Hello everyone! I’m Belinda (Dan) Li, PhD in education researching L2 (second language) motivation, career choices and gender. I won the People’s Choice and Second Prize for the 3 Minute Thesis Competition 2023 at the University of Exeter. I strongly recommend that our HASS PGRs take part in the competition. It is a great opportunity for us to reflect on our research, receive positive feedback and make friends with PGR peers. Below are my tips and sharing from my participation experience last year. Hopefully, it will be helpful for your preparation for the competition if you decide to participate.
Tip 1: Ask for help (“Asking for help isn’t giving up, it’s refusing to give up”, The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse)
When I started preparing for the 3MT in 2023, I had many doubts. Instead of giving up, I asked for help. I reached out to Michael Schrauben, the winner from the previous year. He was invited by Gabby Davies and Kathryn Coombes to share his experience at the Doctoral College PGR workshop session. He encouraged me and gave me very helpful suggestions and feedback. By talking to him about my worries, I ended up gaining a lot of confidence and hope. I strongly recommend you all reach out and ask for help if you have any questions or concerns.
Tip 2: Focus on content delivering
I completely understand the nervousness and anxiety we may have in preparation for public speaking events and competitions. I personally find that focusing 100% on content delivery is most helpful in my preparation for any public speaking events, presentations or interviews. I believe any form of public speaking is a communication between minds. When we focus on communicating with the audience and delivering the message, we can be free from worries. We would be more at ease and show the best of ourselves when we are very focused on the content.
Tip 3: Use a parallel structure
Parallel structure is my personal favourite in terms of preparing for the script. Parallel structure involves two or more words, phrases, or clauses that are similar in length and grammatical form. I find that it helps us organise our thoughts logically and deliver the message to our audience in a very powerful way. Preparing for our speech script could also serve as a good opportunity for us to think deeply and reflect on how to improve our script in a way that is more approachable and engaging for our audience.
Tip 4: Ask questions and engage with the audience at the very beginning
This is a tip from Michael and my observation from watching many 3MT presentation videos. Many contestants used this technique. As we only have 3 minutes to present what we have done in 1, 2, 3 or even more years of our PhD, it is important that we attract the audience’s attention in an approachable and engaging way at the very beginning. Be creative and think about what you can do differently.
Tip 5: Keep a good mindset
Constantly reminding ourselves of why and how we started helps manage our expectations. Knowing that it’s a great opportunity to practise presenting our research also enables us to prepare for the competition with less concern and worry. Everyone at the 3MT competition at our university are lovely (researcher development team, judges, other candidates). I think having a group of supportive audience members to practise our presentation skills is very essential and beneficial for our future presentations at conferences and other academic events.
Last are my recommended resources to help you prepare and practise. The blogs for the workshops I developed on Public Speaking Skills in Academic Presentation can be found here, here and here. Previous resources about this can be found in the Padlet here. A podcast about these event series was also made and can be found in the Padlet here(“RESOURCES for reference” section). I also recommend checking resources of Toastmasters clubs on public speaking skills. Toastmasters International is a nonprofit educational organization that builds confidence and teaches public speaking skills. Please don’t hesitate to contact me (dl483@exeter.ac.uk) if you have any questions or simply want to talk to me.
Belinda (Dan Li) is a PhD student in the School of Education (SoE), within Faculty of Humanities Arts and Social Science (HASS). Her PhD is about second language learners’ motivation (L2 motivation), gender and career choices.