teaching-phd-skills

Why this exists

A conference talk is twelve minutes and you will be asked three questions you did not anticipate. The failure is not nerves; it is that most students have never once said their contribution out loud in a single sentence, so the talk becomes a tour of the methodology and the contribution never lands. The questions are also the most valuable output of any conference and almost nobody writes them down.

External material

The SEAR Lab PowerPoint template — layouts, the brand palette, and the colourblind-safe chart triple are already in the theme picker. Read that folder’s own README first.

Governing part

None.

The mechanic

• Twelve minutes. Rehearse against a clock, not against a feeling.
• One slide states the contribution claim from IMRAD structure, verbatim. The same sentence that is in the manuscript. If the talk’s version and the paper’s version differ, one of them is wrong.
• Figures come from Figure and table design — they already pass greyscale and already have standalone captions, which means they survive a projector with bad contrast.
• Deliver it to the lab. Not to a mirror.
• Write down the three questions you got, and the answers you wish you had given. This is the deliverable that keeps paying. The gap between what you said and what you should have said is usually a hole in the paper.

Deliverable

Slides PDF, plus the three questions with your revised answers.

Competency check

• Delivered within twelve minutes, plus or minus one
• A slide carries the contribution claim, matching the manuscript word for word
• Figures meet the Figure and table design checks
• Three questions recorded verbatim
• A revised answer for each, and a note on whether it implies a change to the paper

Turning it in

This replaces your writing entry for the week you do it. Submit it to that week’s WW assignment in Canvas — the same one you would have submitted anyway. It is not an extra piece of work on top of the log.

• In the text box: the question you could not answer.
• You hand in: A slides PDF plus the three questions you were actually asked and the answers you wish you had given

You do not submit anything to the milestone yet. When all five skills in M5 are done, submit the M5 — The Review Cycle assignment, which is just an index saying which week each one went in.

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