Episode 136 - Listen To This If… You Need To Prepare for Question Time

Transcript

Jen (00:00:10)

Hello wonderful people. I'm so pleased to welcome you to another episode of Listen to This If from us, the team at Let's Talk SciComm. So I'm Jen and as always I'm joined by my fabulous friend Michael. And in these episodes we just pick one little thing that we want to have a chat about that we think might be useful for you.

So, Michael, today we are going to have a chat about that kind of feeling of trepidation you have when you know that you are going to be involved in a question time, whether that be for you know, at a conference talk or maybe you're giving some other talk about your work and you know there's going to be question time.

And I think most of us feel pretty nervous about that because we feel like we can prepare the talk itself quite carefully, but we have this sense that we don't know what question time is going to look like. And so let's have a chat about how do you prepare for question time? What's your top advice?

Michael (00:01:04)

Well, I love question time.

Jen

Me too!

Michael (00:01:05)

I think it's a great opportunity. It's fun. It's a great opportunity to talk about your research and it feels very rewarding to be able to do that. You know, having that feedback from the audience is really great. And I guess a lot of people worry about not knowing the answer to a particular question and maybe, you know, looking a bit silly. And I would say fair enough. I understand that.

But you've got a really good get out of jail card, which is, you know, "That's a great question. But I'm not quite sure what the answer is. But let's have some follow up discussion about that". It's okay not to know what the answer is.

And I suppose people and... I suppose that might be a friendly question where you don't know the answer. People might also be worried about like a prickly question or you know, a question that is designed to make you look bad. I think maybe people are worried about that, you know.

And what I would say is, you know, if someone asks you that type of question. You know, a prickly question that maybe seems a bit unfair. Or you know, the person seems, you know, like they've got a bit of an agenda and they do ask that type of question, every single person in the audience is going to know that that person has asked a prickly question and that's really not fair.

And so, you know, you're still able to use your get out of jail card for that, you know. "I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that question, but let's have a follow-up chat."

And sometimes, the questions are not even questions. Like sometimes they could just be a comment or the person in the audience just wants to let everyone know what they know on the topic. So, you know, you don't really have to know the answer to everything. And sometimes it's just about acknowledging and maybe having some follow-up discussion. So that would be my advice.

Jen (00:03:18)

Yeah, I totally agree. And you can come across as a really positive person by saying, "Wow, that's a really fascinating question. I'm very glad that you asked it. But unfortunately, I can't tell you right now, but I'd really like to chat with you later". I think that's a great response.

So my thoughts to add to that are if there's a question that you are really dreading, have an answer ready. You know, if there's something that you feel a little uncertain about or you feel like it's going to be possible that somebody recognises a limitation in your work or whatever. You know, if you're nervous about it, you probably will get that question just because in the talk itself, when you talk about that aspect of your work, you're probably going to come across as a little bit less certain, a little bit less confident. It might be clear that there's some murkiness in there.

So rather than desperately dreading a question and having your heart sink or your stomach feel ill if somebody does ask it, just assume they will and be clear in your own mind about how you're going to respond to that. I think that's really really important because then there's nothing that you're dreading. You're prepared for whatever this worst case scenario question is.

But equally, I wouldn't spend all of your time thinking about that. Because you know, yes, you may get the question, you may not get the question. But actually, prepare and think carefully about what are the likely questions that you're going to get. And I think you can be quite strategic with this.

You know, if there's something that you'd really like to have the opportunity to explain but you just can't fit it into your main talk, you can put out a little Easter egg for someone and kind of say, "Unfortunately, I don't have time to explain this in any detail but if you'd like to hear more, please ask me about it in question time". And chances are, somebody will leap to your rescue and ask you about it. So spend some time thinking about what are the likely questions, how can you use question time strategically. And if there really is something you're very nervous about being asked, don't waste energy and time worrying about whether someone's going to ask you, just assume they will and have an answer prepared.

And then as you began this episode Michael, have this sense of: question time is really fun. It's really important. It's one of the few times you get feedback from people about your work. So if you can look forward to it and know that whatever happens, you'll be prepared to either give a great answer or say, "I'm not sure", you know, whatever it is. Then I think, you know, looking forward to question time is really fantastic.

Michael (00:05:44)

Yeah. And that point about feedback is so important. You know, it really is a great opportunity, especially if you're at a conference, there's lots of you know, international experts there. What a great opportunity. So have fun.

Jen (00:05:55)

Exactly. Yes, enjoy your question time. You don't need to dread it.

Michael (00:06:09)

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, we'd love you to tell a friend about the podcast or leave us a review. And you can reach out to us on social media.

And we're very excited to announce that we're launching a new newsletter called the ChitChat. Check out the link in the show notes or our posts on Instagram.

And also a big thank you to our production team, Steven Tang and Madeleine Kelly.