[This was written on Wednesday, 3rd July 2013 at IMC Leeds 2013]
I’m at my first International Medieval Congress in Leeds. I’ve learned huge amounts about history, filling in quite a few gaps that have niggled as I worked away at the Carmen over the past six months, but I’ve also learned how an academic conference is organised and how academics interact. It’s very different to the commercial and banking events I’m more familiar with, but quite as exciting.
As there were mostly doctoral candidates and young historians presenting, I thought I’d offer some tips as many will be new to presenting to an international audience.
- Most presenters speak too fast. Each academic has only 15 or 20 minutes to present a paper. They try to cram as much of their research into it as they can sensibly convey, usually producing something 10 – 12 pages long to read. They then stand there and read the text to the audience at top speed, heads bowed. This is ineffective. The audience is a global audience, and most have English as a second language. Reading a complex text, head bowed so they can’t read your face or lips, ensures that most of the audience will have little idea what you are saying and be barely able to follow your line of reasoning. Spending more time on organising content and then speaking slowly while looking at the audience to gauge their comprehension would convey more information more effectively.
- Too few among the presenters provide contact details or website links. As the IMC organisers do not publish contact details for participants, this makes it difficult to follow up easily on issues or observations. Few seem to carry business cards either, making follow up or networking difficult. Business cards cost almost nothing to print. Everyone at a conference should have them, but especially speakers.
- PowerPoint and hand-outs are your friends. Those presenters, particularly those with heavy accents both native English and non-English, that used PowerPoint and/or hand-outs to illustrate Latin text, compare sources or summarise key points were much more effective.
- If you a presenting to build your professional profile (and who isn’t?) then sit straight, stand when presenting, and speak clearly, a little louder than you are comfortable with. This will make you more memorable and more impressive.
Having been a public speaker throughout my career, I’m quite fussy about sitting in the audience. I enjoyed the papers I heard much more than I expected to, but still a few improvements in style would go a long way toward a better audience experience.