Episode 110 - Listen To This If You’re Preparing a 3MT talk

Transcript

Jen (00:00:09)

Well, hello there. I am delighted to welcome you to another episode of Listen to This If. I'm Jen and as ever, I'm joined by my fabulous friend and colleague Michael. And in these episodes, we pick one thing that you might be working on at the moment or maybe struggling with at the moment.

So Michael, today we thought we would talk about this situation that we're hoping many of you are in or will be in, and that is preparing a Three Minute Thesis talk, 'cause we are huge fans...

Michael (00:00:43)

Hmm...

Jen (00:00:09)

Of 3MTs, it's a fabulous competition.

As a former winner, Michael, I'm guessing you agree with that.

Michael (00:00:43)

Yeah, it's a fabulous competition, great experience. You get to meet like-minded people and think about your research in interesting ways.

So if you're considering should I sign up or not, it's you know, [a] strong recommendation from both of us. It's a great experience.

And you might be a little bit hesitant because maybe you know, it's something different and it's a bit of a challenge, I suppose.

So hopefully we can help you with that. So look, I mean, I think I've boiled my tip down to one word, Jen.

Jen (00:01:12)

Ooh, I can't wait to hear what that word is.

I'm intrigued, what's the word?

Michael (00:01:15)

Drum roll.

Jen (00:01:16)

Yeah, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

Michael (00:01:18)

My word is practice. I think that practice is the most important thing that you can do because it's when you have enough practice behind you, you get to iron out you know, a lot of the wrinkles in your talk. Being well-practiced I think goes a long way to addressing the nerves aspect as well.

And I really think that you need to try and have, you know, try and have a... lots of dress rehearsals, lots of full practices in lots of different environments. But do so you know, well in advance of the actual date that you're going to be giving the talk.

You know, I think it's typical for you know, students to work back from the date. So they'll go, Okay, the talk is on this day. The day before, I'll give a practice in front of you know, my research group. The days leading up to that, I'll practice in front of my friends and family.

But I reckon you should be aiming to, you know, do that practice in front of your research group, like a full week out from the actual talk and maybe do, you know, maybe do more than one because it'll really give you a chance to try and iron out all the kinks.

And you want to try and get feedback while you're practicing as well. Try... Maybe you want to even record yourself if you want to go you know, full on. In the practice, you probably feel a bit awkward watching a recording of yourself, but you'll definitely pick up on things that you wouldn't notice otherwise.

But just practice, practice, practice. You know, I think there's that idea that a task will just you know, swell to take up all the time that's available. But I think what you need to do in this situation is give yourself like a self-imposed hard deadline one week before the actual Three Minute Thesis date. And I need to be ready by this date. And then you've got a safety net. So that's my tip.

Jen (00:03:16)

That's very very good advice, Michael. Fortunately, my tip is different. We never know whether we're going to come up with the same tip or not.

So my brain immediately went to kind of an earlier stage. And that is when you're really starting to think about how you're going to tell your story for the Three Minute Thesis competition.

And my key tip is just to recognise that most likely, this is such a different kind of talk than you've ever given before because most researchers are somewhat experienced, depending on what stage of your research career you're at. Maybe you haven't given lots of talks yet, but many of us have a bit of experience, kind of talking to our supervisors, talking to other people in our research team, maybe giving a confirmation seminar if you're doing a PhD. You know, giving an outline seminar or a project proposal. You know, we're kind of used to talking with each other.

And my tip is to recognise from the very beginning that the Three Minute Thesis is a totally different ball game. And it's really fun, but it requires a whole different level of thinking.

And in particular, it requires you to really step back and think about the big picture. So rather than being immersed in the kind of minutiae and details of here's the knowledge gap and this is how I'm approaching it and you know, being kind of quite narrow. This is about taking a huge step back and thinking about, Well, why am I doing this research? What difference do I think it's going to make in the world? What impact do I hope to have? What problem am I trying to solve? Or what question am I trying to answer? What thing in the world am I trying to understand better?

And realising that it's just so important that you convey why you care about it, because you've got to make this audience who's a very general audience, who has no knowledge or background whatsoever in your field, you have to convince them that this is something that's really cool and really valuable.

So for me, there's just a whole lot of thinking that goes into the very early stages of a 3MT and really harnessing that story and harnessing that passion. And then, yeah. Once you've worked out your story, I completely agree, practicing is essential.

Michael (00:05:23)

Yeah, it's exactly right. And I think what you just said there Jen is the main benefit really, from doing the 3MT thesis is that big picture thinking.

There's so many benefits from doing that. You know, from motivation to getting you to think of new ideas and you know, just kind of the fun of it all.

So, yeah, give yourself plenty of time to take a few steps back and think big picture about your research.

Jen (00:05:51)

Yeah, and good luck.

Good luck with the 3MT, it's a fabulous competition and we wish you all the very best.

Michael (00:05:58)

Yes, all the best.