Rules of thumb for a good presentation at the thesis defence.

At the thesis defence you need to give a max. 5-minute presentation of your thesis research. In
this presentation you should stress your research question, approach and conclusions. You
should not use any technical aids (such as Powerpoint and slides) or handouts during the
presentation.

1. Five minutes is a short time. Practice therefore your presentation a few times and keep
track of how long your presentation takes. Do not speak faster because you think that
doing so you will be able to say more in 5 minutes.

2. Although 5 minutes is a short time it is recommended that you structure your

presentation. However, given it is a short presentation you don’t need to explain this
structure at the beginning.

3. Speak slowly. A common rule is that during a presentation you need to speak 20%
more slowly than during a normal conversation. Please take also in account that since
you will be nervous you will normally start to speak faster.

4. Do not just read the presentation since this may give impression that you do not feel
sufficiently involved.

5. Try to speak in a natural manner and avoid for this reason a written language. (Words
such as ‘yet’ or ‘whereas’ sound grotesque in a presentation.)

6. Allow for pauses in your presentation and avoid using filler words (such as ‘ah’,
‘um’, ‘you know’, ‘I mean’, etc.). Tip: simply replace such a filler word by a short
pause.

7. Keep an eye contact with the supervisor and other jury members during the
presentation.

8. Conclude your presentation in an elegant manner (and thus not with a sentence: ‘that
was very much it, I think’).

9. Central points of your thesis should be also central points of your presentation.

10. It is not a good idea to give in your presentation only an overview of what you have
done. It is however a good idea to include real philosophy in your presentation
(analyses, arguments).