The 20 second question
Can you explain your PhD in 20 seconds or less? Practice this! Every week with friends, colleagues and supervisor.
It is really important to have a clear, focused and non‐technical motivation for what your PhD is about in terms of contribution to knowledge.
Live with this and adapt it as things change. I’ll ask you to explain this every week, we started out doing it in 1-2 minutes and the goal is that you will get more precise with your use of language, and more concise as the weeks go by.
The assignments that you have to complete for this course dovetail with your formal PhD requirement for year 1. At the end of year 1 you must submit your Literature Review (though it will get updated throughout your PhD study). Therefore, you are expected to complete the first draft of the Literature Review for this course. You will discuss this with your supervisor. We will do some group writing in class to help you start and to prepare you for Academic Writing Month in November. I will closely edit your Literature Review drafts and give you detailed feedback on your writing.
You will also give a short presentation on your PhD research during this course. This will prepare you for conference presentation and we will all work together to help you to improve your presentation skills.
Thanks to Mark d’Inverno for his contribution to this week’s class.