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How to Give a Good Talk

(blog.sigplan.org)
271 points pykello | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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JohnKemeny ◴[] No.45114482[source]
> Every talk must begin with its motivation

Must is a strong word. Surely there exist good presentations that begin with something else.

replies(2): >>45114490 #>>45114626 #
1. mhandley ◴[] No.45114626[source]
It's definitely possible to break the rules. In fact, to give a truly outstanding talk that everyone remembers, you probably have to break the rules (speaking as someone who coded an entire Sigcomm presentation in a 3d game engine). But most early career researchers, for whom this advice is presumably intended, are not good enough at giving talks for that to be a good idea. In fact most tenured professors aren't too. If you do break the rules, you need to have a very clear idea in your head as to how you're going to pull it off, and a good idea of who your audience is and how they'll perceive it, and those are both hard to achieve without a lot of experience.