Matt,
Nice how delivery dovetails with preparation. One person I know incorporates descriptions in the body of the paper for any audiovisual material that might be presented in case there are technical difficulties or people with sensory disabilities present. This is of course a specific instance of being prepared and avoiding ad lib. Others will reread key quotations: it's the equivalent of building in playback.

Placing cuts in a scrapbook helps with trimming a text for delivery (or editing a soundtrack or a film). Cut and paste versus delete can serve well for those that don't author in an environment that allows for the markup to determine versions (e.g. XML).

All the best to the students preparing and presenting their papers.

Make sure you specifically request *in advance* any audio/visual equipment you will need.

Write your paper before you go.

Any advice about the presence or absence of quotes? I paraphrased as much as I could, mostly because people (er, my mother) really balked at the language my sources used -- too academic, heh. But you should use *some*, right?

Thanks for the 1 page == 2 mins thing... very helpful, since I haven't read my paper aloud yet (still trying to get the actual text locked down).

Keep quotations, especially longer quotations, to a minimum. If I can't avoid several longish quotations often what I'll do is prepare a quote sheet to hand out to the audience. That gives you a lot of flexibility--it's not even necessary to read all of them out in full. If you use a handout of any type take the opportunity to include your full name and affiliation, and email address.

Jess reminds me that reading unfinished portions aloud is a method of composition that assists in completing the complete composition. Like laying tracks. I'm sure that there is some fancy technical term for this process from the domain of neuropsychology and cognitive science that would make mother proud. Yeah, reading aloud catches the rhythm of those run on sentences. Perks up the prose to have an audience in one's head. Good Luck Jess et al.

Jess - where are you presenting? Good luck!

Whenever I used any long quotations, I either provided a handout, a PP slide, or something - for all the reasons Matt said.

Also, to clarify: I *believe* that it's one 12-pt. font, double-spaced page = 2 minutes (as opposed to 10 pt). That seem right Matt? Minor point, perhaps, but the difference of a minute or two after 10 pages. Better to speak slowly and end early.

Yes, I assume a 12-point proportional font, normal margins, etc.

I usually print my conference papers at 14- or 16-point font for ease of reading because of my eyes, and I've seen more than one apprenhensive look on the faces of fellow panelists when I step up to the mic with a tremendous sheaf of papers in my hand.

This is mostly for humanities-related subjects, and there can certainly be deviations as necessary:

Read your paper aloud to an attentive and astute friend or relative who is not in your field. If something doesn't make sense to them, rewrite.

An interesting disciplinary boundary is evident in tip #1. Scientists (and computer scientists) almost never READ papers at conferences. In fact, reading a paper can be considered impolite. Naturally, allowances are made for those who are exceptionally young, nervous, or speaking in a language in which they are not very comfortable.

Mark, I've often wondered about this disciplinary divide myself. We humanists don't separate form and content. By this I mean that the conference wares we peddle are particular strings of words--those words and not others--their inflections and rhythms, their syntax, their creative sequencing. These things _are_ the paper. You can't abstract the message from the medium. A different "paper ontology," perhaps, than one finds in the sciences.

I almost included a caveat about the difference in academic cultures. I've given many papers of both kinds and believe each format has its merits: while I enjoy the give and take of a sciences-style talk, there's also what Kari says: our writing, our language, in a very real sense *is* our scholarly product in the humanities, and there's great pleasure in the public offering of a special sentence or even just a turn of phrase that we labored so to drag forth from the keyboard.

There are many sides to this issue:

1) Listening to a dense paper read verbatim can be painful, not to mention a waste of time (or a good occasion for some private meditation). And this is not the way we communicate with our students, is it? Why not?

2) Some scholars are good readers, and training undoubtedly helps. But most of us are not. Ad-libbing is so much kinder on the audience (not to mention on the simultaneous translators) and if the idea is to get a message accross, rather than to impress with your finely wrought sentences, don't read, talk. They can always read it later.

3) If you have to read (for reasons of lacking confidence, pride in your language, or lacking time to prepare an oral presentation) make sure that your paper is oral in style. Perhaps this is the key. Most papers are written for readers, not for listeners. But if they are written in oral style, then they don't recycle as well in our articles and books, so there is a cost to being userfriendly.

4) Kari's point about humanist' messages being unextractable from their words is striking and goes to the heart of the matter, but I find myself in disagreement. Either I misunderstood the argument, or my rendering of it here seems to disprove it.

5) There may be a cultural difference between disciplines, but I have never heard anyone at a humanities conference being criticised for not reading. The complaints I have heard about "people who just read their paper" are innumerous. The relatively fewer times we hear a well-read paper probably makes us admire them even more than they deserve, and therefore they seem to redeem the bad ones.

6) Anyway, personal/anecdotal experience can fool us. Are there any research on the effectiveness and the effect on the audience of reading aloud vs oral presentations? There must be. Anyone?

Like Espen, I too was surprised at the advice to read a paper rather than to talk to it - without any research at all, I've also heard more complaints about papers being *read* than about papers being spoken about.

Personally, I started my attempts at public speaking by reading a paper that I'd written deliberately to be very oral, and I'd put LOTS of work into it, and I printed it out in small sheets of paper, following speech giving advice, where they suggest small cards, so that the papers don't tremble when you're nervous, and so you don't have to wonder where on hte page you are.

Next time I put heaps of effort into a very carefully made powerpoint presentation (images, not bullet points) and I managed to speak to that rather than read - though I'd also written out a speech in case of nervousness.

Nowadays I prefer having written or thought through the content, but I never read - I figure that if I've WRITTEN the paper, I might as well hand it out or put it online, and use my presentation time for TALKING about the matter instead. I like using powerpoint or showing websites but I never, ever use bulleted lists and I rarely have more than five or six words on any slide.

You've gotta find your own way, really.

Nobody read papers at AoIR 5.0 this year - not in sessions I was in, anyway. The quality of delivery varied, obviously. Most used some kind of visual aids.

Er, sorry about the empty message. That's all we need, me adding to the comment spam.

Anyway, I agree with Espen about the "words are our business" principle. It's true that we sweat blood over our prose, and I imagine this is even more true in English than in other humanities, but people don't go to a conference to hear interesting new turns of phrase -- they go to hear new ideas. And it's certainly possible to get far in this field with important or interesting ideas and dull impenetrable writing. (More's the pity for the undergrads who come after you.)

That said, just because you came up with an idea is no guarantee that you'll feel confident enough to teach it. I've been hashing out my ideas through the process of writing them -- I suspect we all do that -- and I know I'm going to come out the other side feeling like I've now locked down what I "mean to say," and that if I try to say it differently, I'll likely ruin it. Once you've carefully put your thoughts into language, it's safer -- not necessarily better, but safer -- to explain them to others with the same words you used to clarify the ideas to yourself.

I'm certainly feeling like this is a two-step process: write the paper to lock down the ideas, then tweak it to make it appropriately oral. While I'd rather *listen* to an ad-lib presentation, I think that presenting that way would make me feel really uncertain. (I have a tendency to ramble when ad-libbing in class)

Jason, there's a whole pile of us presenting at SLS in October. Francois, I checked and there doesn't seem to be an official cognitive science term for the phenomenon you describe (though the cognitive scientist I asked proposed some pretty impressive jargon that COULD be used to describe it, most of which involved the word "recursive").

I agree that there are many ways to give a conference paper, both across disciplines and within them. As people who have heard me know (and both Espen and Jill have) I do a lot of ad libbing and extemporaneous speaking. I like to believe I'm pretty good at it, though of course only the audience can judge that. But I wasn't able to do that the first time I gave a paper, or even the fifth time. It came with practice: each time I was at the podium I would feel a little more comfortable, stretch out a little more, allow myself to swim away from the shore of my prepared script. That's all good. But it didn't happen overnight, and for one's first conference paper, or first few, I think being able to read a well-written paper and communicate your argument in a manner other than soporific, to stay within your time boundaries, and to be effective during the Q&A are achievement enough.

I've seen more than a couple older and wiser members of the profession who have yet to master the art.

With due respect to age-old academic traditions, I'm with Espen: "if the idea is to get a message accross, rather than to impress with your finely wrought sentences, don't read, talk."

In law, it would be a major faux pas to read a paper aloud at a conference. Note that lawyers are in the business of interpreting words and writing them too, though. Perhaps the difference is that law schools originated as a trade schools where written scholarship was less important? Perhaps the fact that we footnote compulsively prevents smooth readings? Perhaps courtroom conventions have something to do with it?

In oral argument before a judge, it is common to be told "don't restate your brief, counsel -- I've already read your brief and know the arguments" and, no matter what you start saying after being told that, good judges will derail your train of argument with unexpected questions and criticisms within a few seconds.

Well, I'm getting killed here. Writing bad, speech good. Message is independent of words (finely wrought or otherwise) used to communicate it. Shall I bring out the Derrida? ;-)

Actually, Matt, I find that the combined quadruplicity of paper/chapter (read in advance by audicence), powerpoint, slide handout (to take notes on) and ad-libbing works best. Not always possible, but any combo of the above works pretty well. Writing and speech are arts, and they work better together (after practice, granted) than when one is substituting for the other. Of course, the potential for abuse is also great.

And eh, what's a Derrida? Some kind of game?

Canadian usuage may serve a purpose in these discussions of what "reading" may mean in the context of "giving a talk". Canadian academics will often be heard speaking about "delivering a paper" or simply "presenting at a conference" which is close to the Gallicism "presenting a conference" and indeed Matt's title to the entry _reads_ "Giving Conference Papers" which could be interpreted to encompass a number of styles. And the link to KF's entry on Planned Obsolescence about a less than time-sensitive panel and chair is, well, telling.

I have been in attendence at academic gatherings where the scheduled speaker could not attend and some soul read the paper (or screen).

I think Elouise's and George's recent experiments in audio blogging, though I have not yet had the pleasure of playing and listening to their MP3 recordings (faute de platform), provide another take on the cultural parameters of "reading aloud" and performing a text.
See/Listen by accessing resources through the following URL http://weez.oyzon.com/index.php?/weezblogtemplates/sound_play/

I know that several of the commentators have mentioned ubiquitous complaining about presenters who just read the paper. Just reading the paper, I take to be reference to reading it poorly, without modulation, without rhythm, without connecting with the audience. I am of the opinion (pause) that just because some people do something poorly (a bit longer pause) doesn't mean that it should not be done. I have listened to badly delivered papers and gained knowledge and appreciation. I have witnessed exquisted delivery of the faultiest argumentation and the most boring plot summaries. Surely, it is the what _and_ the how that count. And regardless of merit in the what or the how, there is always something to salvage -- even if it is time to park one's mind on idle while a presenter drones on without scintillating form or interesting matter. And it is a veritable art to snooze through a long paper and wake up for question period with a pertinent question. Tuning into the redundancy and dancing with it becomes
easy once one has been both a presenter and a respondent.

Espen, the problem with with statements like "what works best" is the obvious one: it generalizes from one set of academic practices to another. What may be less obvious is that academic practices in this context are about more than just stagecraft--precisely what Kari was "speaking" to in her comment about "paper ontologies." I stand by my contention that the vast majority of papers at *humanities* conferences are read, and that this is a necessary if--I grant you--not sufficient skill for new members of the profession to acquire. If you'd like to see how I give papers nowadays I'm open to invitations ;-)

In the meantime, Francois puts it well: "I am of the opinion (pause) that just because some people do something poorly (a bit longer pause) doesn't mean that it should not be done."

PS: Six or seven years ago (my, how the time passes) I saw the aforementioned Paul Edwards give a "talk" at UVa. He began with some extemporaneous remarks about the project, and showed a short film clip as I recall. Then he read. From a paper.

It was excellent.

On whether to read, speak or present: beware the other extreme from the reading of a fulltext paper -- the rapid firing of bullet points from slide after slide of Powerpoint. Too frequently the presenter has little to add to what is on the screen and the bullets are simply an aide memoire for the presenter.

The reading of a fulltext paper comprising sentences, paragraphs and an overall, unrolling argumnent can be very refreshing in this context. On the other hand, a conference of mumbling monologues can be enlivened by a sprinkling of powerpoint animations!

One piece of advice to graduate students presenting for the first time: despite all the advice here, be very wary of changing your mode of delivery from one with which you are currently comfortable. You don't want to be distracted by the novelty of a new medium when you're trying to get your time-constrained message across to an audience of barking professors.

On the other hand, if you're very confident in two more more modes then you may well be fondly remembered for that cutting-edge delivery of your research findings. Being remembered (for the right reasons) can be important for future career development...

Oh... research findings? Is *that* what we're meant to have?

And here I've just been making stuff up...

Just to chime in on a very interesting conversation with some empirical observation: I've been to about 25 academic conferences or so over the last decade (large-scale ones like ASECS, SHARP, MLA and also smaller, regional ones). I've heard someone do something other than read from a paper about half a dozen times (sometimes it was very good; sometimes it was very, very bad). The rest of the presenters read from the paper.

If you're a grad student presenting at a language/literature/culture conference, I'd agree with the advice to read from your paper, and I'd also agree that you should practice it so that you read it very well.

Great stuff. I couldn't agree more with what's been said thus far -- from "keep under your time" to "keep the print large."

But there's one principle I see violated all the time: you are giving a speech -- not reading an article. When you write a talk, you should be thinking of how it's going to sound. Sentences with fourteen subordinate clauses and lots of grammatical cleverness will quickly weary your audience (and probably obscure your point). If the idea is extremely complex, plan to place lots of rhetorical markers to indicate the stages of your reasoning (precisely the sort of thing that might seem odd in a written work).

I just happened to be readng Cory Doctorow's Microsoft DRM talk when this came in and it's a perfect illustration of Steve's point:

http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

Matt> Message is independent of words (finely wrought or otherwise) used to communicate it. Shall I bring out the Derrida? ;-)

Well, yeah, I guess so. Paul Edwards' first piece of advice is "Talk rather than read. There's nothing virtuous about perfect grammar, complicated sentences, and sophisticated vocabulary if your audience can't follow you."

Spoken written words are not exactly the same as spoken spoken words. The reading audience is not exactly the listening audience. And while forethought and planning are preparations devoutly to be wished for in speakers, I'm just thinking that for the dramatic form, any thespian would prefer to have material prepared for the voice, not the eye. If, for instance, you find yourself being forced to say things like "Aarseth 1999" and "Snuffleheimer 2001" because those parentheticals are part of your writing style, your thespian self ought to take the material back to your playwright self and demand revisions.

To quote Betsy Warland and Daphne Marlatt from _Double Negative_

[...] wheels of our knowing that move us for words to the rim of our writing from the centre of our speaking the intractably here what is [...]

When preparing a text to read aloud, consider making the left and right margins about 6cm each and use 14pt typeface. This will give you a central, narrow column of text which is easier to read from and find your place again when making eye-contact with the audience. In my own work I've seen politicians' speeches similarly formatted.