After seeking inspiration and talking to others about your idea, it’s time to prepare a proper pitch.

The three questions-pitch

• Answer the following three questions about your (proposed) research.

  • (1) What’s new about it?**
    • E.g., new data? new variables? new method?
  • (2) Is it useful (and to whom?)
  • (3) Is it interesting?
    • Simply telling something everyone knows already isn’t interesting (known facts ≠ interesting)
    • Does it get people to say “oh, wow!", or “really? didn’t know!", or “Aha!"?
    • Would you get your friends excited about it?!

The Elevator pitch

• Imagine yourself going in the elevator and meeting a fellow student, who asks you to tell him/her what your MSc research is about…

• Have only 1-2 sentences, adhering to one of the following two structure:
  

  While …, our research shows that…
  Despite …, we find that…

Tip: Your pitch won’t be perfect at the first time – so practice it over and over again – until you really become enthusiastic about it!