What your Advisor Says:             What You Advisor Means:
    ----------------------              ----------------------
1.  Look on this as a learning          You're going to suffer.
    experience.
2.  Let me explain the format of        Let me make you even more nervous. 
    the defense.
3.  I'm here to lend you support.       I'm here to destroy you so you won't
                                        look smarter than me.
4.  I found the overall concept         This is my token compliment before 
    interesting.                        ripping your ideas to shred.
5.  I would like to have had more       I didn't read it. 
    to study this [your work].
6.  I have some concerns about the      I hate the theory but I can't insult 
    theory upon which your study is     the author so I'll insult your work
    based.                              instead.
7.  There are some aspects of the       I read it, but I just don't remember
    study I would like to hear more     anything about it.
    about.
8.  Your hypotheses are not strongly    You came up with an innovative idea and
    enough linked to the existing       I want to make sure you never do it
    literature.                         again.
9.  Your research is an interesting     Why didn't I think of this before you
    extension of my own work.           did ??
10. You have failed to take into        You failed to cite me.
    account some of the more relevant
    literature.
11. I would like you to explain.....    I don't know anything about this stuff
                                        so you'll have to explain it to me.
12. Your statistical results don't      I don't understand statistics.
    seem to support your hypotheses.
13. Your selection of statistical       I'm the only one here that understands
    tests is rather simplistic.         statistics and I wanted to rub it in.
14. How did you ensure that you had     I had to come up with at least one
    drawn a random sample ?             question and this one always works.
15. Let's wrap this up.                 I'm hungry.
16. [at the end of the defense] 
    Could you step out of the room      We decided beforehand to give you your
    while the committee comes to a      degree, but we still wanted to make you
    decision ?                          sweat.
17. You don't need to worry about       With 75% "F" rate, outcome is not hard 
    your qualifying examination.        to guess.
18. You need to include two other       Let my hatchet men/women in or else...
    faculty members in your committee.
19. This looks like publishable work.   Now I can get two-three papers out in 
                                        my own name.
20. How is the research going ?         What's up, "doc"?