Musicology thesis defense questions

Music thesis defenses are basically questions about design principles and how you conceive. Different schools have different questioning methods. I think you must first master the thesis defense. Skills are more important.

Skills for thesis defense for Master of Music and Ph.D.

While the thesis defense tests the students, it seems that it is also the time for the defense committee members to express themselves and show off, unless you are good enough As outstanding as Wittgenstein, even the defense committee members Russell, Moore, and Weismann did not dare to ask questions because none of the three masters understood Brother Wei's doctoral thesis. Otherwise, you just listen to them perform a show around you, but when you say something, you must say it when you should say it. When you shouldn't say it or when you can't say it, just smile and say a few words! This is what it should be like Attitude! Of course, if doctoral and master's students want to successfully pass the defense and truly demonstrate their ability during the defense, in addition to being fully prepared before the defense, they also need to understand and master the essentials and art of the defense. The following is a more comprehensive thesis defense strategy, dedicated to you who are anxious for the defense!

1. Be confident and don’t be nervous

On the basis of being fully prepared There is no need to be nervous, but have confidence. It is important to build confidence and eliminate nervousness and panic, because excessive nervousness will make it impossible to answer questions that could have been answered. Only when you are confident and calm can you perform well during the defense. Self-confidence mainly comes from adequate preparation in advance.

2. Bring necessary materials and supplies

First of all, students must bring the manuscript of the thesis and main reference materials to the defense meeting. As mentioned above, some colleges and universities stipulate that at the defense meeting, after the main defending teacher raises questions, students can prepare for a certain period of time before answering in person. In this case, it is necessary to bring the thesis manuscript and main reference materials. Self-explanatory. Even like the Correspondence School of the Central Party School, after the teacher raises a question, he does not give the students time to prepare and requires them to answer on the spot. However, during the answer process, you are also allowed to look through your own thesis and related reference materials. Although you cannot rely on these materials during the defense, you can bring these materials with you. When you encounter a situation where you cannot remember it for a while, you can briefly browse through the relevant materials. Avoid the embarrassment and panic of not being able to answer. Secondly, you should also bring a pen and notebook to record the questions and valuable opinions and insights raised by the respondent teacher. By recording, not only can the tension be relieved, but also the key points and essence of the teacher's questions can be better understood. At the same time, you can think while recording, making the thinking process natural.

3. Listen carefully to the question and think about it before answering

When the main respondent teacher asks a question, the students should concentrate on listening carefully and write down the answer in their notebook. , carefully consider the key and essence of the question raised by the main respondent teacher? Do not answer hastily without clarifying the meaning of the question. If you are not clear about the question, you can ask the teacher to ask it again. If you don’t understand some of the concepts in the question, you can ask the teacher who asked the question to explain it, or express your own understanding of the question and ask if that is what it means. Wait until you get a positive answer before answering. Only in this way can it be possible to avoid answering questions that are not correct. Get to the point.

4. When the main points in the paper are inconsistent with the opinions of the defending teacher, you can start a debate with them.

During the defense, sometimes the defending teacher will raise issues that are inconsistent with your thesis. Views with different basic views, and then ask you to talk about your views. At this time, you should fully defend your own views and refute ideas that are opposite to your own views. Among the questions asked by the main respondent teacher, some are basic knowledge questions, and some are academic exploratory questions. For the former type of questions, you are required to give a correct and comprehensive answer, which is not deliberation. As for the latter type of issues, there is no final conclusion on right or wrong, and people with different views can discuss with each other.

Graduation thesis defense skills

Graduation thesis (assignment) defense is a supplementary form of reviewing the graduation thesis (assignment). Generally speaking, junior college graduation thesis does not participate in a defense, and the thesis score is the score of the graduation project; graduates with an undergraduate degree or above (including undergraduates) must participate in a defense.

Therefore, the graduation project scores are composed of article scores and defense scores. The final evaluation will be made by the review panel and review committee.

The thesis defense team generally consists of three to five relevant experts. Any unclear, incomplete, incomplete or inappropriate aspects of the article will be raised at the defense meeting.

Generally speaking, the questions raised by experts only involve the academic scope of the article or the issues stated in the article, rather than the examination and examination of comprehensive knowledge of the entire subject.

The main purpose of the graduation thesis defense is to review the authenticity of the article, review the depth of the writer's knowledge, and review whether the article conforms to the genre format, in order to further improve it. Through the defense, students and experts can further understand the basis for the article's argument and their practical ability to handle the topic. This is a rare opportunity for students to exercise and improve, and should be regarded as the "starting point" for academic studies.

1) Preparation for the defense

Students can select two or three questions from the following questions (questions 4 to 10) based on their own actual conditions to prepare for the report, ( Questions 1~3 are required). The time usually does not exceed 10 minutes. It is best to know the content by heart, without looking at the manuscript paper, and the language should be concise and fluent.

1. Why did you choose this topic (or title), and what is the academic value or practical significance of researching and writing about it.

2. Explain the history and current situation of this topic, that is, what research has been done by predecessors, what results have been achieved, what problems have not been solved, what new ideas you have, and what problems have been raised and solved.

3. The basic viewpoint of the article and the basic basis for the argument.

4. Specific debates on certain issues in academia and society, and one’s own tendentious views.

5. Specific sources of important quotations.

6. Issues that should have been covered or solved but were not touched upon due to lack of ability; new insights that were not included because they were considered to have little relevance to the core of this article.

7. The feasibility of the insights proposed in this article.

8. After handing in the final draft, reread it yourself and review the newly discovered flaws.

9. Experience in writing graduation thesis (assignment).

10. The advantages and disadvantages of this article.

In short, be prepared for oral presentation. It is not about reading out the paper, nor about reading out the writing outline and reading the summary.

2) Defense meeting procedures

1. Students make explanatory reports. (5~10 minutes)

2. Questions from the graduation defense group.

3. Student defense. (Be sure to answer or defend directly, and generally allow 10 to 20 minutes to prepare).

4. Evaluate the results. (After the defense meeting, the defense team will negotiate and submit it to the department and college academic degree committee review team for review.)

3) Notes for students to defend themselves

1. Bring your own papers, materials and notebooks .

2. Pay attention to the etiquette of opening and closing remarks.

3. Be calm and calm, and speak loudly and accurately so that everyone present can hear you.

4. Listen to the questions from the defense team members and be highly focused. At the same time, write down the questions in your notebook.

5. Respond quickly to the questions raised in a short period of time, answer each question calmly and calmly with confident and fluent language and a positive tone.

6. Answer the questions raised prudently, answer or defend the questions you are sure of, and state the reasons; do not defend the questions you are not sure about, but answer them realistically, with a positive attitude. modesty.

7. Several points to note when answering questions:

1) Correct and accurate. Answer the question head-on, do not change the topic, and do not answer the question.

2) Focus on the key points. Grasp the theme, main points, key words, and be concise and concise.

3) Clear and clear. Get straight to the point, get straight to the point, don’t beat around the bush.

4) Answer and defend. Have the courage to stick to the truth and correct mistakes. He not only dares to express his unique new viewpoints and insights, defend his correct viewpoints and refute wrong viewpoints, but also dares to admit his own shortcomings and correct his mistakes.

5) Eloquence skills. Speak Mandarin, use words accurately, pay attention to logic, speak clearly, have a loud voice, cadence, and use gestures to explain problems; strive to be profound and vivid; answer fluently, be persuasive and infectious, and leave a good impression on the audience.

1. The preparation work must be sufficient, and the PPT must be concise and clear.

2. First, clearly explain the research background of the topic, explain the purpose, value and problems to be solved of your research. Question.

3. For the literature review, it is enough to be concise and concise and focus on the key points. Explain the research ideas and methods and the results of the research.

4. You should be in a good state of mind when reporting and have confidence in your research.

5. Respond quickly to questions, understand the key points of the teacher who asked the question, and be highly targeted. Knowing is knowing, not knowing is not knowing, remember not to pretend to understand.

6. Accept the suggestions put forward by the defending teacher with an open mind. Even if the teacher’s suggestions are not good, you should answer tactfully.

7. Facial expression is very important during the plastic surgery process. Show your most 'beautiful' side!

I still have some experience and will post it again. When I was looking at other people's thesis and defense slides, I found a small detail that many people didn't notice: the English and numbers appearing in the slides should be Times New Roma in formal situations, which looks more comfortable. Many people only pay attention to the uniformity of Chinese fonts, but ignore English fonts. The English fonts in the entire paper or slides are all messy and look very weird. The most common thing is that both Chinese and English use Song font, but I don’t know how to change the English to New Roman font, haha. There are also some insertions of special characters, etc., which are also very irregular. You may think that these small details do not affect the overall situation, but as far as I know, some professors still pay more attention to this aspect. My boss during my master's degree was very professional in this regard. He could tell at a glance which letters in your paper did not meet the requirements. Hehe, it made me sweat!

So I advise everyone to pay attention to the editing of these English fonts, especially in the defense slides!

In addition, if it is a female respondent, personally I think it is necessary to tidy up the appearance. Even if it cannot be glamorous, it should at least be pleasing to the eye. If you have no experience in makeup and clothing matching, you might as well ask an expert for advice beforehand. If you can’t, go to an image design store to put on suitable light makeup and style your hair. Maybe it’s just this once in your life, and it’s worth spending dozens of yuan! Anyway, I When I saw some senior sisters coming to answer their questions dressed like housewives and eating clear soup and noodles, I wondered if the judges were also thinking: If she can’t even take care of herself, can she still do well in the project?

Every year before students’ thesis defense, there are always students who know nothing about the content and techniques of the defense, and anxiously ask how to prepare for the defense. This is directly related to not participating in senior year defenses and not actively and conscientiously preparing for thesis defenses.

The purpose of asking students to defend their thesis is definitely not to deliberately make things difficult for students to show how high the teacher’s level is. Thesis defense has only one purpose, which is to check the student's mastery and understanding of the thesis topic. Teachers who participate in thesis defense will generally not ask less than three questions, but the questions raised are all within the academic scope of the thesis. Generally, they will not and cannot ask questions that have nothing to do with the content of the thesis. This is the broad scope of the answering teacher’s questions.

In this large scope, the main respondent teacher usually raises questions from three aspects: testing authenticity, detecting ability and making up for deficiencies.

1) The authenticity test question is to ask questions around the authenticity of the graduation thesis.

2) Detection level questions, which refer to questions related to the main content of the graduation thesis, and are used to detect students’ level, whether their basic knowledge is solid, and the breadth and depth of their knowledge. The main purpose is to ask questions. It is the basic concepts, basic theories and application of basic principles involved in the paper.

3) Questions to make up for deficiencies, which refer to questions that focus on the weak links in the graduation thesis, such as questions about unclear, undetailed, incomplete, inaccurate, and contradictory points in the thesis. The author is asked to provide additional elaboration or explanation in the defense.

In view of the purpose and content of thesis defense, students must at least do the following points before thesis defense

1. Understand the views, key issues, solutions and ideas of the thesis they have written. Innovation points and so on should be clearly understood. Try to state the above questions in concise and concise language. This is an essential skill when presenting your thesis. This is also the easiest place for the respondent teacher to check the authenticity. If you have no experience in makeup and clothing matching, you might as well ask an expert for advice beforehand. If you can’t, go to an image design store to put on suitable light makeup and style your hair. Maybe it’s just this once in your life. Spending dozens of yuan is still worth it! Anyway, I When I saw some senior sisters coming to answer their questions dressed like housewives and eating clear soup and noodles, I wondered if the judges were also thinking: If she can’t even take care of herself, can she still do well in the project?

Every year before students’ thesis defense, there are always students who know nothing about the content and techniques of the defense, and anxiously ask how to prepare for the defense. This is directly related to not participating in senior year defenses and not actively and conscientiously preparing for thesis defenses.

The purpose of asking students to defend their thesis is definitely not to deliberately make things difficult for students to show the level of the teacher. Thesis defense has only one purpose, which is to check the student's mastery and understanding of the thesis topic. Teachers participating in thesis defense will generally not ask less than three questions, but all the questions raised are within the academic scope of the thesis. Generally, they will not and cannot ask questions that have nothing to do with the content of the thesis. This is the broad scope of the answering teacher’s questions.

In this large scope, the main respondent teacher usually raises questions from three aspects: testing authenticity, detecting ability and making up for deficiencies.

1) The authenticity test question is to ask questions around the authenticity of the graduation thesis.

2) Detection level questions, which refer to questions related to the main content of the graduation thesis, to detect the level of students, whether the basic knowledge is solid, and the breadth and depth of knowledge mastered, etc. The main purpose is to ask questions. It is the basic concepts, basic theories and application of basic principles involved in the paper.

3) Make up for deficiencies questions, which refer to questions that focus on the weak links in the graduation thesis, such as questions that are unclear, not detailed, not comprehensive, inaccurate, and contradictory. The author is asked to provide additional elaboration or explanation in the defense.

In view of the purpose and content of thesis defense, students must at least do the following points before thesis defense

1. Understand the views, key issues, solutions and ideas of the thesis they have written. Innovation points and so on should be clearly understood. Try to state the above questions in concise and concise language. This is an essential skill when presenting your thesis. This is also the easiest and most important point for the defending teacher to check the authenticity: the innovative points of the paper must be highlighted. Sometimes it is not that there is no innovation but that the expression is not outstanding enough. Carefully consider the novelty of your topic, don’t be afraid, dare to speak~~ Especially for a PhD, if there is no innovation, it will basically fail!

Before the defense, you must be fully prepared and answer the questions that teachers may ask. List it out. During the defense process, the logic of language is very important. What needs to be paid attention to is to remember: Don’t talk nonsense about questions you don’t know the answer to. Not only will it make people laugh, but it will also make you unable to step down.

I think you should also pay attention to the following issues when answering

1. You must be quick to respond when answering. If you don’t know the questions, you can even ask the teacher who asked the questions, but it is best Don't be in a cold situation, as that will embarrass your boss the most.

2. Pay special attention to the "new" things you propose, because many teachers always like to ask you where the "new" is. One of our senior sisters was questioned miserably during her defense a few days ago because she said she had discovered a "new" gene!

3. You must be humble during your defense, even if you do an excellent job! Because the paper is Many of the results are temporary, unrecognized, and inconclusive!

Several issues that should be paid attention to in the graduation thesis defense

After several years as a member of the defense committee Based on my practice and observation, I think it is beneficial to pay attention to the following questions when defending your graduation thesis to improve your performance.

1. Familiar with the content

As a student who is about to participate in the graduation thesis defense, first and foremost, you must have a relatively deep understanding and a relatively comprehensive familiarity with the content of your thesis. The so-called "deep understanding" means a horizontal grasp of the paper. These two aspects are preparations for answering questions raised by members of the defense committee regarding the depth of the paper and related knowledge. Otherwise, an embarrassing situation will occur

2. Interleaving charts and graphs

Any graduation thesis, whether it is liberal arts or science, involves the possibility of using graphs to express the thesis point of view to a greater or lesser extent. So I think we should be prepared for this. Charts are not only an intuitive way to express opinions, but also a means to adjust the atmosphere of the defense meeting. Especially for members of the private defense committee, if you listen to the speech for a long time, your hearing will inevitably be repulsive and will no longer affect you. Accept and absorb the content of the discussion, so that it will have an impact on your graduation thesis defense results. Therefore, you should appropriately insert charts or other media similar to charts during the defense process to improve your defense performance.

3. Moderate flow of speech

It is usually the first time for students to defend their graduation thesis. Numerous facts have proved that when they defend themselves in front of many classmates, they often speak faster and faster, so that the defense committee cannot hear clearly, which affects the defense results. Therefore, defense students must pay attention to the speed of their speech flow during the defense process. They must have urgency and slowness, lightness and severity, and cannot blast the audience like a barrage of cannons.

IV. Gaze movement

When graduates defend their thesis, they can generally complete it, semi-complete it, or not complete it at all. But no matter what kind of work you do, you should pay attention to your eyes and make your eyes look at the members of the defense committee and the students in the venue from time to time. This is a way for you to use your eyes to make spiritual contact with the audience and make the audience interested in your topic. At the graduation thesis defense meeting, the committee members will inevitably be distracted due to the long listening time. At this time, you will politely "pull" their attention back with your gaze, so that the committee members' thoughts will follow yours. The idea goes.

5. Body language assistance

Although the graduation thesis defense is mainly oral like other defenses, the appropriate use of body language will assist your defense and make the defense more effective. In particular, the appropriate use of gesture language will appear confident, powerful and irrefutable. On the contrary, if you consistently stand upright or consistently look down during the defense process, no matter how reasonable the structure of your paper is, how novel the topic is, and how correct the conclusion is, the effectiveness of the defense will be greatly affected. Therefore, when defending your graduation thesis, you must pay attention to the use of modal language.

6. Time control

Generally, in more formal defense meetings, there are time requirements for the debaters. Therefore, graduating students should pay attention to time control when conducting thesis defense. Time control must be strong, and the deadline must be completed immediately. In this way, it will appear that you are prepared, and you must be familiar with the content and control, and it is easy to give a good impression to the defense committee members. Therefore, before the defense, you should have a time estimate of the content that will be defended.

Of course, the flexibility to reduce or increase during the defense process is also a manifestation of time control and should be taken seriously.

7. Stick to the theme

When conducting a graduation thesis defense on campus, there are often many debaters. Therefore, for members of the defense committee, it is impossible for them to answer every question. You must have a comprehensive understanding of the content of the paper, and some may not even be familiar with the topic. Therefore, it is very important to be able to focus on the theme during the entire defense process and to be able to answer the questions at the end. In addition, it is generally easy for the committee members to ask questions about the issues involved in the topic. If you can focus on the thesis topic from beginning to end, it will make the judges' thinking clear and approve your thesis.

Your thesis is approved.

8. Use of person

In the process of graduation thesis defense, the use of person will inevitably be involved. I suggest using the first person as much as possible, such as "I" and "we", even in the thesis. The material is quoted from others, use "we quoted" which data or materials, especially the graduation thesis is mostly written by yourself, so use the first person "I" and "I" more decisively and boldly. "us". If this is the case, it will give the defense committee members the impression that the thing belongs to you and that you have done a lot of work.

Slideshow production

1. It is best to use schematic diagrams to explain your research background and not too many words;

2. The technical route of the research is best Represented with a schematic diagram;

3. The materials and methods of the research can be explained very briefly, because the paper is already very detailed, and the professors are all experts. Do not explain a lot for a very routine experiment, unless there is Your uniqueness;

4. The results of the experiment are the key point, and they should be explained clearly in a simple and clear way;

5. Highlight the significance of your research results in the discussion, do not quote them There are too many other people’s related literature;

6. Be sure to check the slideshow carefully after you have finished it, and never make low-level mistakes such as typing the wrong words. This is very bad.

7. Avoid stacking large amounts of text and numbers: it is best to use title format for slides, and follow the title when explaining. Converting the table into a statistical graph (such as a histogram) is more intuitive. The slide text on each page should not exceed 10 lines, and the text size should not be smaller than 5.

8. Don’t overwhelm the slides and leave no room: Slides should have appropriate margins. Don’t overcrowd every slide and make your head look too big.

9. Don’t be too monotonous and too fancy: a person may look monotonous if he wears simple clothes, and it may not look good if he is covered in colorful clothes. The vividness of the slideshow is reflected in many aspects such as the color matching of the background and text, the appropriate application of pictures and animations, etc. The key is two words - "harmony"!

10. It is taboo to discuss rambling: because the subject is yourself The strength of knowledge is that a mistake that is particularly easy to make is that there is no restraint and boundless discussion. The result is not only suspected of "preaching" (you must know that you are a student, not a teacher making a report!), but the content is often complicated and excessive. Exposing more doubtful and difficult points will leave hidden dangers in the question-asking part! A smart student should "discuss the matter as it is" and only conduct simple discussions around his own results. The discussion should be as simple as possible. In this way, the questions asked are often simpler and the answers are smoother. In a word, leave what you know to answer the question!

11. In addition to paying attention to the format of dark and light words, I think you can also put what you want to focus on in some explanatory paragraphs. Prominent keywords are expressed in eye-catching red or chrysanthemum yellow (different from ordinary text), which is very eye-catching and allows people to grasp the key points at once. However, it is recommended to use this kind of added color and use underlining and other other methods to highlight it with caution, so that the layout will be cleaner.

12. Appropriate combination of pictures and text. Although everyone has said this, I still want to emphasize it.

Because the defense is usually conducted by more than one person, but by several graduate students, the judges will inevitably feel tired. If a beautiful and clear picture can be produced, it will have a good effect that will make people shine.

13. The question of acknowledgment: A page of acknowledgment must be arranged at the end. This time a female doctor in our hospital defended her defense with a prose poem, which was sincere and full of tears. The instructor and judges They were all deeply moved. Indeed, the supervisor has put a lot of effort into the growth of the graduate student. At a critical moment like the defense, expressing formal and sincere gratitude to the supervisor reflects respect for the supervisor, which is a basic principle of life. It is recommended that you be sure to read out the entire paragraph of gratitude to the instructor, and other acknowledgment paragraphs can be briefly mentioned. Regarding the production of the acknowledgment page, my suggestion is: since the main text generally uses a dark and cold background color, the acknowledgment page should use a warmer background color, such as orange. In this way, the rigorous discussion is transformed into a humane tone, which is in line with the common sense of psychology.

Several elements for a successful defense

1. Careful preparation mainly refers to making a beautiful slide. I believe that everyone will use POWERPOINT during the defense. Making a giant flower slideshow will add a lot of color to your paper. Especially for those papers with relatively pale content, a dazzling PP can make up for it to a large extent. The paper itself is deficient.

2. Accurately grasp the time of the speech. The time for each group of the graduation defense is different, but basically each person speaks for 10-15 minutes and asks questions for 5 minutes. The concept of time is very important when giving a speech. You must finish speaking within the specified time, otherwise you will be forcibly stopped by the teacher. Before giving a formal speech, it is best to pre-speak by yourself so that you know what to expect. When speaking, try to talk about some important and conclusive things, and it is best to ignore some unimportant things in the middle.

3 Flexible adaptability After the personal speech, questions will follow. You must be calm and calm when answering questions, believe that you are a master in your own subject (in fact, this is also the case, generally other teachers are not very clear about the subject you are doing, and only you know what you are doing), and treat the teacher's questions Generally, there are no dangers. As long as you answer the challenge calmly, you can usually win it easily! If you encounter a difficult question and cannot answer it, there is a way to overcome the danger, and that is to send a message to your instructor at a frequency of 50Hz. ogle, until he stands up for you, this method is very effective and has been tried and tested

In short, the defense is to give points based on impressions. The better your performance, the higher the score you will get, so try to leave a good impression for the teacher. Impression is very important. ;