Three-minute thesis presentations: simplification and engagement strategies

The Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) presentation has appeared as a new genre to meet the changing needs of graduate students in the academic world. Although some research is available on the generic structure and strategies characteristic of this genre, a comprehensive and in-depth account of this genre i...

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Main Author: Kathpalia, Sujata S.
Other Authors: School of Humanities
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/178987
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author Kathpalia, Sujata S.
author2 School of Humanities
author_facet School of Humanities
Kathpalia, Sujata S.
author_sort Kathpalia, Sujata S.
collection NTU
description The Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) presentation has appeared as a new genre to meet the changing needs of graduate students in the academic world. Although some research is available on the generic structure and strategies characteristic of this genre, a comprehensive and in-depth account of this genre is lacking. Therefore, the objective of this study is to provide a holistic analysis of the rhetorical structure and linguistic features of this genre using 25 recordings of 3MT presentations. The focus is on simplification and engagement strategies used by PhD students to target a nonspecialist audience and engage them to build rapport with them. The findings indicate that simplification is achieved by omitting conceptually complex moves, conflating moves for brevity and simplicity, and defining scientific terms and concepts. In addition, engagement strategies such as attention-getting, explanatory, interactive and personalised strategies are used to capture and maintain the attention of the audience. The findings show that 3MT presentations have evolved into a unique genre with distinct features through recontextualisation which involves both simplification and engagement, enabling PhD students to share and promote their own research simultaneously, with a non-specialist and disciplinarily heterogeneous audience.
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spelling ntu-10356/1789872024-07-20T16:56:22Z Three-minute thesis presentations: simplification and engagement strategies Kathpalia, Sujata S. School of Humanities Language and Communication Centre Arts and Humanities Linguistic features Rhetorical structure The Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) presentation has appeared as a new genre to meet the changing needs of graduate students in the academic world. Although some research is available on the generic structure and strategies characteristic of this genre, a comprehensive and in-depth account of this genre is lacking. Therefore, the objective of this study is to provide a holistic analysis of the rhetorical structure and linguistic features of this genre using 25 recordings of 3MT presentations. The focus is on simplification and engagement strategies used by PhD students to target a nonspecialist audience and engage them to build rapport with them. The findings indicate that simplification is achieved by omitting conceptually complex moves, conflating moves for brevity and simplicity, and defining scientific terms and concepts. In addition, engagement strategies such as attention-getting, explanatory, interactive and personalised strategies are used to capture and maintain the attention of the audience. The findings show that 3MT presentations have evolved into a unique genre with distinct features through recontextualisation which involves both simplification and engagement, enabling PhD students to share and promote their own research simultaneously, with a non-specialist and disciplinarily heterogeneous audience. Published version 2024-07-15T06:46:30Z 2024-07-15T06:46:30Z 2024 Journal Article Kathpalia, S. S. (2024). Three-minute thesis presentations: simplification and engagement strategies. ESP Today, 12(2), 196-220. https://dx.doi.org/10.18485/ESPTODAY.2024.12.2.1 2334-9050 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/178987 10.18485/ESPTODAY.2024.12.2.1 2-s2.0-85195419869 2 12 196 220 en ESP Today © The Author(s). Published by University of Belgrade and the Serbian Association for the Study of English (SASE). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License. application/pdf
spellingShingle Arts and Humanities
Linguistic features
Rhetorical structure
Kathpalia, Sujata S.
Three-minute thesis presentations: simplification and engagement strategies
title Three-minute thesis presentations: simplification and engagement strategies
title_full Three-minute thesis presentations: simplification and engagement strategies
title_fullStr Three-minute thesis presentations: simplification and engagement strategies
title_full_unstemmed Three-minute thesis presentations: simplification and engagement strategies
title_short Three-minute thesis presentations: simplification and engagement strategies
title_sort three minute thesis presentations simplification and engagement strategies
topic Arts and Humanities
Linguistic features
Rhetorical structure
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/178987
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