The very first conference talk I ever gave as a young, impressionable PhD student was done remotely. It was 2021, and as COVID loomed large in everyone’s minds meetings retreated to the relative safety of the internet. While that first talk was a bit unconventional due to the circumstances, for me the main challenge was not the talk itself, but the dreaded question section. Of course, looking back I don’t know what I was so worried about: the Q&A portion of my talk only lasted approximately three minutes, and I don’t even remember what any of the questions were.
And yet, for every talk I give the Q&A is the part I worry about the most. Each slide can be honed, every plot crafted to convey the perfect amount of information, words and tone and timing meticulously crafted and practiced over and over until the presentation itself flows like water over stone. But how to prepare for the Q&A, when any member of the audience could throw out a wild card, when you’re put on the spot, sometimes literally in the spotlight? Even if you know the answer any other day, it can be nerve-wracking to have all eyes on you, watching, waiting, seemingly judging.
Since I couldn’t practice an answer for every question the audience could possibly ask about any given presentation, over the years I’ve developed guidelines for myself to answering questions about my science. These reminders are tailored to aspects that I struggled with when I first began doing presentations at conferences. None of them are particularly revolutionary, but when taken together they helped me immensely in mitigating the stress that comes with this particular hurdle.
Some can be done before the talk even begins, such as:
- Prepare backup slides. It’s inevitable that some information will have to be cut from presentations for the sake of meeting the time limit, and those areas that don’t make the final version are always question magnets. Having slides ready to go will make fielding those much easier.
- Figure out what your “worst case scenario” question would be and how you would go about answering it.
- Better yet, give a practice talk and have your friends or colleagues ask tough questions so you can get real experience stringing together your answer in a calm, articulate manner in front of a (non-threatening) audience.
But even the most prepared presenter can still get thrown a curve-ball. So you just finished your talk, and someone stands up and asks you a question you didn’t anticipate. What now?
- First and foremost: don’t panic and actually listen to the entire question! It can be tempting (and sometimes even instinctual) to start composing an answer in your head before the audience member is done speaking, but then you run the risk of missing the important context, or sometimes even the real question that was buried at the end.
- If you didn’t understand the question, ask them to rephrase or clarify. We’ve all seen audience questions that rambled enough so as to confuse the real inquiry.
- Think about your answer. It’s always tempting to start talking as soon as the question is done, but taking a beat to collect your thoughts can help your answer be composed, concise, and most importantly clear. Don’t start talking just to fill the space.
These might seem obvious or mundane, but when preparing for a talk it helps me to have a set of “rules” in mind, even if those rules are flexible and generalized. And over time everyone eventually finds what works for them and develops their own set of guidelines. In the end, remember that it’s all right to be nervous, it’s all right to need to think in the moment, it’s all right to not immediately know the answer before the question is even finished. And for many, many questions it can be all right if the answer is some variation on “I don’t know.” After all, that’s science, and it’s why we’re all here!