Final Ph.D. oral defence: a winning attitude (I)
Your attitude on the day of your Ph.D. (viva voce) final oral defense should feature three components:One, keep cool, don’t get angry. I’ll tell you why presently. Two, respect the examiners, yes, even if you hate them. If you disrespect them, you’re toast! Finally, believe you’re going to pass, yes, go with a strong conviction […]
Your attitude on the day of your Ph.D. (viva voce) final oral defense should feature three components:
One, keep cool, don’t get angry. I’ll tell you why presently. Two, respect the examiners, yes, even if you hate them. If you disrespect them, you’re toast! Finally, believe you’re going to pass, yes, go with a strong conviction that you’re not going to fail. The examiners do not want you to fail. They just want to see if you’re now a scholar –their worthy peer. Actually, it’s administratively more costly if you failed than when you passed.
Now let’s take these items one by one.
1. Never Get Angry!
A professor once told me that everybody passes his dissertation or thesis defence, EXCEPT, he said, “those who get emotional”. Wow. This is both comforting and disturbing. It’s comforting for those who know this guy’s philosophy because they can adjust the dial on their temperament and not get angry on the day he’s sitting on the panel.
But what of those who don’t know this about him? It’d be cool to get the professor to wear a placard dangling from his neck with the inscription: “If YOU GET ANGRY, HE’LL FAIL YOU. IF YOU CRY, YOU’RE TOAST.”
However, since we can’t do that, it’s a great advice to banish all histrionics from your final defence, because many examiners or panel members (not only this professor) wouldn’t appreciate negative emotions.
Besides, why should you get emotional? This is an academic challenge, so go and have fun, or at least, go and be academic.
You don’t believe me? Take it from this man:
A long time ago, in the deserts of Arabia, a man went to Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him) and said:
Advise me.
Muhammad (SAW, said): Do not get angry.
The man (requested again): Advise me.
Muhammad: Do not get angry.
The man (for the third time asked): Advise me.
Muhammad (answered for the third time): Do not get angry.
The day of your final defense is the most appropriate time to take the advice of the noble prophet. You’ve nothing to lose by staying calm, but you’ve all to lose if you lost your temper. So keep smiling even if you feel like crying.
2. RESPECT THE PANEL
Respect the experience of your examiners
An American professor, Dr. Valerie Balester of Texas A&M University said, “we,” that’s the examiners, “always want to ask intelligent questions.”
This seems like a great insight into the minds of the examiners. However, when you look closely, it’s actually common sense. We, i.e. humans, all want to be perceived as intelligent. And we feel quite happy the day someone calls us smart or intelligent. Well, the members of the panel of examiners are humans too.
So treat all their questions as intelligent insights even if you think it’s the most moronic thing you’ve ever heard.
How do you do this? Praise their questions by prefacing all your answers or rebuttals with “that’s a good question”, “that’s a refreshing perspective”, “interesting, I’ve never thought of it like that before”, etc.
During my own final defence, sometimes, I would forget using these friendly tonics, as I call them, but I’d come back and say “by the way, that’s an intelligent insight, professor” before going ahead to answer the question. Do you think they were happy? Of course they were! All of us were smiling throughout.
This is better than arguing with them. Actually, do not ARGUE. If you do, I can almost guarantee that you’ll lose. This may sound stupid, because a PhD defence is an academic discussion and you’re supposed to argue your points at such forums right? Wrong.
We know that some professors – even some students – wouldn’t play fair. Further, starting an argument may put a question mark on their credibility. ”Are you saying I didn’t read your thesis?” An examiner asked a would-be PhD when the PhD student challenged the examiner’s observation of a certain contradiction between an aspect of his slides and what’s written in the thesis.
Unfortunately, when you hear ”Are you saying I didn’t read your thesis?” it means the day is going RATHER wrongly for the student; quite predictably, that would-be PhD didn’t become a doctor that day – he was asked to redo the viva voce. Sad.
Interestingly, I had the same problem: on my prezi presentation, I wrote stratified sampling was used. But in the thesis, it was cluster sampling that was written. How did I handle it? Immediately the chairman pointed out the discrepancy, I said, while smiling, “that’s correct sir. I know in the thesis it’s cluster sampling but it’s stratified on the slide.” So they asked which one I did use in the research, and I told them, ready with my rationale for choosing that sampling method. But they didn’t question me further on that aspect; they simply smiled and moved on.
I actually discovered that particular mistake even before the day of the viva, but I didn’t care to change it, because I had to go to prezi.com again, edit and re-download my presentation – too much work. This is also the reason why you should read your thesis thoroughly before the final defence day. This way, you can anticipate the questions and prepare to answer them.