The Seminar Seminar Every Talk is a Job Talk

Two Types of Seminar Conference Presentation Short time (15-20 min) Narrow Audience (usually) No Audience participation (usually) Research Seminar (job talk) Longer (45-90 min) Often very broad audience Many questions/comments

Conference Presentation: The Infomercial Version Motivation: why is your paper of interest. Innovation: what did you do differently Results: Highlights, what do you find. Short on detail, long on Intro/Conclusions. Dont show me proofs. No big tables.

Goals for Conference Presentation Motivate interested people to read your paper. Develop relationships with others with similar interests. Get feedback on your work to improve it prior to submission. Get them to hire you.

Keys Motivate Whos done related work What your work ads Why your work is important Get to the Point Tell them early what you find. Skip the details.

Slides for Conferences Keep them Big: size matters. The people in the back need to read them. Keep them simple: Im usually hung over… One or two points per slide. Get to the point: Im usually hung over… You should have your main finding in the first few slides. About 8-12 slides for a conference presentation, depending on how dense.

Being a Discussant Read the paper. Your time is limited, dont get elaborate. Dont go long (really, no one listens to the discussant). Two Best Things you can do: Give your discussant your comments in writing. Have something that will improve the paper.

Other Tips Time: Dont go long (in fact go short). If youre last, you might not get your full time (deal with it). Be there early, introduce yourself. Back up media: be able to deal with technology failure.

Research Seminar: Teaching to Faculty Motivation, Motivation, Motivation. How does it fit into the literature? (e.g. why should I care). General Audience, dont assume too much. What do you do thats new and exciting? Develop your results more completely. Keep an eye on the why. Think of it as teaching. (well, it is…)

Goals for a Research Seminar Motivate and sell your research as advancing knowledge. Inform your audience of your work and the related work in the area. Get feedback on your paper and work prior to submission to a journal. Get them to hire you.

Keys Motivate your work Why is it important? How does it advance the literature? The motivation should be for a general audience. Get to the Point early, then develop the point. The Details Be sure the details help develop your research.

Its not a Mystery Novel Your audience needs to know what you are doing early. Your conclusions slide goes in the first few minutes (and then again at the end). Keep your audience engaged by referring back to the main results. They should not be surprised by what you find.

Slides for Research Seminar Keep them Big: Size Matters People in the back need to see. Keep them Simple: The after lunch nap… Have a main point for each slide, supporting comments Get to the Point: Keep me interested About 25 slides for 75 min talk. A trick: you can have appendix slides at the end.

Tables Focus tables on your main coefficients of interest. Graphs are good! Have a point to each table and a main focus of each table. Make them big enough to see from the back.

Handling Questions Dont be rude. Its OK to say I dont know but have a thought. Write down the comment. Dont let it deteriorate into a group discussion. YOU should answer, dont let the audience take over. Dont let someone take over your talk. The audience wants to hear YOU talk, dont disappoint them.

More Handling Questions Dont get off on tangents If its tangential, give a quick answer. Thats an interesting idea, perhaps we can discuss it later. Dont get ahead of your talk Ill cover that in a minute Be sure you do.

Tips Dont go long: finish on time. Dont skip your conclusions (get to them, no matter what). Future research can be an important slide Establishes your turf Shows you are thinking ahead Youre not Monte Python: now something completely different is bad.