4 ms·

I'm an academic and attend conferences maybe 3-4 times year, as well as lecturing. I see a lot of bad talks. Point one is crucial for me. I'll go over the actua

by nagrom 13y ago

I'm an academic and attend conferences maybe 3-4 times year, as well as lecturing. I see a lot of bad talks. Point one is crucial for me. I'll go over the actual talk or lecture 5-10 times beforehand, more if I'm nervous for whatever reason. It can help to have a live audience for your practice talk, but it's not necessary. Saying the words out loud lets you know exactly how long the talk is, and where your intended flow breaks down and what you need to fix. You'll likely speak faster on the day, but your guide this way is much better than even thinking-through the talk and producing slides. The difference between a talk that is well practised and a talk that has not been practised can be the difference between engaging follow-on discussions and the audience falling asleep. It can be the difference between an invitation every year and never being invited to participate again. I partially disagree with the last part about having a structure though. If you are talking for an hour or more, letting the audience know when there will be a natural break in the talk can be useful; if you know which pieces of the talk will be most interesting, you can save your best attention for those. Everyone needs a break from the concentration of listening well and deliberately building a break into the middle of the lecture can work even better. If you're only talking for 15 minutes then I agree that a ToC is pointless. I always flag where I'm going beforehand verbally though. I tend to summarise with three major things that should be taken from the talk body; maybe I'll bring in three key slides at the end copied from the talk body depending on the talk. At the end I want everyone to know what I consider to be the most important parts of the talk.

saraid216 13y ago
> I always flag where I'm going beforehand verbally though. This is absolutely fine. "Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em; tell 'em; tell 'em what you just told 'em." is a legitimate principle. But it's one of the pieces of advice that's often over-applied: you should only do it when a deep dive happens.
btilly 13y ago
I personally find that I talk substantially faster in front of an audience than in private. Therefore if I practice for myself, I do not get a sense of how fast I'll actually be.
- saraid216 13y ago
  This is fairly a widespread and well-known phenomenon. I'd suggest that you start timing the difference and tack on the appropriate multiplier.
  - mgkimsal 13y ago
    I got told years ago to practice talking in front of an audience of stuffed animals. Practice making eye contact with them, etc. and pace your timing as if they were real people. As corny as it is, it's helped me.

by nagrom 13y ago

saraid216 13y ago

> I always flag where I'm going beforehand verbally though. This is absolutely fine. "Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em; tell 'em; tell 'em what you just told 'em." is a legitimate principle. But it's one of the pieces of advice that's often over-applied: you should only do it when a deep dive happens.

btilly 13y ago

I personally find that I talk substantially faster in front of an audience than in private. Therefore if I practice for myself, I do not get a sense of how fast I'll actually be.

saraid216 13y ago
This is fairly a widespread and well-known phenomenon. I'd suggest that you start timing the difference and tack on the appropriate multiplier.
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  I got told years ago to practice talking in front of an audience of stuffed animals. Practice making eye contact with them, etc. and pace your timing as if they were real people. As corny as it is, it's helped me.