In an earlier post, I listed suggestions for grad students too intimidated to ask questions in department seminars. Of course, I missed a target audience, the people who are overconfident questioners. To you, therefore, the strangely self-assured grad students out there, I devote this blog post.
1) Take a question-frequency cue from the size of the audience. 150-person conference? Asking a question after each and every talk is going to make you stand out, but maybe not in the way you hoped.
2) You cannot get away with asking questions the same way that National Academies faculty do. When Dr Professor Mega-Famous Who Wrote the Textbooks asks a question, he may preface it with, "I'm fairly ignorant about this field, but...." Dr PM-FWWT can say this with impunity for two reasons: (1) He actually knows everything under the sun, so the modesty is endearing; (2) He wrote the goddamn textbooks, and even if he's off base with one question, everyone will still respect him.
You do not have the same privileges. When you preface a question with, "This might be stupid, but...", everyone will immediately assume that the question will be stupid. People know from your age/status that you are not a giant in the field; if you apologize for it, you are wasting time reminding people of your ignorance. This is pointless, whether it is genuine or (please no) false modesty.
Dr PM-FWWT is also allowed to head off into abstruse, possibly irrelevant asides during her questions. Again, you, not so much. Avoid at all costs the following real-life examples:
--"And if you don't mind, I have a third follow-up question..."
--"The picture I got in my head from your talk was blurghy-de-blargh. Did I paint that picture myself, or did you paint it for me?"
--"I have a question about methods [that doesn't actually bear on any of the scientific issues, nor is it of interest to more than one other person in the room]."
--"Your work reminds me of elements of recursion just like in Godel, Escher, Bach."
In fact, most any references to Your Work As It Relates to Non-Scientific Literature will make you come across as an ostentatious twit. You are not in college bullshit sessions any longer.
3) If you fell asleep during any portion of the talk, you should not pipe up with a question. Again, you may well have watched Nobel prize winners snore through a talk, wake up and ask a surprisingly on-topic question. It is unwise to assume that you have their skills.
4) Leave the wiiiide open questions for Dr PM-FWWT. For example, after a talk introducing a new exciting technology, you should probably not ask, "What is this really going to be useful for?" You might try a narrower question, such as, "I can see the utility of this technology in This Field Aspect. Are there other applications as well?" That is, try to avoid questions that are so open-ended that they suggest you haven't thought about the talk at all.
5) If someone presents a seminar focused on a series of experiments showing that Phenomenon X is not due to Explanation Y, but instead Explanation Z, and your eager question is, "In your opinion, what is the best evidence that Phenomenon X is not due to Explanation Y?" you will really sound like a moron. I don't have a generalizable rule from this one, just a memory of one particular nitwit audience member.
Sadly, of course, no one who needs this advice is likely to be reading this blog.
Still, I feel much better for having gotten that all off my chest. I mean, Godel, Escher, Bach, really.
15 years ago
5 comments:
What about questions asked during a seminar? I feel that sometimes they are helpful for clarity, but if the speaker gets thrown off by them it can be a nightmare watching them try to recover...
Funny stuff. One thing that audience members of all career stages should keep in mind is the following: If you can't even figure out what the fuck the speaker is even trying to say, chances are you are not the only one. Under those circumstances, everyone will be grateful if you stop the fucker and say, "It sounds like you are saying, blah, blah, blah. Is that correct?"
If you are more senior, and/or confident that you are generally in the top echelon of getting what the fuck speakers are saying, then you can be all like, "I just want to make sure I understand what you are telling us."
Yeah, my rule of thumb for questions during a talk is that if I'm missing key piece of information that will be necessary to understand/believe the rest of the talk, I pipe up. Otherwise I save it til the end.
As for derailing the speaker, one of the characteristics of good speakers is that they can answer short questions without losing their focus--and they know when to say, "If you don't mind, I'll hold that question til the end."
As for derailing the speaker, one of the characteristics of good speakers is that they can answer short questions without losing their focus--and they know when to say, "If you don't mind, I'll hold that question til the end."
This is a defining characteristic not only of a good speaker, but a clear and robust thinker. Ay my institution, it is the norm that faculty job candidates get absolutely peppered with questions throughout their job talks, and dealing with this smoothly and successfully is a requirement for being a viable candidate.
When I gave my job talk here, I thought I had failed miserably, because I only got through about half my talk when the hour ran out. Turns out I did great, as we ended up having a real discussion.
Great post.
I witnessed a terminal postdoc (male) address a National Academy member (female) in the most unbelievably condescending (or should I say arrogant if he doesn't have a title?) way... it not only made me cringe, it made me wonder why she didn't throw something at him.
Incredible to me that people don't consider how they sound.
CPP- would love to know if you're one of the few actual discoursers (not really a word, but a lame reference to my own blog) out there?
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