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Defending your dissertation • • • • quality control; academic conversation among peers; dissemination; and closure. Each institution is concerned with sustaining an implicit academic standard. Your dissertation will be revised to insure that it meets the university’s standard for acceptable scholarship. The oral defense is one setting where that quality control is evidenced. It is not one faculty member’s judgment, but rather a collective decision which yields a “pass” on your oral examination. The orals provide the opportunity for an academic conversation among peers. Now that you have completed a rigorous research project, your research apprenticeship is ending. Your orals mark this transition as you are invited to sit at the table and talk about your research as a peer with your professors. The professors are initially evaluating and ultimately acknowledging that you have met the criteria for membership in the community of research scholars. Your ideas are as highly valued as theirs, and you have an equal place at the table. Another objective of the orals is to disseminate the findings of your study. Your orals are the first time you will talk formally about your dissertation’s findings. This event is important in the academic world. You are sharing valuable information on new scholarship which has the potential to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in a specific discipline, probably the discipline in which your committee members are respected experts. With your knowledge from your just completed research study, you are now expected to provide authoritative insight into previously uncharted or contested issues. Following your isolation and immersion in your research, you will want to disseminate your findings to others who are part of your new community. By sharing your findings you enable others to have access to “cutting edge” information, the Holy Grail of most academics. This is also the opportunity for you to rehearse how you may present your study in other academic settings, such as at job interviews, graduate seminars, and professional conferences. You are the key informant at the orals. You are an expert, more knowledgeable about the specific area you studied than anyone else at the table (and ideally anyone else in the international academic community as well). You should be wellprepared to present information persuasively and articulately. This is also the time to bring closure on your doctoral program and to celebrate your enhanced knowledge and expertise. You have devoted an extensive amount of time and energy to this, and your orals are a time for marking the end of this endeavor, a time to move on to new projects. The Players Participants at your orals may be restricted to your committee. Alternatively, the occasion may extend to the wider academic community, even reaching out to experts at distant universities. There may be an opportunity for students 135 Defending your dissertation who are “in the pipeline” and expecting to have their orals in the near future to attend. You may even invite some friends and family members. The university may assign additional faculty from related disciplines who become “outside readers,” providing perspectives not present among your committee. The university wants to provide you with a fair opportunity to present your research while insuring that their standards are being maintained. Each institution creates a process for operationalizing these concerns. It is most often the case that there is at least one academic participant at your orals who was not a committee member. These persons may have independent votes on your dissertation or they may be considered advisors to the original committee. The committee members are usually happy to see you at this point in the process, and want to make the experience pleasurable as well as intellectually memorable. The external readers, however, frequently see themselves in a different position. They consider themselves the final gate-keepers, striving to validate the candidate’s expertise through rigorous inquiry. Since they typically have little or no history with the candidate, their introduction to you is through your dissertation. They use your document exclusively to focus their questions at your orals. They may want to learn more about a process which is new to them, or they may want to inquire about a controversial issue. It is your responsibility to convince them that you are knowledgeable, but not all-knowing; that you have learned a great deal, but that your learning continues. Your inquiring mind will function after the orals, and you may want to follow up on some issues which emerge at this event. The purpose of the expanded committee is manifold: • Your committee, recognizing that their work will be reviewed by others in their field, will establish rigorous standards in their evaluation of your work. • The institution’s reputation will be enhanced by the approval of graduates’ dissertations by acknowledged experts in the discipline. • The student will be protected from personal tensions which may have developed among the established committee members and the candidate. You are typically notified of the names of all the individuals who will serve on your orals. You will want to “check out” information about the external readers, those who are new to the conversation on your dissertation. Find out what they’ve written, what their areas of expertise are, and what their predispositions are on controversial issues in your specialization. Ask about them in your peer support group. This information will assist you in your preparation. In most cases, outside readers ask important questions, but rarely disagree with the committee on their final evaluation. Your committee is typically more numerous than the outsiders, frequently of higher rank, and certainly more knowledgeable about the dissertation itself. On the other hand, there are times when the external readers take the opportunity at least to make it difficult for the candidate to achieve a “pass.” For example, you may find that a person whom you initially excluded 136 Defending your dissertation from your committee has now been assigned as an external reader. You will need to acknowledge that individual’s expertise as an evaluator of your dissertation. You may need to make an exceptionally impressive presentation to win this person over to your side, to accept your dissertation at least as “satisfactory.” Lee found that his two external readers came from a department with a philosophy which was the antithesis of his own and that of his committee. On applying for a doctoral program, Lee intentionally eliminated the program which they directed from consideration because its philosophy was different from his own. How amazed he was when he discovered that they would be final arbiters on his dissertation! Since the selection of external readers is typically not open to negotiation, he was stuck with these two. He worried about the conflict, and conferred with his chair about the potential problem. His chair assured him that all would be “OK. This is an academic exercise; they will have their say, but they can’t stop you from having your say.” Unfortunately, Lee’s premonitions were realized. The two external readers engaged in a personal attack on Lee and his ideas, never addressing any academic issues. Ultimately, they, in tandem, threw copies of his dissertation on the floor. He will never forget that episode. Nor will his committee. Lee’s dissertation “passed,” but he has scars that will never heal (as do the faculty and the institution). Cassandra is still reeling from her experience. As she was writing her dissertation, she found she was in constant conflict with her chair. Ultimately, she decided that she would need to change chairs if she was ever going to get done. She sought the assistance of another professor in the same department, who reluctantly agreed to take on the role of chair. As Cassandra continued with her writing, she realized there was little enthusiasm from her new chair. Cassandra finally got to a point where she believed she was done, and asked her chair to schedule orals. Her chair did so, half-heartedly. When the external reviewers were appointed, the dispossessed chair was named as one of the readers. Cassandra knew she was not in an enviable position. Her chair was not a great advocate, and one of the external readers was clearly opposed to her work, and probably personally distressed with the way she had treated him. At the orals, she found considerable dissension, even from her chair. To Cassandra’s amazement, she was required to make major changes in her dissertation prior to rescheduling a second orals. Cassandra believed that everyone gets through—and that’s partly why she pushed so hard. She had no idea that the faculty might turn her work down, especially after she had devoted so much time to this project. At the time of this writing, Cassandra has yet to complete a second document to present to her chair, finding herself “blocked” in her writing and diverted by other activities. Despite these two horror stories, most candidates make it through their orals. In fact these stories are so powerful in part because they are so unusual. But passing orals may not be the end. Frequently it is recommended that changes are made to the final document, but the orals themselves are usually completed with the understanding that when the recommended changes are accomplished, the dissertation will be accepted. In some respects the orals may seem anticlimactic. You typically have received the approval of your committee. You may have already passed the “format” 137 Defending your dissertation review. It all seems to be done. But, as we all know, “it’s not over till it’s signed on the dotted line.” So, do not become smug. This is serious business, with fragile egos, and unpredictable players. You will need to display a level of authority along with respect for the knowledge of all your reviewers. At the orals you have the opportunity and the need to perform as a scholar representing the rigorous study which you conducted. All you have done has prepared you for this moment. You need to provide elaborate explanations on all your work, offering great details on all your decision-making, and all your major findings. Vartuli tells us: As with the dissertation-writing process, the oral defense of the dissertation can be a rewarding or defeating experience depending on the feedback students receive concerning their work. If graduate students lack feedback, they tend to feel more nervous, insecure, and defensive. [Then, quoting from one of her informants:] I didn’t like the oral defense of my dissertation. I really didn’t. I had worked myself up into a real snit about that because I hadn’t gotten enough feedback from my adviser about the dissertation. He wrote me a one-page letter saying that it ranged from inspired to pedantic. I was sure that most of it was pedantic and very little of it was inspired. After investing so much time and energy in a project, students find that the dissertation becomes an extension of themselves. Some see the oral defense as defending who they are. [Quoting from another informant:] When in generals I was just defending ideas…all the ideas in the dissertation were mine: from what was included, how it was done, to the arrangement of the research design. I felt very personally threatened by any kind of criticism of any of that. I think if I went into it again now, I wouldn’t feel that way about it. I’ve distanced myself enough from it that now I don’t take the criticism personally. Personal pressures also hinder feelings of self-worth at this stage. If the student feels her own expectations are not met, then the process holds less satisfaction. Graduate students receiving positive feedback on their dissertations tend to go into the oral defense confident and secure. The experience can actually be “fun.” She is the expert, and a discussion of her work with colleagues is quite an ego boost. (Vartuli, 1982, p. 11) The Process The orals are a fairly formal event, often with written invitations to the entire academic community (although typically few take the time to participate 138 Defending your dissertation beyond the members of your committee). There is usually a prescribed amount of time dedicated to the orals, typically a two-hour time block in a room away from the hustle of daily pressures, perhaps even a room dedicated to orals. The standard arrangement is a seminar table with the doctoral candidate surrounded by the hearing committee. Typically each faculty member arrives with a copy of your dissertation in hand. They have each had time to read your document carefully, and are prepared for an intense, academic discussion uninterrupted by phone calls or drop-in conversations. Each faculty member expects to have an opportunity to ask you questions and to listen to the responses you provide to the others at your orals. They dedicate their total attention to you at the time of your orals. They anticipate a lively intellectual interchange. You are clearly in the hot seat—although this is your day, it is the time to perform. You need to be assertive about your knowledge, clearly in command of all that you did and of the professional literature which informs your understanding. You need to display confidence in your knowledge and offer expansive responses to questions and issues on the table. From your committee, expect to hear questions similar to ones which they posed as you went through the entire project. You may ask them if there’s anything they’d like you to prepare. Certainly ask them what to expect. All this information will be important. There are some predictable questions. Typical questions at orals • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • What were your findings? What surprised you? What would you do differently? Why did you do A instead of B? What motivated you to do this study? Who are the major theorists who influenced your thinking? What are the conflicts in the field? What studies most contributed to your understanding of the issues? In what ways will your work contribute to knowledge in your specialization? In what ways will your work contribute to clarifying the conflicts in your field? Please explain Figure X. Are you familiar with X’s work at Y University on this very topic? Where do you think your specialization is going now? If you were starting today to create a research project, what might it be? Might it build on your own study? If you were asked to participate in reconceptualizing our doctoral program, what might you suggest we consider? 139