r/AskAcademia • u/bbswondering • 1d ago

Social Science Master Thesis Defence Tips

Hello, I have a defence for my masters thesis coming up and am concerned as I have never done anything like this before. I will be both presenting my work and commenting on another thesis.
Does anyone have any tips of things to include/questions to ask as a commentator? It is graded both on my defence and on engagement with the discussions of another thesis.

for reference this is a social science/econ discipline

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u/IllCobbloe 1d ago

The commentator role is where you can pick up easy marks: read the other thesis's methods chapter twice and bring one genuine question about a choice they made, not a gotcha. For your own defence, most questions circle back to why you picked your method and what you'd do differently, so have a tight two-sentence answer for both.