New Kid on the Hallway reacts to two posts on presenting papers: Janet Stemwedel’s argument that academics in the humanities should speak their paper instead of reading it, and Colin vs. Blog’s defense of reading papers.

I’m also fond of animation. For a paper I gave on The Merchant of Venice I recreated a scene that I was discussing using animated LEGO characters. It was very popular – I had people asking about the LEGO for the remainder of the conference… I’d be happy to give you the link for the free Flash application that I used if you’re interested.

I hope all goes well with your paper!

I do think it depends on the type of presentation, but some points are generalizable. I never understood why people read out entire papers word-for-word. What is the value of the presentation then, over simply giving each participant a copy of the paper and having them read it for themselves?

Having said that, I just witnessed a wonderful keynote speech at the Valenciennes conference I went to (here is a photo of all speakers). The keynote speaker used powerpoint to structure her argument, and did not really use her written notes at all. It was a very lively and stimulating opening of the conference.

Perhaps this way of presentation works best when you are presenting a broad overview of developments in the field, and paving the way for future directions, and does not work as well when you present a paper that gets into the nitty-gritty details of your own research?

As for not reading from papers, you’ll have a job to tear me away from them. There’s nothing wrong with a well-written and well-read paper. The other way has its downsides too (lack of focus and flow, for example) if done poorly, as scientists will tell you. The best thing is for researchers, whatever the discipline, to find what works best for them individually and then use it.

But I should probably use more visual aids than I do at the moment…