The Audience

An old and valuable piece of advice: when you prepare a presentation you should consider your audience. There’s a difference between a talk for your peers, and a talk for the layperson; a difference between a seminar for your supervisor and the main session at a conference.

This also applies with other parts of the PhD. Remember when writing your thesis and preparing for the viva, the audiences are not identical.

  • When writing your thesis, don’t write solely for your examiners.
  • When preparing for your viva, don’t just try to imagine what anyone might ask.

Reflect for yourself, “What can you do to best help your audience, both in your thesis and in your viva?”