While the majority of your research, writing, and creation will be completed by the time you are ready to defend, this final step to thesis completion can still feel intimidating. Here are some tips to help you prepare for a rock solid defense.

Support Your Peers

If you can, attend another student’s defense. This will allow you to not only support your fellow students but also have an idea of what to expect when it is time for your own defense. Understand that the decision to invite others is up to each student and while having a crew of friends, family, and scholars can be helpful moral support for some, you know yourself best and having an audience beyond your committee members is not necessary.

Focus on Your Process

This is an opportunity for you to share some background on your process and how you arrived to this moment. You can start with the big picture of what has drawn you to study ENWL. This could include autobiographical details about your interest or experience on your given topic that can help you explain why you chose to study what you’ve chosen and why you used the methods that you did. Providing these details about your journey through your project, and even what you chose to exclude from it, can add helpful context for your committee to situate your thesis in the discipline and your ongoing progress as a scholar.

Be Ready to Acknowledge Gaps

There is always more to learn, more to think about, and more work to be done. A thesis project, even at the Masters level, will only capture a portion of the possible directions humanities research can go. Chances are that one of your committee members or guests is going to ask a question or propose a suggestion that is either beyond the scope of your project or a whole new perspective to consider. Either way, you can acknowledge the novelty of their idea and state how it could be included in future directions for either yourself or other researchers.

Ask the Experts

You probably selected your committee members for their relevant research experience so your defense is a unique opportunity to get feedback from them on how your project fits into their understanding of the field. While your defense is definitely a time to highlight your own contributions, asking questions to your committee can help them see that you are prepared to embrace other perspectives and have considered how their research could alter or expand the conclusions you found in your project.

Celebrate!

Recognize how far you’ve come! Your project is years in the making and it is worthwhile to take a breath and remember how much it has changed and grown from its first inception. Walking through your progress can also help refresh your project in your own mind as you prepare to share your process. Did you present or publish part of this work? Has this project influenced an activity you do in your classroom or community? Talk about it! Showing how this work is having an impact beyond degree completion can be a great way to communicate the salience of your project to a wider network of scholars.

 

And remember to keep your “coal,” your defense isn’t all “ore” nothing – if changes are needed your committee may give you an opportunity to refine your work before your final version is accepted. Don’t be afraid to ask for “assi-stones” and you’ll do a “marble-ous” job.

Good luck:)