Looking first at the presentation aspect, let’s focus on the background section of my defense presentation, the parts that lead up to the results and conclusion. Given half and hour, my goal was to present a summary of my research journey. The audience was primarily my committee of five professors, all of whom familiar with my dissertation. The sequence is presented linearly from general to specific: I started at the anthropological question I had, then a description of the theories underlying research in this question, then my hypotheses given what previous research suggested, followed by the geographic region I studied, and lastly the indicators of health I used to to test the hypotheses.

{The first slides of my defense presentation. Click to enlarge.}

This presents one possible logical flow of information. However, I found that this sequence did not work for my next presentation. One of my advisors suggested that the MCAAAE attendees would better appreciate a talk that focused on the health indicators, since the audience was more familiar with the underlying archaeological theory but did not know as much as I did about the use of health indicators in bioarchaeology. Examining the defense presentation, it was clear to me that the old order of information would not work for such an audience. I would break their train of thought when I transitioned from bioarchaeology (something less familiar) to the Andean region (a much more familiar topic for this conference!) back to the health indicators (another less familiar topic). Also, the two less-familiar topics are related. I chose to reorder the slides so the health indicators are described after the general description of bioarchaeology, and before the section about the Andean region.

{First slides in my MCAAAE presentation. Click to enlarge.}

This sequence would put the less-familiar topics together so, combined, they help clarify each other, and then head into a less involved section so the audience can digest the new information. I also changed the background so people who saw the defense presentation would not be staring at the exact same slides.

Long story short, the presentation was a success and I received several comments that my talk was easy to follow and kept their interest. Success!

I encountered the same type of decision making as I was working on comic pages. In the pages I was working on at the time, Keeley is involved in a chase scene with a villain. Keeley’s car is sent careening down and offramp, where it rolls to a stop in a field in the middle of St. Louis (which totally exists in real life!). Keeley crawls out of her car and is confronted by the villain. In the section I’m focusing on in this post, Keeley gets the upper hand and runs across the field, with the villain restarting the pursuit. I knew this sequence of events of course, but looking at the actual page of drawings, the panels are not clear:

Original version of Keeley #4, page 10.

In the fourth panel (the wide one at mid-page), Keeley is hitting the villain with her backpack and by the next panel, Keeley is several yards away and the villain is on her motorcycle. So what happened in between? The most reasonable assumption, and the right one, is that Keeley took off running while the villain got back on her motorcycle. But, for the reader, there are many other possibilities. Did she walk, run, limp, or do a backflip to her bike? Also, what happened to the guns the villain was holding? Without limiting these subtle but meaningful possibilities, the reader has to stop to consider the sequence of events and leaves the story (Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics and Creating Comics have good sections about panel sequencing and reader interpretation).

On viewing the page as a whole, I decided it did not work. I had to change the page to make the sequence of events more explicit in showing what I had in mind. The following shows the final layout of page 10, in progress with flat colors but no shading or lettering:

{Final layout of page 10, with flat colors.}

At the bottom row of the page, I added two small panels to show what happens in between the two original panels. In one, there is a closeup of Keeley running, with her saying something about her plan to get back on the freeway. In the second panel, the villain is shown stumbling to her motorcycle (a side-detail for the observant is that she is opening one of her motorcycle’s storage boxes to put one of her guns away to explain her pose in the next panel). This version, to me as I consider the audience, is a lot more clear and keeps the reader in the flow of events in this fast paced scene.

I enjoyed how two aspects of my life had the same lesson to teach me. As I worked on both presentation-making and comic-making in the past weeks, they really helped each other develop into something better than if I had worked on one exclusively. Both activities are continuing: I have to make a presentation for the SAA meeting in a few weeks, tailoring my talk to another type of audience, and hopefully I’ll have several pages of Keeley comics to show here when I finish coloring page ten.

The night before my dissertation defense, I posted on Twitter and Facebook that trying to sleep would be interesting. The outpouring of support I got on Facebook in response to my message was very heartwarming. I’m so glad that the department subculture is mostly one of community and cooperation. The students we have right now are a great bunch and they go out of their way to help each other. Thinking back, it’s amazing how a few horrible people really spoiled the barrel, but they’re gone now and forgotten.

After reading the messages that came in, I did get around five hours of sleep, non-continuous. I was up by 7:30. My roommate actually took time off from work to make me an omelette and wish me well! He had also made cookies for me a few nights prior. He’s basically awesome. I finished the wonderful breakfast, downed a 5 Hour Energy Drink, and headed off at around 8:40.

As I arrived at the department, I was told that I would be using the larger (though still relatively small) classroom in the building. Before, I was told that I would be in the tiny side office. Also, I’ll be breaking in the new projector that was installed over Winter Break! I was a little nervous since changes in venue and technology are not good things ten minutes prior to a talk, but both elements worked out fine in the end.

With minutes to the start of my talk, I felt really barfy. I tried walking it off by going to the museum. I didn’t feel any better physically, but chatting with the museum people made me feel a little better mentally. By the time I walked back to the classroom, my entire committee was there and it was time to start. Jess had also brought in coffee cake. I had a six-pack of bottled water ready (“Dissertation Defense Size”).

For my talk I had Keynote run with a presenter’s display on my MacBook Pro’s screen while the presentation was projected on the big screen. The preview of the next slide (or animation), the timer, and the notes made giving the talk very easy. During rehearsals I didn’t have the presenter’s display so I had a lot of the talk memorized anyway. Eyeing the timer, I could speed up or slow down as I saw fit. I ended the talk at 30 minutes and 45 seconds or so, which was perfect. I also noticed that I felt considerably better towards the end of my talk. During the public Q&A section, Neil asked me something, possibly as revenge for when I asked something at his defense in November. His question, about the archaeological context of the site I studied, pretty much pointed out the major flaw of my study but I think I answered it well enough. After the lone question, the students were ushered out of the room for the confidential part of my defense. As a sign of things to come, I jokingly tried to sneak out with them.

So then it was just my committee and I. Overall I’m very happy with my defense. Everyone seemed to be involved in the process and had interesting things to say about my dissertation. Questions were all fair and insightful. The defense went as I have been told it should go: a conversation with professionals about my research. Of course, since I’ve never had conversations with so many professionals about my research, even that prospect worried me, but I found out that I can in fact talk anthropology with people far more seasoned than I.

I have to say that my defense was more lighthearted than I had imagined. In my mind I was toning down the humor since this is a serious event but, like acting like I was sneaking out of the room, I just had to have some fun. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one having a good time. Some of my committee joked amongst themselves in response to something someone else said. There were some laughs when talk of DNA analysis led to plans to clone someone from the skeletal collection. At one point, Neil brought in some coffee for everyone. After hearing one of the questions, I said “I’m going to drink my coffee and think of the answer,” and proceeded to take a few drinks as I fought for something intelligent to say. Later, after another question I was jokingly asked if I needed to sip my coffee again and think. “No, I got this one.”

I believe the questioning went for an hour and a half, though with everything going on my brain couldn’t make sense of the wall clock when I furtively glanced at it. At some organic point to wrap-up (I’m guessing), I was ushered out of the conference room so my committee could deliberate amongst themselves concerning my performance. Outside the room, I went back to the museum to decompress with the people there. I felt really good coming out and wasn’t worried at all by that point. A few students were around to see how I was doing. As we chatted, one of my advisors came out and congratulated me. I went back into the classroom and shook hands with everyone else. Success! I thanked everyone for being part of this process and we cleaned up the room.

I walked to the office to talk with the people there. Mary has been working there longer than I’ve been at MU and she gave me a big hug. I took a victory lap through the building before meeting up with my advisors for lunch again at the Heidelberg. After lunch I finally had the opportunity to call my family and send some messages online. Once again, I was so humbled by the responses I got on Facebook. Reading through the comments really made me appreciate all the people who have supported me in spirit or otherwise.

It’s been a few days since my defense and I don’t think what I accomplished has yet to sink in. Granted, I don’t technically have the degree yet. There are a few changes to make based on comments from my committee, and then there will be the final checks for formatting and so on, but the hardest parts by far are over. Hooray!

You are cordially invited to attend Keith Chan’s defense of his dissertation entitled “Life in the Late Intermediate Period at Armatambo, Peru” on Wednesday, January 19th at 9:30 am in 109 Swallow Hall. Public presentation of the dissertation will take place from 9:30 to 10:00 am. Committee members: Robert Benfer; Deborah Pearsall; Raymond Wood; Chris VanPool; and Edward Brent from Sociology.

Entire Document (Source: Me Counting)
Pages: 393
Chapters: 11
Appendices: 4
Figures: 79
Tables: 105
References: Did I say 615? I meant 642.
People Mentioned by Name in the Acknowledgements: 41

Entire Document (Source: Microsoft Word)
Pages: 392
Words: 76,511
Characters (no spaces): 419,701
Characters (with spaces): 491,128
Paragraphs: 5,881
Lines: 13,133

Just the Text (Source: textalyser.net)
Words (three letters or more): 31,473
Different Words: 5184
Complexity Factor (Lexical Density): 16.5%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index [6 = easy; 20 = hard]): 10.8
Average Syllables Per Word: 1.96
Sentence Count: 3757
Average Sentence Length: 15.08 words
Max Sentence Length: 60 words (“These variations on the method of using a strap around the head or body to secure a load on one’s back, documented in different periods of andean cultural history, are especially relevant to the dissertation because it was noted during data collection of the Armatambo skeletal population that degenerative joint disease was common in the sternum, clavicles, and ribs.”

Frequency and Top Words :

Word Length :

{From right to left: Printed dissertation, me, celebratory eggnog milkshake from Steak & Shake}

Danielle’s dissertation is on vole behavior, which is far more adorable than my topic. You can see her presentation here.

Oh, the now Dr. Lee also wrote great summaries of the dissertation defense process, and reflections on how it went. They’re definitely worth a read for those interested in how the system works.

Hmm I may reuse the title of this post for an archaeology-themed essay….

My page count actually shrank in the past few weeks. I broke 300 a month ago, but I dropped back after getting some feedback. My original Results chapter was 95 pages of exciting… graphs. And graphs. And charts. My advisor suggested that I only show the most interesting graphs, and shrink them. Apparently the 100% view in Pages does not offer the same readability as a printed copy. One Photoshop macro later and I have a pretty easy workflow to go from SPSS tiffs to shrunken gifs (to reduce file size). Redoing the charts and enhancing the statistical tests took three weeks or so, but the end product is a sleeker 55 pages of Results. My advisor has it right now. While I wait, I rather not go to the Discussion chapter in case some analyses could be further improved. Counting chicks before they’ve hatched, and all that.

I’ve also been talking to my peers about the general academic process. It turns out that only chumps buy their own overly-expensive statistical packages. One of my tasks now is to find a small grant that would buy one for me instead. A friend suggested Systat. While I’m good with SPSS, I also hate it, so it might be worth my time to invest in a different program.

That’s all in the realm of dissertation to report! Next… more anthropology in games.