Getting Ready for the Defense

I met with Tony, my advisor, today to discuss his expectations of candidates and of dissertation defenses. He told me that he'd like me to keep my speech at the beginning short (not much over 5 minutes) and to try and provide some details about what I learned from the study, both in terms of results and what I learned as a researcher, and to focus on things the committee does not already know. He pointed out that committee members have already read the dissertation and don't really need a summary before they ask questions.