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In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
I’m giving my first conference talk this November (at the PPE society in NO) on a paper that I’m currently working to improve but which may, ultimately, be a dud. Any tips on giving a first talk in general or on giving a talk on a piece of work that may still have a long way to go before it’s any good?
Do readers have any helpful tips to share?
–Don’t read your paper aloud word for word. You may be tempted to do so if you’re nervous and it’s your first conference talk, because you’re worried about ‘messing up,’ but it’s almost always a recipe for making your talk boring and hard to follow. The vocal cadences of reading aloud are usually far different from those of conversational speech, and sentence structures that work on the page often don’t when delivered orally.
Would you teach a class by typing out a super-detailed script and reading it aloud? Instead, have a series of detailed notes you ‘talk through,’ and at points where the precise wording is super-important, e.g., you lay out some detailed technical thesis you are arguing for, you can have those in your notes word for word and read them aloud.
–Practice your talk several times before you deliver it, so you feel comfortable when you’re doing it for real. Best is if you have some colleagues sit in while you’re presenting your practice talk, so that it seems more realistic, and they can give you feedback afterwards.
–Make sure you don’t go over your allotted time. Nothing is more annoying than having a person delivering a paper, saying halfway through that “uh, we’re running out of time,” rushing through a couple more points in the next 10 to 15 minutes, and then stating “uh, I wasn’t able to get to points x y z, but maybe they’ll come up in the Q&A. Thank you.” (Actually, that’s false–many things are more annoying. But it’s still pretty annoying.) This is another reason to practice your talk beforehand.
–If you use PowerPoint, keep the text simple, large, and sparse. Walls of text simply distract the audience, as they try to read the tiny text at the same time as they’re listening to what you’re saying, and they do neither well.
–Keep in mind who your audience is and their background knowledge. If you’re presenting on some relatively niche topic, it can help–if your paper itself doesn’t already do this-to spend a minute or two at the start talking about some of the background to your paper. What larger debate is this a part of, why are people arguing about the question you’re addressing, etc.? Obviously, this depends on the audience–what I’d say in an ancient philosophy workshop might be different than what I’d say in a departmental colloquium that includes a bunch of non-specialists. But if you’re unsure, I think it’s better to err on the side of sketching out more background and spending more time motivating the paper, rather than less. Similarly, if your paper uses various jargon words, even if they’re well-known enough that you wouldn’t spell it out in a journal article, I’d explain what they mean for the sake of outsiders to this particular dispute.
–Have some water at hand to drink during the talk, and go to the bathroom beforehand. Wear comfortable shoes.
There was a Monty Python sketch about Napolean’s advice for those going into battle … most of it applies here: be sure to go to the toilet before; have something to eat before (but nothing too heavy) …
I present papers to audiences where there are often a lot of people who use English as a 2nd or 3rd language. I think in that situation it is better to use powerpoint, and to have some text on the slides. People may not understand your accent. Or you may speak too quickly.
Remember it is an opportunity to get some really good feedback. So have a notepad readdy to take notes so you do not have to remember all the comments, and so that you can collect your thoughts before answering questions.
I wonder what folks here think about being somewhat honest about your assessment of the state of the paper. I think if one can offer reasons for one’s hesitancy, showing why exactly one is unsure about the long-term future of the project, it can help prompt more helpful feedback. I also think intellectual honesty is something we should aim for. On the flip side, as an early-career person and a woman, I tend to be somewhat hesitant to offer caveats like ‘this is an early draft,’ ‘I’m really not sure about this point yet,’ etc., as I worry it can reinforce existing biases. Where I fall on this question tends to depend on the ‘vibe’ of the conference.
Also — I’ve been to the NOLA PPE twice, and while it can feel a bit more intimidating than standard philosophy conferences (more suits…), I’ve found the Q and A to be generally collegial. Most folks there use slides to present, though there are also folks who just use handouts, or both. Like Tim mentions, I’d air on the side of assuming that people don’t have much background knowledge on your topic.
I gave my first conference talk at the beginning of 2023, after avoiding submitting to anything for the first few years of grad school because I was anxious that I’d present a half-baked idea and someone would tear it down and make me look stupid. I got incredibly nervous for that talk. It went fine. Since then I’ve given a bunch more talks and they’ve all went fine too. Here are a few things I wish I had known before that first one…
About feeling like the paper needs improvements — that is normal for conference talks. You can’t submit published papers to conferences; all the talks are, at least in theory, on things that the speakers are looking for feedback on/want to improve.
My biggest piece of advice is: 1. Less is more. What are the most interesting things your paper says, and what are the clearest/most fun ways into it? Everything takes way more time than it seems like it will, and if you get bogged down in the details, you won’t get to everything. Also, the details are less interesting/harder to pay attention to than the big idea. Simplify/streamline wherever you can.
After that, I think — though this is easier said than done — just be confident. You’re sharing something that was interesting enough to be accepted, the audience came to the talk because they wanted to hear it. Don’t qualify everything you say or waste time anticipating niche objections. Don’t be over-defensive in the Q&A. If someone makes a good objection you haven’t thought of, it’s fine to start by saying “that’s an interesting objection, I haven’t thought of it. Here’s my initial inclination about how to respond.” Then no one will expect you to say something super deep.
P.S. About the worry that someone will tear down your paper and make it look stupid — you occasionally hear horror stories, but I have never seen someone do this successfully. I have seen a couple people attempt to do this on rare occasions, but they have most often been people who don’t know the norms of the profession yet — either very early grad students or non-academic community members. So the kinds of people who want to make you look bad are usually not the kinds of people who can actually succeed in making you look bad.
I agree with most of the advice already given, and I will add this: Especially since this is your first ever, don’t let the conference be the first time you give this presentation. Fellow students, professors, friends, even your cat in a pinch, will likely be willing to listen to you give your talk. Ask them in advance to look for two or three things that will help you improve. And practice by yourself before you do it in front of that small, friendly audience.
A great little book called Presentation Zen makes the point that presenters often conflate three purposes when making slides and they end up with a Frankenstein’s monster, a “slideument.” Avoid this and make three separate items: visual aids for the audience (slides with few words per page, relevant images); notes for the audience (if you really want to give them references or quotes); and speaker notes to remind yourself what to say (which you can do in Pp but that ties you to hiding behind your laptop and may be hard to read when standing/stressed).
As someone with bad eyesight, I advise using a bigger font for your notes to yourself than you use when typing a paper. Ditto for your slides, BTW, especially since you don’t know the size of the screen or the room before you get there: Many in the audience may have imperfect vision. White text on a simple black background is often perfect for a lit room.
Following Tim O’Keefe’s first point about not just reading your paper aloud: I find that, if one must read a paper, an underutilized option is to write a script and read off of that. The bad thing about presentations that are simply papers read aloud is, as Tim notes, that conversational language isn’t like written language. So, if you want to read off of something, write a script that is based on, but needn’t sound like, your paper, and that you write with the knowledge that it is a script to be read aloud. I find this to be useful as preparation for a talk anyway, even though I rarely read directly off of it.
Be enthusiastic, like you’re pumped and delighted to have all these smart people thinking about YOUR work! And like you’d want to chat about this stuff even if you didn’t have to.
Re OP and @ppegoer: I think there’s a way to navigate this.
Confidence is important. Don’t apologize for your paper or say that you think that it doesn’t work. The audience will believe you and will tune out.
But if you’re particularly concerned about a particular part of the paper, you can flag this in other ways. Maybe flag that argumentative move as a choice point that you’re still thinking about, and maybe flag it for discussion in the Q&A. And rather than just saying that you suspect that move doesn’t work, consider flagging why that move might not work, and spend a little bit of time exploring it.
Josh Parsons once listed a number of techniques here: https://dailynous.com/2015/06/19/dirty-tricks-for-seminars-and-talks-guest-post-by-josh-parsons/.
I had in my head that Parsons also listed my favorite strategy for shaky arguments, but it’s at least not explicit in the text: Do as ppegoer above suggests, but phrase it as a challenge for the audience, along the lines of “I’m trying to establish this step in the argument as valid, but I see the following problem: …”. That way, people in the audience can show off their skills by helping you instead of attacking the step.
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