In article <AAAE050D4F at bio.tamu.edu>, JFRUGOLI at BIO.TAMU.EDU ("Julia
Frugoli") wrote:
> >I've been reading the past posts and there are some great suggestions
> >there that
> >I'll be adding to my thesis proposal - coming Dec 16th (AGHHHHH!). One
> >question
> >though - because of the nature of a PhD student proposal, there are
> >many MANY
> >large areas of unknown information. I'm thinking of future experiments,
> >potential pitfalls, etc. How do you deal w/ them? Should you list all
> >the
> >potential probems on a slide (and still pass the exam)? I have figured
> >out how
> >to handle the preliminary data, but it feels like there are so many
> >loose
> >ends...
> >
> >Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
> >
> >Robyn
> >~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >Robyn Temple
> >currently frantic doctoral canidate
> >SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn
>> I want to second Robyn's request. Hopefully within a month of Robyn's
> proposal, I'll be defending my thesis, and there are some differences
> in the nature of a thesis talk which I'm curious about. For instance,
> there's some work being done by a technician in the lab that adds
> insight to my own work-is it legit to use a slide of her data (properly
> acknowledged) to make my story flow better, or should every data slide
> be my own?
>> I also know some of the classic questions ("knowing what you know now,
> what would you have done differently?" or "what other ways could you
> have approached this problem?", or "what's the next experiment that
> should be done?") but I'd like to hear some others favorite "end of
> thesis questions".
>> And one more-there's a lot of stuff I did that didn't pan out. I've
> seen people present this kind of negative data, perhaps to show "how
> much work they did". Since I'm going to have no trouble filling an
> hour, I don't need to do this, but should I mention any of this, or only
> if it comes up in questions?
>> Equally frazzled,
> *****************************************************
> Julia Frugoli
> Dartmouth College
>
Here's my two cents worth.
Your thesis talk is your chance to shine. If you have no trouble filling
the hour your thesis adviser might say something like, "Julia is going to
be showing us just a small portion of her beautiful work---and I can tell
you she has been even more productive than her talk today will indicate!"
Here's what I did. I had some points inmy thesis talk that were just
crying out for some experiments I no longer had time to do. So I said, "A
double-labeling experiment would have answered this questions
definitively, but unfortuantely is not something I did. What I DID do
however is seen on this slide." It addresses
the problem that might otherwise seem like a big giant elephant int he
room no one was acknowledging, without making it seem too important
either.
As far as refering to toher people's work---of course it is o.k. to refer
to other peolpe's work---it is not o.k. to make it a main point of the
talk. Not because it would in any way offend the other eprson---but
because it'll make people wonder why your own data is so deficient that
you are talking about someone else's. So I would say, "Work by Mary/John
has shown/is addressing an interesting and related question, namely...."
It should be communicated as a logical part of the story, and should be
part of the natural flow.
My belief is that you should be able to tell a story. Tell it simply and
with the enthusiasm for your work that you already have!
GOod luck!
Alice
