitions. While the feature is great for something like adding points as you explain something, it loses efficacy when you add too many fancy ones that distract the viewers. The fundamental rule you must follow for your slides is to take risks within professional limits. Basically, just don’t do anything Harvey Specter won’t do.
Stage Three: Preparation of Defence Presentation
The most important thing to remember at this stage is your panel members are NOT out to get you. They are only there to assess the feasibility of your work. They will ask relevant questions to review whether you know what you are talking about and if your research holds academic merit.
What Questions to Prepare for?
You can expect queries along the following lines:
- Reasons for choosing your research area and topic
- The gaps or market needs your research contributes to
- How you chose your target audience
- How you gathered and analysed data
- How you ensured the validity of your data
- The limitations you faced
- Things you would change if given a chance
- Major learning takeaways
How to Prepare for the D-Day?
Here are some tips to follow:
- Before the day of the defence, get solid hours of sleep no matter how tempted you may be to pull an all-nighter for a review. This will ensure you’re well-rested at the time of your presentation and ready to face the final hurdle.
- Save your presentation on a clean USB. You should also email it to yourself (or upload it to the cloud) as a backup. Technical issues can arise anytime, and you don’t want to be left running back to your dorm to get your file.
- Choose and iron your dress the night before so you don’t spend your morning worrying about what to wear.
- Bring printed copies of your dissertation for the panellists, so they can refer to your paper if need be.
- Bring a water bottle with you, as you might get thirsty during the presentation.
- Bring a notebook and a pen to jot down the members’ suggestions, reviews, and constructive criticism of your work.
- Be confident. Remind yourself to breathe and calm down whenever you feel too nervous.
- Prepare talking slowly and animatedly for the presentation. If you speed your way through the slides, the panellists may miss out and would ask you to repeat, giving a hit to your confidence.
- Prepare to stay unruffled in the face of unexpected questions. Practice a few natural phrases like “Could you please clarify if this is in context to X?”, “Just to clarify, you wish to know X?”, and “Please give me a moment to review my paper. I’d like to be thorough.” Questions and statements like these will give you time to collect your thoughts and answer coherently. And if the query is not in line with your work or if it’s not possible to answer due to your study limitations, let them know.
Conclusion
We hope this blog helps you work on your defence presentation without getting too overwhelmed (a little nervousness is okay). But if you try and still get stressed out or don’t think what you’ve worked on is good enough, you can always get reliable dissertation help online from Online Dissertation Help. Our professionals can and will support all your project needs, and you will leave satisfied and relieved about your presentation quality. So, place an order today and see the magic happen!
