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b_b  ·  1189 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: September 1, 2021

The best advice I ever received for giving talks is don't assume your audience knows a lot about your topic. Any academic field has minutiae that you come to forget is minutiae when you live it every day. Even someone in a closely related field may be totally oblivious to concepts that you see as mundane. So while I'm not suggesting you dumb anything down, I am suggesting that background and an emphasis on what you're talking about means are to be encouraged.

My former boss, who gives dozens of invited lectures per year (at least before covid), used to always crib the marketing strategy of tell them what you're gonna tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them. Everyone in attendance, from the undergrads to the emeriti, will gladly trade a few minutes of review of things they already know for actually understanding what the fuck you're talking about.