How to give a Conference Presentation

Over on Twitter, Sørina requests suggestions for material about “how to give conference presentations”, which made me realize that I never wrote the round-up post from my initial forays into this world.

First, there are several things I learned the hard way from my physics career that apply just as well to literature:

1. Don’t talk about the research. Talk about why you were drawn to this question, and why the answer is so interesting to you. Enthusiasm is contagious. Sørina herself is really good at this.
2. Nobody ever walked out of a talk disgusted because it was too easy to understand.  The reaction you want from the audience is, “I knew all of that stuff — what a great talk!”
3. The parts of your research that took the most work are the most boring to listen to.  Polish them to a high gloss before you present them.  Make it look easy. As Castiglione said, “Practise in everything a certain nonchalance that shall conceal design and show that what is done and said is done without effort and almost without thought.”  [1] Michael Drout is awesome at this.

I’ve added since then a few more things to my list of reminders. They’re due more to the change of century than the change of discipline.

1. Find good talks and imitate their style.  When I was getting started, this one by Brenton Dickieson was an excellent model.
2. Don’t look at lectures by Olds.  I love lectures by venerable, distinguished scholars, but I mustn’t do that myself.  They earned the right to give those entertaining, discursive, highly-opinionated disquisitions with decades in the trenches. I’m still in the trenches. In literature, as in science, people will tell you when you’ve reached the heights from which a talk like that is welcome.  (The word “keynote” is frequently involved.)
3. “So what?” is the most important question. Make sure you know the answer to that question before you start writing. However, you are under no obligation to give the same answer when you’re done writing.

[1]  Yes, I tried to quote Baldessaro Castiglione to nuclear physicists. I didn’t end up as an Idiosopher by accident.