Lennart Nacke, PhD

How to Thrive in Academia: The 5F Framework My 5F approach will help you break free, amplify your impact, and build the academic career you deserve.

If you stopped chasing journal acceptances for six months,
what would you build instead?

Read more about my 5F framework for this here:
lennartnacke.com/how-to-thri...

Stop letting publish or perish run your life!

If the treadmill feels like it’s on max speed,
maybe it’s time to step off.

Publications matter!
But they aren’t the only currency in academia.

Your funding, network, visibility, and reputation?

Those can move your career forward just as fast.

Found this helpful?

→ Follow me to become a smarter researcher
→ Repost to help anxious Master's students
→ Reply with your biggest fear. I'll address it

If you made it to the defence, you've already done the hard part.

TL;DR: Your Master's defence success formula:

• Focus on defending choices, not memorizing content
• Prepare for questions more than presentation
• Use visuals to simplify complex ideas
• Acknowledge limitations confidently
• Know your defence format
• Rest before the big day

You got this!

Two days before your viva:

Day 1: Run through presentation 3x

Morning: Full presentation run-through
Afternoon: Practice Q&A with friend
Evening: Review weak points

Day 2: Rest

• Good sleep
• Light review only
• Trust your preparation

If you're rested, you're ready.

Know your formats (the most common):

Closed (committee only):

→ Prepare for specialized questions
→ Go deeper on methodology
→ Include technical details

Open (with audience):

→ Bridge lay and expert understanding
→ Save technical depth for Q&A
→ Simplify early slides

One graph > 1000 words

Your examiners are tired academics who've read dozens of theses.
(Worst case: They haven't had coffee.)

Make their life easy:

• Big fonts (24pt minimum)
• High contrast colors
• One point per slide
• Clear labels

A clear idea has power.
A complex one has problems.

If you don't know something, say:

"That's an excellent point I hadn't considered. Based on my current understanding, I would hypothesize that... {and go to town here}
But I'd need to investigate further."

Shows:

✓ Intellectual honesty
✓ Academic mindset
✓ Critical thinking

Boom.

Examiners ask 5 types of questions:

1. Clarification (explain X better)
2. Justification (why did you choose Y?)
3. Extension (what if Z happened?)
4. Connection (how does this relate to...)
5. Challenge (I disagree because...)

Prepare 2 examples of each.

Get ready to go to battle.

Every thesis has limitations.

Don't hide them.
Feature them.

"While sample size was limited to 50 participants, this allowed for deeper qualitative analysis that revealed patterns impossible to detect in larger studies."

Acknowledge → Reframe → Strengthen

Stop cramming everything into your presentation.

Focus on the narrative arc:

1. Context (Why this matters)
2. Problem/Gap (What's missing/unexplained)
3. Method (How you filled/explained it)
4. Findings (What you discovered)
5. Impact (Why it changes things)

One story, not 100 details.
Simple.

Yet 90% of students spend all their time perfecting slides.
But zero time preparing for questions.

Big mistake.

I got a playbook for that right here: newsletter.nacke.ca/phdguide

Master's defences typically follow the 20-30-10 rule:

20-30 min: Your presentation
30-40 min: Q&A discussion
10 min: Deliberation

Your examiners already read your thesis.

They're not testing your memory.

They're testing your ability to:

→ Handle intellectual challenges gracefully
→ Synthesize complex ideas quickly
→ Show academic maturity

This changes everything about preparation.

Your viva isn't about memorizing your thesis. 👀

It's about demonstrating three things:

1. You understand your research deeply
2. You can defend your choices confidently
3. You can think critically under pressure

Most students focus on 1 and ignore 2 and 3.

After 15 years in academia, I'll tell you in 30 seconds:

1. Perfect presentations don't pass vivas.
(Confident discussions do.)
2. Your weaknesses are actually opportunities
(to show academic maturity)

Here's the viva slide playbook that works every time:

#phdsky #academicsky #researchsky

How to use writing registers Go from casual chats to brain-melting jargon, learn how to chat up every audience with this simple guide to the four writing registers.

Everything your mom never told you about writing registers is available for free here:

lennartnacke.com/4-writing-r...

They don’t want every method detail.
They want to know why it matters and what’s surprising.

Shift your register.

Cut jargon.
Add stories.

Give them a reason to care before you give them a reason to believe.

Ever sat through a talk that sounded like someone was reading a PDF?

You wrote your conference talk like a journal paper.

That’s the trap.

You didn't use the right register.

A journal manuscript is
Conventional: precise, technical, objective.

But a conference audience needs
Popular: clear, engaging, relatable.

Why Your AI Prompts Suck (And 10 Rules to Fix Them) These simple changes transformed my LLM results from garbage to genius.

Learn how to prompt with my FREE guide here:

lennartnacke.com/why-your-ai...

Your first draft of a paper isn't your final draft.

Your first AI prompt shouldn't be your final prompt either.

Build on each response:

"That's helpful. Now focus specifically on pedagogical challenges."

"Good. Now rank these by frequency in the text."

Iteration is intelligence.

How to use writing registers Go from casual chats to brain-melting jargon, learn how to chat up every audience with this simple guide to the four writing registers.

If you only use one register, you lose everyone who doesn’t live there.

Everything your mom never told you about writing registers is available for free here:

lennartnacke.com/4-writing-r...

Informal:
For people who know you.
Contractions, personality, fast.

Popular:
For people curious but outside your field.
Clarity over jargon.

Conventional:
For scholarly gatekeepers.
Precision, citations.

Abstract:
For the few who live in theory.
Total precision.

When to translate for the public,
When to go full academic,

When to sharpen every word into logic.

Here’s the shortcut:

One voice is killing your writing.

Most academics spend 30 years writing in one voice.

They can explain a theory in peer-reviewed perfection but freeze when asked to make it understandable to their neighbour.

That’s a problem.

The best communicators shift gears.
They know when to write casually,

How To Reclaim Your Free Time AND Become a More Productive Academic Writer Struggling to balance writing with having a life? These 5 strategies will help you write more without sacrificing your sanity.

When you need to start a new paper or grant,
you'll have a vault of refined thoughts, Fallout Boy.

And they're ready to deploy.

Reclaim your free time and become a more productive writer here:

lennartnacke.substack.com/p/how-to-re...

Your lab notebook tracks your experiments.
Your writing notebook tracks your thinking.

Keep them both.

When you have a new idea from a seminar:
Write it down.

Not as a bullet point,
But as structured prose.

#acwri #academicsky #phdsky

Why Your AI Prompts Suck (And 10 Rules to Fix Them) These simple changes transformed my LLM results from garbage to genius.

Learn how to prompt with my FREE guide here:

lennartnacke.com/why-your-ai...

"I'm studying digital literacy interventions in K-12 education. Help me code these teacher interviews about technology barriers."

Now your AI understands:

→ Your data type
→ Your focus
→ Your field
→ Your goal

Context creates relevance.

#ai #phdsky

Why Early Career Researchers Can't Say No (And How To Fix It) Saying yes is killing your research career...

Don't say no to a comment though. Everyone likes those, especially if you handwrite them.

Share your stories.
Would love to hear them.

Find out more about why early-career researchers can't say not and how to fix it:
lennartnacke.com/why-early-c...