Some Thoughts on Academic Presentations Dan Quint University of Wisconsin November 16, 2016

Introduction Preparation Delivery Answering Questions Almost Freakish Attention to Detail 1 1

Introduction Presenting well matters

Introduction Preparing a good talk takes much longer than you think “Hofstadter’s Law: it always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.” – Douglas Hofstadter 3 3

Introduction Giving a good talk is hard… …and you’ll screw it up Your first practice talk will probably go worse than you expect, even when you account for this. 4 4

Introduction Preparation Delivery Answering Questions Almost Freakish Attention to Detail 5 5

Preparation “Own your paper” This sounds stupid, but the starting point is: remember that the paper is YOURS, and YOU should decide how to present it Don’t feel you have to use some template someone gave you Start from scratch, thinking about the best way to make it clear 6 6

Preparation Think about who your audience is Assume we’re smart, but haven’t read your paper, or the one you’re extending Lots of people make the mistake of presenting the paper to their advisor Even in a theory seminar, or a labor seminar, or an econometrics seminar, not everyone knows the area you’re working on For a job talk, you’re trying to sell people outside your field Think of your audience as smart economists in other fields – you need to convince them that you’ve done something interesting (even if they won’t catch all the details) 7 7

Preparation Think about the best way to teach them your paper Own your paper! Think from scratch about the best way to teach it, which may not be the way it’s written! 8 8

Preparation Start with a puzzle, or a story If your paper is about CEO pay and contract, don’t start out talking about general insights from principal-agent models Start out with a shocking fact: in 2009, even though Toys R Us was going bankrupt, they paid their CEO $111 million Be specific 9 9

Preparation Make us understand, quickly: What the question is What you found Why we should care 10 10

good place to take advice from advisors, etc. Preparation Your lit review is terrible Show you know the literature you’re supposed to Put your paper in context and clarify its contribution easy Lit review has two purposes To show you know the literature you’re supposed to know And to put your paper in context and clarify its contribution relative to the existing literature hard good place to take advice from advisors, etc. 11 11

Preparation Your lit review is terrible 12 12

Preparation Get to your model FAST! 13 13

Preparation Simplify! You don’t need to present the most general case Help us out with the “right” leading example You don’t have to present every result It’s fine to focus the presentation on the simpler case, if that gives most of the useful intuition It’s 100% fine to say, “My results are for general N, but for the talk, I’ll focus on N = 2, because the notation is simpler and the ideas are the same.” Or, “In the paper, I give three empirical specifications and five counterfactuals, but I’ll focus on one specification and the two key counterfactuals here.” Simplify the notation if you can The point is for us to understand what’s going on 14 14

Preparation Define things rigorously 15 15

Preparation Have examples in mind Examples of the overall phenomenon/question you’re thinking about But also examples for specific elements of your model If you have a switching cost, what does it represent? An actual monetary cost (of what)? Lost time? Inconvenience and mental energy? One or two good examples >> lots of mediocre ones 16 16

Preparation Plan where you want to spend your time The most frustrating talks are when someone goes very very slowly and deliberately through stuff that’s standard and everyone already knows… …and then doesn’t have time to properly explain the part of the paper that is actually novel Not always easy to know what’s “commonly understood” and what’s not – OK to ask for advice! But you need to deliberately plan where you want to focus your time during the talk 17 17

Preparation Plan where you want to spend your time 18 18

Preparation PLAN WHERE YOU WANT TO SPEND YOUR TIME 19 19

Preparation Highlight the things you want us to notice 20 20

Preparation Don’t drown us in equations Every equation you show should have a purpose One of the reasons I use PowerPoint is to make it costly to use equations! 21 21

Preparation Tables 22 source: A. Sengupta and S. Wiggins (2014), “Airline Pricing, Price Dispersion, and Ticket Characteristics On and Off the Internet,” AEJ: Economic Policy 6(1) 22

Preparation Visuals good! Visuals are great – but don’t get “gimmicky” 23 source: T. Piketty, E. Saez and S. Stantcheva (2014), “Optimal Taxation of Top Labor Incomes: A Tale of Three Elasticities,” AEJ: Economic Policy 6(1) 23

Preparation Ask for advice – and follow it 24 24

Preparation Practice! 25 25

Introduction Preparation Delivery Answering Questions Almost Freakish Attention to Detail 26 26

Delivery Face the audience, and don’t laser-point every slide 27 27

Delivery Go slow, except for the technical parts – then, go really slow 28 28

Delivery Going slow is crucial for equations probability h of my opponents do one thing and the rest do another increase in probability stuff happens expected payoff I get if it happens 29 29

Delivery I like dot points to appear one by one Guides people through each point I make Reinforces each point (Means I can’t present without a clicker) 30 30

Delivery But don’t “foreshadow” dot points You may think it looks cute But it makes people read ahead while you’re talking Which means they aren’t paying attention 31 31

Delivery But don’t “foreshadow” dot points You may think it looks cute But it makes people read ahead while you’re talking Which means they aren’t paying attention 32 32

Delivery But don’t “foreshadow” dot points You may think it looks cute But it makes people read ahead while you’re talking Which means they aren’t paying attention 33 33

Delivery But don’t “foreshadow” dot points You may think it looks cute But it makes people read ahead while you’re talking Which means they aren’t paying attention 34 34

Delivery Also, don’t put everything you want to say on your slide If you do, then all you can do is read your slides And that isn’t a very compelling way to present Better to leave some things off your slide and just talk about them And use your slides as an outline of the major points you want to cover… …not every detail 35 35

Delivery Don’t be limited by your slides Control pace, adjust accordingly Use white board as needed 36 36

Introduction Preparation Delivery Answering Questions Almost Freakish Attention to Detail 37 37

Answering questions Anticipate likely questions Empirical paper: someone will ask about endogeneity concerns, and which direction this would bias your results Theory paper: you’re assuming some variables are independent, someone will ask what happens if they’re correlated Think about the questions you would ask! 38 38

Answering questions Don’t take it personally Don’t get defensive Don’t be a dick 39 39

Answering questions Don’t interrupt someone asking a question 40 40

Answering questions Don’t interrupt someone asking a question 41 41

Answering questions DON’T INTERRUPT SOMEONE ASKING A QUESTION 42 42

Answering questions Be sure you understand the question before you start to answer 43 43

Answering questions Don’t defer questions more than necessary If you keep saying, “That will be clear when I show you the model”… maybe you should have gotten to the model sooner? Sometimes, the answer really is, “That’s on the next slide” But in general, it’s better to engage when people want to engage – especially if there’s a quick answer, that will be faster than explaining why you want to wait “I’ll explain in more detail in a few slides, but the short version is, …” 44 44

Answering questions But don’t lose control of the seminar At some point, it’s OK to say, “Let’s talk about this more after the seminar” and move on 45 45

Answering questions Don’t be a bullshitter But don’t undersell your work Be honest about the limitations of your work – the assumptions you had to make that you don’t like, the concerns about endogeneity, etc. Don’t undersell – hopefully, your paper has a valid contribution – but don’t pretend to do things you don’t Also, don’t defend how you do things by saying “that’s what someone else did” – it’s your paper, you own it now 46 46

Introduction Preparation Delivery Answering Questions Almost Freakish Attention to Detail 47 47

Almost freakish attention to detail Minimize typos, incorrect notation, etc. But don’t overreact if you catch one during your talk 48 48

Almost freakish attention to detail If your dot points appear one by one, 49 49

Almost freakish attention to detail If your dot points appear one by one, Make sure you do it properly, 50 50

Almost freakish attention to detail If your dot points appear one by one, Make sure you do it properly, Because if they don’t line up right, 51 51

Almost freakish attention to detail If your dot points appear one by one, Make sure you do it properly, Because if they don’t line up right, It makes me want to kill you! 52 52

Almost freakish attention to detail Plug in your fucking computer And have it set up so you don’t get a Skype message, or a message to update Adobe Reader The only time I’ve ever said “fuck” to a room full of undergrads was booting up 5 minutes before a lecture and getting “Windows 7 is installing update 1 of 44” And show up with a working clicker Basically, have your shit together 53 53

Almost freakish attention to detail (Also: don’t use the word “fuck” in a presentation until you have tenure) 54 54

Thanks for listening, and good luck! 55 55