Wittgenstein, Ray Monk

  1. Who is the audience?

  2. Why are you presenting? Goals?

  3. Where and in what context are you presenting?

  4. When and ’til when? At what time of day maybe?

  5. Do I need a written text to go off of.

Language can be more complex (Usually after academic conferences, people might send you an email, asking for your speaker’s notes)

Distracts a bit from audience

If not: Prepare bullet points or flash cards which you practice ahead of time.

If you write a text: Write colloquially, practice and read out loud, don’t read off your talk – keep eye contact (We cannot use a written text for the presentation in this course).

[The manner in which people present philosophy and so on is very different depending on country, very often to purely read off of a text is the standard, whilst in Belgium it is more common to deliver a text more spontaneously]

Make sure you have backups with the file on it with you incase there are technological problems

DON’T DRINK ALCOHOL DURING A PRESENTATION

DON’T EAT BANANAS OR CHOCOLATE DURING A PRESENTATION

remember that it is okay to drink water during the presentation

Content:

  1. Decide on your theme

  2. Gather your information and ideas

  3. Think about and formulate a problem/research question and an argument in relation to that research question

  4. Select the content to focus on.

Normally 15-30 minutes for a presentation

TTT-presentation

Tell them what you’re going to tell them [Intro]

Tell them [Body]

Tell them what you’ve told them [Conclusion]

Classical-presentation

Going back to the beginning [Use an anecdote or a story which you relate back to, very TED-Talk]

Formulating a problem and giving a resolution

Story structure

A: introduction, your first impression on the audience; it is important

Introduce yourself and thank the organisers

Affiliation, phase of your career, research interest

Your theme and overall structure

The introduction should be engaging

  • Eg. make a clear ”Why”.

  • Start with some anecdote with a punch line or a nice quote that introduces what you are talking about

  • Your own trigger to the topic

  • If the topic matters to the now

In the body:

Try to offer strong argumentation

Divide the paragraph into several smaller parts

Move between arguments and counter-arguments

Use partial conclusions and signposting ”We can at least partially conclude that x and y”

Make it concrete, balance your arguments with vivid examples.

If the conclusion is bad; this is what will be remembered by the audience.

Never add new information in the conclusion

Short take-home message

Go back to the beginning and answer the research question

List bibliography and further reading, and leave the viewers with some questions to think about for themselves [No one will ever care about this lol].

Or!

Reformulate the essence about the question (be brutally honest)

Formulate a key statement

Offer further research questions and directions

Thank the audience for listening

Put email and name at the end so people can contact you.

Remember to take into account the audience’s attention.

Remember to modulate voice, make dramatic pauses

Remember your posture when speaking; straight back, shoulder’s held open

Don’t move too much, but can increase interactiveness if done in moderation

Maintain eye contact with different people in the crowd

Take your time talking, modulate and pause, whilst not forgetting to breath.

Don’t speak too quickly, but don’t speak too slowly either

Articulate words properly so that the audience can distinguish one word from another.

Any variation is better than monotone

Use rhetorical questions to force the audience to participate

Rhetorically using ”we” or ”you” – careful using this because it can clearly split the presenter and the audience.

It helps if you have a handout

If Questions are unclear, it’s not bad to ask it to be asked again.

A disguised comment? Dodge it by being polite

7X7 rule for powerpoints

7 slides and 7 words’

Assignment One:

Deadline: All groups, December 16 by 4pm.

Make a video in which you give a short presentation

You will defend or refute philosophically a certain statement

Be philosophical in your presentation

Don’t just list facts, but use ideas analytically

  1. Record your presentation

  2. Work in a team and evaluate each other

There will be a list of 20 statements, we choose 1.

Approx 5 miniutes (min 4.5, max 6 min)

You may use visual support

Pay attention to your verbal and non-verbal communication- For exmaple do not read off the script, use gestures, speak with intonation.

There will be a self-evaluation sheet

Work in a team of two-three people

Use the Tolinto link to enroll for a eam.

Deadline to enroll: December 3rd at noon. Next Tuesday.

Important to define concepts; if you read off of a text you might fail