a thesis defense has two parts: a thesis and a defense. Your thesis is a position or proposition that a person as a candidate for scholastic honors advances and offers to maintain by argument. I looked at how people play chess is not a thesis people adapt memories of old games to play new games is. Similarly, i wrote a program to play chess is not a thesis playing chess requires a database of actual games is. Besides being a proposition, a thesis has to have another property: it must say something new.

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Understanding natural language requires context is not a thesis except maybe in a linguistics department process x is a feasible mechanism for adding context sensitivity to natural language understanders is, as is context is not required for visual understanding. What kind of evidence is apprpropriate depends on what kind of thesis is being defended. thesis: process x is a feasible way to do task y one defense for this kind of claim is an analysis of the complexity, or completeness, or whatever, of the theoretical algorithm. In computer science, the more common defense is based on empirical results from running an experiment. A good defense here means more than one example, and answers to questions such as the following. Can your result do the same examples the previous results did, or can you make them do yours? can you prove they couldn't do your examples? if you claim to be more efficient, what are you measuring? thesis: task y requires process x this is usually defended by a logical argument. It is usually very tough to do, even if the argument doesn't have to be formalized.

thesis: people use process x to do task y many students make the mistake of picking this kind of thesis to defend. It requires serious experimental evidence to defend, unless your real thesis is of the previous form, i.e. Selected excerpts from protocols and surveys of your officemates are not psychological evidence, no matter how much they might have inspired your work. thesis: process x is a terrible way to do y, or people don't use process x this is a reasonable thesis if process x is a serious contender.

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Things it can't do, or things it does wrong, along with evidence that those things matter. If you think you have a lot of theses, you probably just have a bunch of undefended claims. One good thesis, or two so so theses, with adequate description and defense, is more than enough to fill up a dissertation. If you're bright, educated, and have worked hard on a topic for more than a year, you must have learned something no one else knew before. the first mistake that students make is to think that a thesis has to be grander than the theory of relativity. a thesis should be new and interesting, but it doesn't have to change the foundations of all we believe and hold dear.

Among your accomplishments and experience, there will be several good candidate theses. Is it a claim that you can describe clearly and briefly? is it a claim that anyone cares about? is it a claim that people don't find perfectly obvious, or if they do find it obvious, can you convince them that it could easily be false. Once you've refined your claim into a good thesis, now you can determine what kind of defense is appropriate for it and what more you need to do.

This is where the hard part comes, psychologically, because to create a defense for your thesis, you're going to have to attack it harder than anyone else. What happens if the thesis fails? negate it and defend that! in a year or so of focused research, you should be ready for a real thesis defense. See how easy it is, once you know how?

bill gardner / tips for your thesis defence

1. Everyone wants to look good: you want to look smart, your supervisor wants to be proud of you, the examiners want to look insightful and thorough, and the department wants to maintain high standards.

You should contribute to all of that, and not undermine it by being poorly prepared, disrespectful, sloppily dressed, late arriving, showing irritation or anger, and so on. Do not attempt to pressurize the examiners into giving you a break: my plane is leaving on monday my new job is starting tomorrow i can't afford to pay more tuition. Respect the integrity of the process, and take what the examiners dish out without complaining. You want to minimize your damage: this refers to how much additional work you have to put into corrections and revisions. At worst, examiners will demand more research and/or experiments, and they will insist on rereading the thesis before they sign off. That could take you weeks, even months! at best, there will be some minor wording improvements, checked only by your supervisor.

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If you explain your work well and answer questions well, it is less likely that many or major revisions will be demanded. Taking a philosophical view, whether the revisions are little or much trouble, they will make your thesis a better document. Admittedly, it's possible that no one may ever read your thesis again but it's also likely that you or your supervisor will write one or more articles based on your thesis, in order to disseminate your work. If the thesis is better because of the revisions, those articles may be more publishable and/or easier to write. If you are continuing in an academic or research career, high quality publications in reputable conferences and journals are extremely valuable to you. Pay careful attention to questions and try to answer what is really asked! if you must, frankly ask, can you please repeat that? don't let your mouth run on beyond the basic answer, or you may say something flaky that invites more probing.

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Be aware that an outside examiner with insufficient background in your area may really ask a dumb question, but you should give a polite answer that doesn't appear to put them down. Don't look pleadingly at your supervisor s for help! it's your thesis, not theirs. If they sense you need help, they can ask some leading softball questions during their turns, and they always get the last questions by convention. If you look at them anxiously, you may trigger them to speak out on your behalf, which is bad form, makes them look silly, and may earn a rebuke from the exam chair. They can advocate your case after the defence is over, behind closed doors while your fate is being discussed.

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what is a thesis defense?