Prepare your application for a public defense approximately three to four months before you plan to defend. These instructions depend on your school, but generally, you must supply the school with copies of permits and and abstracts. Submit the application to your committee. Book the venue for your defense, and invite your committee and committee chair.
Plan your thesis defense by creating an outline from your dissertation that you will follow during the presentation. Pick out the most important points from your introduction, your literature review, your methodology, your data, analysis and your conclusion.
Visit with your classmates and the members of your committee to discuss the progression and planning of your defense. It will be your job to provide all of the details of your thesis to the members of your committee and it is the committee's job to ensure that you are on the right track, and give you advice on your defense.
Prepare your defense and go through all the points you plan to make. Create a speech and time yourself to gauge how long it takes you to get through each point. You may need to narrow or revise your outline.
Practice you speech in front of a friend have him time and critique you. Ask your friend to write down or ask any questions he can think of while you are presenting. This will help you prepare for questions posed by your defense committee.
Prepare a simple presentation including charts and photographs. Visual aids will help you explain your thesis and present your data to the audience. Visual aids can also help remind you where you are in your speech if you get stuck or lost.
Introduce your study and explain why it is important to start off your defense on the big day. Explain the topic in a broad sense first so that the audience feels familiar with the subject when you begin delving into greater detail later on. Some members of your audience may not be familiar with your subject.
Explain what you have done as specifically as possible and explain what impact your research and findings have made on your field of study.
Conclude your defense by reinforcing your findings. Your ending is meant to prove the work you've done, explain what has changed about your topic, and explain what has remained unchanged.
Remain calm and composed during the defense. Be prepared to answer any question. Take your time answering the questions from your committee and ask for clarification if you need it. Never make up an answer if you are unsure. If you cannot answer a question, politely decline, explaining that you do not have the research to make a solid conclusion.