Selecting and developing the Research Topic 3 | Student Study Abroad Australia

Selecting and Developing The Research Topic

Participating in discussions

As we saw in the previous chapter, tutorials and seminars are regarded by supervisors as valuable opportunities for developing your critical abilities as well as extending your knowledge. Many of the problems overseas students face in public discussions, and the , trategies for dealing with them, are common at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Therefore before you read any further, turn back to Chapter 6 and read the section `Tutorials and laboratory sessions'. The strategies for participating in formal

Discussion which are described there - some preparatory comments, conducting `unofficial' tutorial, etc . - may be of assistance to you in postgraduate seminars.

There are two other strategies which postgraduates say they have found useful:

A. Attend as many seminars as possible in the first year of your degree programme, even seminars outside your own department and special area of interest. These can all add your ex perience even if you do not have the confidence to participate at first. You can still learn a lot merely by observing when and how other participants intervene in order to task question: how do they make critical comments? how do they attack and defend arguments? what special phrases do they use to show respect and politeness even when they are voicing dis agreement? how do they signal to the seminar leader or chair man that they wish to ask a question or make a point?

B. Practise in a systematic way some of these oral skills of ex planation, questioning, attack and defence. Use some of the special phrases you have heard; try to recall some of the signal people used to attract attention. At first you may only be able to do this in the privacy of your own room, rehearsing what you might have said in answer to a question or point of criticism. It can be useful to write out some question, o r your defence of an argument, and read this aloud, and then try to repeat it without referring to the paper.

As you build up confidence and fluency, look for informal situations in which you can test your ideas - with other students, maybe, or with your supervisor. (Here you have a real advantage over undergraduates learning to take part in tutorials: whereas they are beginners in their discipline and have to worry whether their ideas may seem foolish, you are already reasonably expert in your knowledge of your discipline.)

Out of all this informal training will eventually come the confidence to participate in public discussions. That moment marks an im portant development in your training. Listen to how one supervisor describes this step: