Yesterday (all my troubles seemed so far away…) saw me present the first draft of ‘The Slippery Slope of Conspiracy Theories’ to the Department of Philosophy. It was only the second time I had performed it live, with a preview to a very select audience the night before (the audience, numbering one, is probably the best person I know for questioning what I say) and on both occassions no major criticisms were brought forth about the presentation’s thesis or content. Yea, verily, some of the text on the slides was fixed up, but that was due to awkwardness of sentences rather than errors of thought.
Just like that sentence.
Which is good (the pleasing reception, not the awkward phrasing of ideas, et cetera). The duration of the presentation is on target (30 minutes, give or take a few seconds) and it flows together nicely. I now have two things to do with it before the conference:
One. I still think I need a snappier conclusion.
Two. I’m going to have to force myself to keep practicing giving the paper over the next two months; given just how easily it all went yesterday my intuition is to let it lie fallow until September. This is not a good idea; ideally I should practise giving the paper a few times a week so that I become less dependent on looking at the slides to work out where I’m up to. I want to be facing the audience the entire time rather than looking back over my shoulder (I don’t want any accusations that I’m reading the slides; I’m not, but constantly looking at them rather than my audience gives the wrong impression).
Roll on September. Actually, given that I’ve just said September, here’s Earth, Wind and Fire.