Thesis Idol: so you think you can explain what you are doing? Dr Inger Mewburn School of Graduate Research

RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 2 Clarification, not simplification! The Three minute thesis competition addresses communication skills by asking research students to present the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of their thesis topic in 3 minutes. It is not an exercise in trivialising or ‘dumbing-down’ research. The oration should engage the audience without reducing research to entertainment value alone: –A single PowerPoint slide is permitted (no slide transitions are permitted) –No additional electronic media (e.g. sound and video files) are permitted –No additional props (e.g. costumes, instruments [musical, laboratory etc]) are permitted –Presentations are limited to 3 minutes maximum. Competitors exceeding 3 minutes will be disqualified –The decision of the adjudicating panel is final *Note that results are not explicitly mentioned in the judging criteria…

RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 3 Timelines and participation details The SGR will contribute $8000 in prize money: $1000 to each College finalist and $5000 to the overall winner to travel to Queensland for the national final. Each college will have a competitive process to choose their semi-finalists Contact your college administrator (Sandra Pereira) for details of local competitions RMIT final will be held as a lunch time event on Wednesday August 4th For full details visit our page:

RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 4 Anatomy of a successful 3MT presentation Note from the presentation by Mr David MacDonald of: The morphology and behaviour of the lumbar paraspinal muscles in chronic low back pain or "Why do some people keep hurting their back?" Started with a story (of lower back pain) that we can all relate to Talked about statistics through comparisons, not absolute numbers Did not ‘telegraph’ his moves: instead of “My research questions are…” he said "My research explored for the first time..." Reversed the implications, ie: told us about how it costs when back pain remains untreated Used simple summery statements: "What we've got here is a classic case of too little too late“; “Forces us to redefine what it means to recover from back pain" Gave the audience short cuts to understanding his work (“You can remember it by the two D's: Decreased and Delayed”)

RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 5 How do ideas become memorable? Communicating research to non disciplinary audiences can be difficult because we cannot rely on shared knowledge and language In their book ‘Made to Stick’ Dan and Chip Heath (2007) insist there are six key characteristics of memorable ideas: –Simple –Unexpected –Concrete –Credible –Emotional –Stories

RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 6 Anatomy of a successful 3MT presentation (revisited) So why did he win? Didn’t try to say too much and spoke relatively slowly. Used pauses very effectively as well as rises, falls and stresses in tone. Started with a story (of lower back pain) that we can all relate to (emotional) Talked about statistics through comparisons, not absolute numbers (concrete) Did not ‘telegraph’ his moves: instead of “My research questions are…” he said "My research explored for the first time..." (simple) Reversed the implications, ie: told us about how it costs when back pain remains untreated (unexpected) Titles are important, as is the timing of when the slide is shown so it doesn’t distract too much from the introduction

RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 7 Unexpected (Heath and Heath, 2007) We can’t demand attention – we must attract. The most basic way is to provoke surprise and interest by breaking a pattern Exercise: What is counter-intuitive about your research? Where does it disrupt ‘common sense’ or extend and change our ideas about something? Try and write it in a sentence to share with the rest of the group.

RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 8 Snappy Titles You can use the Heath Brother’s ideas for generating a ‘sticky’ title, here’s some thoughts: –Say what the presentation is about in the most simple language you can manage –Rework an existing catch phrase. Try picking a few key words of your and entering them into a quotations search website like Bartlett's quotations. You may find a relevant quote. If you do, pick a fragment of it and use it as your title. –Try the double barrelled trick: “Constructing Bodies: gesture, talk and representation in architectural design studios” (Then lose the second part!) –Imagine yourself as your audience – what would intrigue you? –Do any television shows or songs come to mind when you think about your essay? If so, try imitating the TV show title or select a phrase from the song to use as your title.

RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 9 Want more? Come to the On Track sessions where we will go through how to make your ideas more ‘sticky’ – both spoken and visually: “Communicating your research to others” on the 27 th of April 2:30 – 4:30pm “Working with information Graphics” on the 8 th of June 2:30 – 4:30pm Or call us out to your school!

RMIT University©2008 Information Technology Services 10 References Heath, C & D (2007) Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and others die, Random House, New York Petre, M and Rugg, G (2004) The unwritten rules of PhD research, Open University Press, Maidenhead Wurzam, R. S (2001) Information Anxiety, QUE, Indianapolis