Dissertation Proposal Defense Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

Phd proposal defenses in computer science allow student audience this is a good opportunity to find out what works and doesn't from your more senior colleagues. Proposal defenses consist of four parts: first, the candidate introduces themselves, then presents a summary of their work, interrupted and followed by questions from the committee. Finally, the committee meets in private to discuss the presentation and the plan. While most of the committee will have read most of your proposal, you cannot assume that everyone has read every page in detail. They usually fail to convey the intellectual substance, creativity, ingenuity of the speakers' accomplishments what takes the work out of the routine.

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Naturally, these comments apply to all of our speakers who want to impress people with their ability as opposed to the breadth of their knowledge or the size of their project. Ed coffman when presenting experimental work, be prepared to defend your methodology. What was your sample size? confidence intervals? standard presentation guidelines apply: be prepared for example, avoid wasting your audience's time with setting up the projector or conference bridge.

Thus, try out any presentation arrangements well ahead of time, particularly if it includes remote presentation, multimedia contents or demonstrations. Your first slide should be on the screen when the committee shows up for your talk. Dress for the occasion: this is a major milestone in your academic career, where most members of your committee will meet you for the first time.

It is customary, but not required, to provide minimal refreshments, such as coffee and maybe some fruit and/or cookies. Project your voice speaking softly conveys the impression that you are unsure of what you are saying. Check this in the actual presentation environment using a video projector , not just on your laptop screen. Avoid flashy or cheesy animations, such as animated gifs, or powerpoint word art. This is not a sales talk and these gimmicks distract from the message and make you look unprofessional. Your presentation needs to address the following: what is the problem you are studying? why is it important ? what results have you achieved so far and why to they matter? how is this substantially different from prior work? what do you need to do to complete your work? your workplan should be sufficiently detailed so that the committee can judge whether it is realistic or not.

You don't have to account for every day between the proposal and your thesis defense, but a roughly monthly or quarterly granularity is to be expected, depending on how far away your anticipated graduation date is. Specify the experiments you need to run, the software you need to write and the algorithms you want to try out. No more than 25 slides, plus back up slides with additional material in case of questions. The committee will get anxious once the presentation lasts longer than 35 40 minutes.

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You don't want to create the impression that related work is yours, and vice versa. One of the most important concerns during the proposal is to convince the audience that you are aware of all related work. Since some of your work may date back a few years, it is not sufficient to just copy the reference list from your first paper. Check common recent conferences to see whether any recent work applies to your thesis.