McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Any Grad Students/Scientists/Technical Writers?
superpsycho:
First is to explain the premise of your thesis succinctly, then establish a foundation for it in a clear and logical manner.
I always tried to target one or two levels below the expertise of my audience. If you try to speak to the level of a novice, then the amount of material needed to lay a foundation of understanding is so large you often lose the point by the time you begin to provide substantive support for your argument.
Attempting to speak directly at the expected level of your audience, will often cause you to lose a certain percentage them.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: superpsycho on April 06, 2014, 02:47:13 AM ---Attempting to speak directly at the expected level of your audience, will often cause you to lose a certain percentage them.
--- End quote ---
Speaking and writing are different, though. Writing, you can assume people are there because they want to be reading it.
Academic speaking, on the other hand, 10% of the audience will like no matter what you say, 10% will disagree no matter what you say, and the other 80% are thinking about sex. (I understand it's possible to modify these figures by doing academic speaking that is actually about sex, but I have no experience in that direction.)
superpsycho:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on April 11, 2014, 12:14:34 AM ---Speaking and writing are different, though. Writing, you can assume people are there because they want to be reading it.
Academic speaking, on the other hand, 10% of the audience will like no matter what you say, 10% will disagree no matter what you say, and the other 80% are thinking about sex. (I understand it's possible to modify these figures by doing academic speaking that is actually about sex, but I have no experience in that direction.)
--- End quote ---
Even when the work is written, the work is speaking to an audience. The audience is this case is the review committee then a suitable publication for peer review, which assumes some level of expertise.
And yes, when speaking to a live audience you're lucky if you don't lose a number of them to a pure lack of interest or to many of life's distractions, especially if the conference is in Las Vegas and most of them were up partying half the night.
Sully:
That's actually really interesting, I'd totally read that thesis provided it's able to be absorbed by a layman.
cass:
--- Quote from: superpsycho on April 11, 2014, 12:41:10 AM ---Even when the work is written, the work is speaking to an audience. The audience is this case is the review committee then a suitable publication for peer review, which assumes some level of expertise.
And yes, when speaking to a live audience you're lucky if you don't lose a number of them to a pure lack of interest or to many of life's distractions, especially if the conference is in Las Vegas and most of them were up partying half the night.
--- End quote ---
Or to the free beer offered by the conference organizers! (No joke. The lines wrap around entire aisles in the exhibit hall.) It's kind of comforting, really: one lousy talk won't derail your career.
There's a certain amount of lack-of-expertise inherent in any committee that is required to have members from outside the field, not to mention a certain amount of...reluctance? to adopt mathematical methods in a field that is traditionally dominated by observation and (verbal) description. I'm going to have to write my thesis in accessible language for those reasons, but I also want to write in a style that's understandable to everyone. I hate it when technical papers play "hide the verb" with subordinate clauses-- it makes it really hard to grasp the authors' main argument.
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