How to Give an Academic Talk Paul N. Edwards1
NB: On behalf of bored audiences everywhere, I wrote this essay to promote good public
speaking. It is being circulated widely on the Internet. As a result, I am receiving large volumes
of email from students and others requesting help with presentations. Unfortunately, I do not
have the ability to respond to the many emails I receive about this. I already have many
students here at the University of Michigan, and that's about all I can handle.
This essay may be redistributed freely as long as nothing is added or removed, and as long as
the copyright notice is attached. Copyright 1998-2001, Paul N. Edwards. All rights reserved.
How to Give an Academic Talk:
Changing the Culture of Public Speaking
in the Humanities
Paul N. Edwards
School of Information
University of Michigan
The Awful Academic Talk
You’ve seen it a hundred times.
The speaker approaches the head of the room and sits down at the table. (You can’t see
him/her through the heads in front of you.) S/he begins to read from a paper, speaking in
a soft monotone. (You can hardly hear. Soon you’re nodding off.) Sentences are long,
complex, and filled with jargon. The speaker emphasizes complicated details. (You
rapidly lose the thread of the talk.) With five minutes left in the session, the speaker
suddenly looks at his/her watch. S/he announces — in apparent surprise — that s/he’ll
have to omit the most important points because time is running out. S/he shuffles papers,
becoming flustered and confused. (You do too, if you’re still awake.) S/he drones on.
Fifteen minutes after the scheduled end of the talk, the host reminds the speaker to finish
for the third time. The speaker trails off inconclusively and asks for questions. (Thin,
polite applause finally rouses you from dreamland.)
Why do otherwise brilliant people give such soporific talks?
First, they do this because they’re scared. The pattern is a perfectly understandable reaction to
stage fright. It’s easier to hide behind the armor of a written paper, which you’ve had plenty of
time to work through, than simply to talk.
But second, and much more important, it’s become a part of academic culture — especially in the
humanities. Graduate students may actually learn it from professors who have these bad habits
themselves. Or their professors may not consider teaching the skills of public speaking a
legitimate part of education.
Stage fright is something everybody has to handle in their own way. But academic culture is
something we can deliberately change. This short essay is an attempt to begin that process with
some pointers for effective public speaking.
How to Give an Academic Talk Paul N. Edwards2
Principles of Effective Talks
Any effective talk must do three things:
(1) communicate your arguments and evidence,
(2) persuade your audience that they are true, and
(3) be interesting and entertaining.
In our obsession with persuasive argumentation, academics sometimes forget about the third
item on this list. Sometimes we think it follows automatically from the first two. (It doesn’t.)
Sometimes we even scoff at the goal itself. Perversely, we seem to believe that if a talk is
entertaining, it’s probably not very deep.
These attitudes are seriously mistaken. It is impossible to communicate and persuade
effectively without entertaining as well. Keeping your audience interested and involved —
entertaining them — is essential because in order to communicate your work and its value, you
need their full attention.
Listening is hard work. Especially at conferences, where audiences listen to many talks over
many hours, people need the speaker’s help to maintain their focus. This is the true meaning and
importance of “entertainment.” In an academic talk, entertainment isn’t about making your
audience laugh or distracting them from their troubles, but simply about keeping them focused on
and interested in what you have to say.
How to Give a Great Talk: Some Rules of Thumb
No rule applies always and everywhere. But the following principles work almost all the time. Try
them!
USUALLY BETTER USUALLY WORSE
• Talk • Read
• Stand • Sit
• Move • Stand still
• Vary the pitch of your voice • Speak in a monotone
• Speak loudly and clearly,
toward the audience
• Mumble, facing downward
• Make eye contact with the
audience
• Stare at the podium
• Focus on main arguments • Get lost in details
• Use visual aids: outlines,
pictures, graphs
• Have no visual aids
• Finish your talk within your
time limit. Corollary: rehearse
your talk
• Run overtime. Don’t practice.
• Summarize your main
arguments at the beginning and
end
• Fail to provide a conclusion
• Notice your audience and
respond to its needs
• Ignore audience behavior
• Emulate excellent speakers
How to Give an Academic Talk Paul N. Edwards3
This list really says it all. But a little discussion may help make clear why these principles are so
important.
1) Talk rather than read. It’s easier to listen to and understand, and it allows you to make
genuine contact with your audience. Furthermore, it ultimately helps you to think more
clearly, by forcing you to communicate your points in ordinary terms.
2) Stand up unless you’re literally forced to sit. People can see you better. Standing also puts
you in a dominant position. This may sound politically incorrect, but it’s not. Remember,
you’re the focus. The audience wants you to be in charge. Listeners need your help to
maintain their attention.
3) Move around, rather than standing still. It’s easier to keep focused on someone who’s
moving than on a motionless talking head. (Hand gestures are good, too.)
It’s possible to overdo this one, though. Simply walking back and forth from one side of
the room to the other every three or four minutes is probably enough. Gesturing too much
will create distraction.
4) Vary the pitch of your voice. Monotones are sleep-inducing. Many people don’t realize they
do this. Get a trusted friend or colleague to listen to your delivery and give you honest
feedback. (This is an important principle in itself!) Even better, tape or videotape yourself
and check out how you sound.
5) Speak loudly and clearly, facing the audience. Be careful, especially when using visual
aids, that you continue to face the audience when you speak.
An important element of vocal technique is to focus on the bottom (the deepest pitch) of
your vocal range, which is its loudest and most authoritative tone. (This can be especially
important for women.) Speak from the gut, not the throat. Breathe deeply — it’s
necessary for volume, and will also help you keep your mind clear.
Tip: here are two effective vocal “special effects.” First, when you come to a key
phrase that you want people to remember, repeat it. Second, pause for a few seconds at
several points in your talk; this breaks the monotony of a continuous flow of speech. It
also gives you a chance to sip some water.
6) Make eye contact with the audience. If this is anxiety-inducing, at least pretend to do so
by casting your gaze toward the back and sides of the room.
Be careful not to ignore one side of the audience. Many speakers “side” unconsciously,
looking always to the left or to the right half, or only to the front or the back, of the room.
7) Focus on main arguments. Especially in a conference situation, where talks are short and
yours is one of many, your audience is not going to remember the details of your
evidence. In such a situation, less is more. Give them short, striking “punch lines” that
they’ll remember. They can always read your written work later, but if you don’t get them
interested and show them why it’s important, they won’t want to.
8) Use visual aids. This is one of the most important principles of all. At a minimum, have an
outline of your talk. Some people seem to think they’re giving everything away by
showing people what they’re going to say before they’ve said it. But the effect of a good
How to Give an Academic Talk Paul N. Edwards4
talk outline is exactly the opposite: it makes your audience want to hear the details. At the
same time, it helps them understand the structure of your thinking.
Talk outlines should be extremely concise and visually uncluttered. 7-10 lines of text per
slide is plenty.
Pictures, graphs, and other images are especially helpful. People are visual creatures.
The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is especially apropos in the
context of a talk.
One very important principle of slide presentations: always choose white or light-colored
backgrounds. To see dark slides, you’ll have to turn off the lights. This will make it hard
for you to see your notes, and will also tend to put your audience to sleep. Really. If at all
possible, do NOT turn off room lights or close window shades! Light-colored slides can
usually be read with lights on.
Don’t talk to the screen. If you do, not only will the audience be looking at your back, but
also they’ll be unable to hear you. Have a paper version of your outline in front of you;
speak from that, rather than from the one on the screen. This takes practice.
About Powerpoint:
Microsoft Powerpoint — now standard issue in many presentation settings — can be a
great tool, not least because its default presentation formats encourage brevity.
But beware: Powerpoint’s fades, transitions, backgrounds, sound effects, and so on can
be a real pitfall. Preparing glitzy presentations can be a serious time sink for you. Worse,
they can give your audience the impression that you care more about surface than
substance.
My recommendation: choose simple, light-colored backgrounds with dark type, and limit
the use of special effects.
9) Finish your talk within the time limit. Not to do so is disrespectful of your audience, not
to mention bad strategy. Never go on longer than 45 minutes, which is most people’s
maximum attention span. If you exceed this limit, you’ll lose them at the crucial point,
namely your conclusion.
Furthermore, in conference settings, exceeding your time limit can be incredibly rude,
since it cuts into other speakers’ allotted time and/or the discussion period. You can make
real enemies by insisting on continuing after your time is up.
The only way to be certain you can keep within your limits is to rehearse your talk. After
lots of experience, some people can gauge talk times accurately without this. But nothing
is more embarrassing — for both you and your audience — than getting only halfway
through before hitting the time limit.
Tip: If you use Powerpoint or some other presentation system, you can develop a good
sense of timing by always using the same slide format. After you’ve given a few talks
with the same format, you’ll know about how long it takes you to talk through each slide,
and you can gauge the length of your talk this way (at least roughly).
How to Give an Academic Talk Paul N. Edwards5
10) Summarize your talk at the beginning and again at the end. “Tell ‘em what you’re
gonna tell ‘em; tell ‘em; and tell ‘em what you told ‘em”: this ancient principle still holds.
Following this rule helps your audience get your main points. Even more important, it helps
them remember what you said, which is, after all, what you’re there for.
11) Notice your audience and respond to its needs. If people seem to be falling asleep or
getting restless or distracted, the problem may not be you. Is the room too hot or cold?
Too dark? (This is especially important.) Can people see you? Is the microphone on? Is
something outside the room distracting people? Don’t hesitate to stop talking in order to
solve these problems.
Alternatively, you may have gone on too long, or you may need to speak louder.
Whatever the case, notice what’s happening and use it as feedback. If you can’t figure
out why your audience is responding poorly, ask somebody later and fix the problem next
time.
If you’re not sure whether people can see or hear, ask someone in the back row directly.
(This is also a good technique for setting up initial communication with your audience. It
makes listeners feel included, and puts you in touch with them as human beings.)
Tip: NEVER let someone else take control of room conditions. Many audiences — thinking
they’re being helpful — react to slide or computer projectors by jumping up to turn off
lights and close window shades. Unless this is truly necessary, avoid it at all costs,
especially at conferences, which often take place in exceedingly dim rooms. Taking
charge of the talk environment is part of your job as a speaker.
12) Emulate excellent speakers. Perhaps the best way to become an excellent speaker
yourself is to watch really good, experienced speakers and model your talks on theirs.
Notice not just what they say, but what they do.