

On Academic Talks: Memory and Fear - alexholehouse
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/900.html

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apu
In my (admittedly much shorter) career, I've found that there are essentially
2 axioms to giving good academic talks, and everything else can be derived
from them:

1\. Your talk is an advertisement for your work, not the work itself. Your
only goal is to convince people to read your paper. Once you realize that this
is what you're doing, you can derive several more specific rules like "not too
much math", "skip the details", "visual slides are better", "make sure there's
enough motivation for them to care", "make sure non-experts can follow along",
etc. As an advertiser, you are fighting for people's attention, not their full
acceptance (yet).

2\. Most people respond best to (and remember) stories, so make your talk into
a _linear_ story. From this, you get rules like "every slide should follow
logically from the previous", "there should be a strong motivation for why
you're doing something", "omit boring stuff", "punchlines and surprise can
really help if used well", "building suspense is also useful for some talks",
etc. Note that the traditional "here are 3 ways our method is better than
previous methods" is definitely _not_ a story.

------
michael_miller
I recently went to my first academic conference, which was in Japan, and
consisted primarily of an international audience. I found that an accurate
indicator for the quality of presentations was whether the presenter was from
the US. Generally, speakers from the US were excited and able to explain their
work clearly. The speakers from other countries tended to mumble, not make
their point clear, and were downright boring. Part of the disparity might have
been the language barrier (international speakers tended to have thick
accents), but I wonder whether part of the difference is cultural (i.e. US
speakers prepare for presentations more and are taught on how to give good
presentations).

~~~
rmk2
The cultural difference lies in that US academics are more used to _selling_
(or if you'd like it a little less harsh: advertising) themselves.

Let me illustrate:

A big British university that offers a variety of funding, two of the funding
schemes are US-backed/US-based.

British: "Awards are made based on academic excellence and potential across
all subject areas...". They don't care if you are social, if you do things
outside university, what your family does etc etc. You need a research
proposal, your CV and 3 recommendation letters from former professors. They
focus purely on academic merit and don't care whether you are outgoing or an
introvert shut-in.

US #1: We "aim to nurture leaders for the world's future who are committed to
service, and to promote international understanding and peace." You have to
have good marks (of course), but do tell us about how many kittens, children
and people you save in your free time (while being academically excellent),
how many NGOs you help out, what your hobbies are, what your family is like
and how many wars you have prevented. This scholarship needs you to portray
yourself not just as a potentially brilliant researcher or scholar, it wants
you to be a leader.

US #2: The other scholarship asked you: "Please explain how the degree for
which you have applied will prepare you to make a contribution to society."
Again of course they require academic excellence, but they want to know how
your research "makes a contribution to society". This is a scholarship for the
Humanities only. The usual answer is always: It won't. However, please do make
up some moderately respectable reason why your highly specific research will
have an effect on society as a whole...

I am by no means saying Americans are academically inferior, but you can see
in these hand-picked examples a certain strive for grandeur, it's not _enough_
to be an outstanding scholar, you need to be a _leader_ , you need to _change_
society, at the very least. Truth is, most people's research will never, ever
have a profound effect on society as such. What this line of inquiry
conditions you to do though is to always make yourself appear larger than
life. Your research is _of course_ groundbreaking, you are a _leader_ , the
_best of the best_ , you know everything, cannot fail and you have to convey
that with every fiber of your being.

\---- The above is spiked with hyperbole, but the core remains true. Many
other countries don't have a culture where you advertise yourself and where
everything you have to do has to be perceived as earthshattering. And that is
the point really, it's about perception. The question here would be, were they
also actually better, or did they just portray themselves better?

It's the same mentality that you can see on Hacker News every day: "THIS
PRODUCT WILL CHANGE YOUR WORLD!!!". "WE WILL REVOLUTIONISE THE WAY YOU
THINK/TALK/ACT/TYPE/SLEEP!!!".

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Wow, that is a brilliant description of the difference. Hell, it's a brilliant
description of what has always intimidated me about life in America: the
constant demand that I put myself among _the class of the new_ , or else be
classified as unworthy.

