Pitching your thesis

Just watched a Ted Talk by David S Rose on producing a business pitch. Thought I could apply it to writing my thesis introduction.

So the intro should start like a rocket, grabbing readers’ attention, and then it should take a solid, steady upward path.

Start with a title, and then an attention-grabbing introduction. Give a quick overview of the thesis. Like the picture on a jigsaw box, this should help people make sense of the elements to come.

Explain how this is interesting to lots of people – in my case that is how is this interesting to educational researchers and educational practitioners. Give an example. Show how this work can be taken forward and who would be interested in taking it forward.

Then validate it in terms of others, so fit it into the literature and what others have done. Reference things that the audience can relate to. This provides validation becuase the audience sees that things they have already accepted as reliable tie in with what you are saying. Explain what the competition is and why your work is special.

Then move to the conclusion, which is interesting and exciting.

Along the way: don’t include anything that isn’t true, don’t interrupt your audience’s flow by including anything they don’t understand, don’t have any internal inconsistencies and don’t include typos, error or stupid mistakes.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *