Three minutes is about the length of your average pop song, and pop songwriters often traffic in an old clich茅: don鈥檛 bore us, just get to the chorus.
In other words, when you鈥檝e only got three minutes to work with, you鈥檝e got to get right to the point. And that鈥檚 what more than 40 graduate students did last Thursday at the preliminary heats for Dal鈥檚 Three-Minute Thesis competition.
Each year, masters and PhD students across the university are invited to take part in the Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition as a chance to develop their communications skills. The format, founded by the University of Queensland, is simple: a research presentation, in three minutes or less, with a single static PowerPoint slide and no additional electronic media or props. The judges rate the presentations not on the research itself, but on how well the students communicate their work to a general audience.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 a real challenge to take complex research and methodology and boil it down into a three-minute nugget,鈥� said Marty Leonard, dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, in her introduction to the day鈥檚 first heat. 鈥淲hen I was a grad student, I don鈥檛 know if I would have had the guts to do it.鈥�
Concise insights
Student Tim Cashion, who鈥檚 working on his masters degree in Environmental Studies, presented his research into the environment and ecological impacts of using fish-based feed in aquaculture.
鈥淚 heard some other people in my department do the competition last year, and I was interested in another venue to present my work,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all about the challenge of putting it into three minutes.鈥�
Justine McMillan, who won the day鈥檚 first heat, is a PhD student in Oceanography. Her project 鈥� 鈥淔low and Turbulence in Tidal Channels with Implications for In-Stream Tidal Power Development鈥� 鈥� is about providing better data on ocean turbulence to inform development of tidal power turbines on the ocean floor.
鈥淚 did [the competition] two years ago, and I thought it was a good exercise to try and summarize all the work you do in three minutes,鈥� said McMillan (left). 鈥淚 also think that as a grad student, you really need to develop your communications skills. So the more often you get up and present to different audiences, the better.鈥�
The second heat of the day was won by Animal Science (Agriculture) masters student Xujie Li, whose project is titled 鈥淗atching Egg Sanitation for Improvement of Storage, Hatchability and Chick Performance.鈥�
鈥淔or me, the thing is how to conduct a story to attract people鈥檚 attention to my project,鈥� he says, noting that his topic 鈥� better ways of ensuring disease-free chickens 鈥� isn鈥檛 something people might think of in their day-to-day lives. 鈥淚 really want to make those connections.鈥�
Learning about the university
Throughout the day, faculty and students filtered through the room to cheer on their peers. In some cases, entire classes of students came to be part of the experience. Anna Maier, an instructor for one of Dal's English for Academic Purposes Courses, brought her class of international students.
"It is important for them to have as many different academic listening opportunities, inside and outside of the classroom, as possible," she says. "Not only did it give them the opportunity to listen to a variety of topics, it also allowed them to get a glimpse of some of the remarkable research which is going on here at Dal."
The attendees weren鈥檛 the only ones who saw the competition as a fun way to learn about H漫画 research. The 3MT judges agreed.
鈥淚t鈥檚 so interesting to learn about everything,鈥� said Dan Kelley, graduate coordinator in the Department of Oceanography who judged the day鈥檚 first three heats. 鈥淪tudents get the same experience: we鈥檝e had students in our department who鈥檝e done [the competition] and they come back raving about the talks they got to see. It鈥檚 wonderful for everyone.鈥�
All three of the judges for the morning rounds agreed that being able to explain research succinctly is important skill for researchers at all stages of their career.
鈥淚 think all of us have to be able to explain our work in three minutes, or 30 minutes, or 300 pages, or three lines,鈥� said Martha Radice, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology. 鈥淏eing able to scale the language of the research up and down to different levels is a really crucial skill to have.鈥�
鈥淥ne of my professors in my PhD said that the most important version of your thesis is the Quirks and Quarks version,鈥� said Janice Moreside, assistant professor in Kinesiology, referring to the popular CBC radio program. 鈥淵ou should be able to go on the radio and tell Canada about it.鈥�
Ready for the finals
Now, the seven finalists from last week鈥檚 heats prepare to face off. The students will present their research Thursday night at 7 p.m. in room 1016 of the Rowe Building. The winner will receive a $1,000 scholarship, with $500 and $250 scholarships available for second and third place respectively.
In addition to Justine MacMillan and Xujie Li, the other finalists competing on Thursday are:
- Kristina Keilty (Environmental Studies masters): 鈥淯nderstanding Energy Landscape Values and Baselines of Acceptability on the Mactaquac Dam Headpond, New Brunswick鈥�
- William Burt (Oceanography PhD): 鈥淭he Use of Radium Isotopes to Investigate Boundary Exchanges in Coastal Ocean Systems鈥�
- Kala Hirtle (English PhD): 鈥淎ltered States of Consciousness: Gender, Nineteenth-Century Medical Discourse and Gothic Literature鈥�
- Peter Baumeister (Cardiovascular Physiology and Biophysics masters): 鈥淕etting Pumped on Heart Disease: The Loaded Truth H漫画 Cardiac Mechanical Dysfunction During Acute Regional Ischemia鈥�
- Elizabeth Croteau (Industrial Engineering masters): 鈥淎n Event-Based Model for Scheduling of Aircraft Heavy Maintenance Tasks鈥�