Pre-defense of the dissertation at the department

The final stage of postgraduate training is pre-defense to determine its readiness for official defense. It should be noted that there is no officially recognized term pre-defense of a dissertation. This term refers to the discussion of the dissertation work of postgraduate students of the department and applicants attached to it. This applies to both candidate and doctoral dissertations.
After discussing the work, the department gives a conclusion, the execution of which is regulated by the Higher Attestation Commission and which can be considered a kind of admission to the official defense in the dissent council. In academia, this procedure is often referred to as the defense dress rehearsal. Therefore, how the pre-defense of the dissertation goes, largely depends on how successful the defense will be at the council.

Preparing for pre-defense

Thesis requirements

When discussing, not only the content of the text of the work itself is important, but also its design in accordance with the rules of the state standard and the requirements of the Higher Attestation Commission. This applies to text, tables, diagrams, figures, as well as correctly formatted and verified references to cited sources and lists of references. Given that in recent years, special attention has been paid to the citation index as one of the main indicators of the scientific qualifications of a scientist, a well-formed bibliography in the dissertation work is given great attention.
How many copies of the manuscript will be required for pre-defense, it is desirable to agree with the head of the department. It is necessary to prepare a good abstract, according to the content of which you can get a correct idea of ​​​​the work as a whole. Moreover, most of the members of the department will prefer to use an abstract to get acquainted with the work. Writing an abstract is not an easy task and should not be put off until later. Before reproducing it in paper form, as required by the rules, and for pre-defense it is necessary to provide the audience with a sufficient number of copies, it is advisable to distribute it to colleagues, acquaintances and friends in order to listen to their opinion.

Requirements for the list of publications

The published works of the applicant play an important role. The list of scientific articles with imprint is signed by the supervisor. The articles reflect the main content of dissertation research. It is better to publish these articles with the sole authorship of a graduate student, because this work, by definition, should be independent.

It would be nice if they were published not only in journals from the VAK List, but also had a good impact factor, which not all VAK journals can boast of. But articles in the journals Scopus and Web of Science will give additional weight to the scientific work submitted for defense.
Be sure to note that we are talking about already published works. Those works that are planned for publication or signed for publication, but have not yet seen the light, are not taken into account. Scientific publications do not include newspaper articles and articles in popular science magazines.

Participation in scientific conferences

For many years there has been a discussion about whether or not to consider abstracts of scientific conferences as publications. The majority of dissertations in their practice adhere to the rule not to consider the above-mentioned theses sufficient for defense by publications. In other words, it is proposed to consider the abstracts of international and national scientific conferences as an additional factor in assessing the scientific activity of a graduate student. This also applies to research grants won. It will not be superfluous to have a certificate in any form from a commercial or government structure, confirming the practical or scientific value of the work.

Pre-defense of a candidate’s dissertation requires a certificate of passing the exams of the candidate’s minimum. Without it, the conclusion will not meet the requirements of the Higher Attestation Commission.

Pre-defense procedure

Supervisor and reviewers

In carrying out such an important event as the pre-defense of a candidate’s dissertation at the department, the role of the supervisor should be noted. He knows the faculty of the department well, he is known to the scientific community and his task is to introduce his graduate student to this community. He is also responsible for its successful defense.
When the material is properly prepared, it is necessary, together with the supervisor, to take care of the selection of smart positive reviewers. Their task should not be to give just a positive review, as a formal reply, to provide real assistance in the possible improvement of the dissertation work. Reviewers are usually employees of the department with a degree in the dissertation profile. It is possible to attract as reviewers-specialists from third-party organizations that have printed works in this scientific direction. The reviewer must check the manuscript for possible plagiarism and reflect the result in the submitted review.

Discussion of the dissertation

Discussion of the dissertation is chaired by the head of the department. The review begins with a speech by a graduate student, in which he sets out the provisions of his dissertation research, the results and conclusions obtained, their practical and scientific value.
After that, the supervisor speaks, who evaluates the scientific work done by the graduate student, characterizes his work during the period of study in graduate school, notes his participation in the scientific and methodological work of the department and evaluates the teaching experience gained by the graduate student. The adopted conclusion should reflect the author’s personal contribution to the presented work, novelty, practical applicability and scientific value of the dissertation conclusions. In particular, this also applies to those articles that were published in journals.
In the speeches of the reviewers, an assessment of the dissertation work is given, advantages and disadvantages are given, the presence or absence of compliance with the requirements of the Higher Attestation Commission is indicated. Then the floor is given to the dissertator to answer the speeches of the reviewers.

Formatting the conclusion

At the end of the discussion, one of the following decisions is made: recommend for defense, recommend taking into account the comments made, do not recommend due to the presence of significant shortcomings.

The following items must be reflected in the text of the conclusion for each decision made:

• relevance of the topic;
• dissertation contribution;
• relevance of research;
• proof of conclusions;
• novelty of the obtained results;
• the practical value of the work;
• list of dissertator’s publications.

The above decisions are made by voting if the majority of the meeting participants voted for it.
The final document on pre-defense contains the following information: persons present at the discussion; surname, acting applicant; topic of work and specialty code; the content of the postgraduate student’s speech in the thesis form; questions asked during the discussion; the main content of the speeches of the reviewers; manager’s feedback. Based on the results of the pre-defense, the dissertation is recommended for defense in the specified specialty.

Having such a recommendation in hand, a graduate student has the right to defend himself both in the dissent council of this institute, and in any other council for the specified specialty, based on the decision of the Higher Attestation Commission.