I had an interesting discussion over lunch with @bmutlupakdil about students/postdocs and the fear of asking questions in talks/#aas233 sessions, so I thought I’d share some of my advice in case it is useful: 1) there’s a simple way to “practice” before you are ready to speak:
@bmutlupakdil sit in the session and write down (privately) the questions you *would* ask aloud, even if you only write them down. 2) take a look at the questions and compare them with those that do get asked by people in the room. What was different (or the same!) about the ones you wrote?
@bmutlupakdil 3) Look at the principal components of the questions you have: are they on background (if so, can you go and get the paper they are talking about to learn more, or ask them at coffee?); are the methodology (definitely ask them at coffee!); or are the interpretation/next steps
@bmutlupakdil 4) Do this in *every* talk you go to, even if it isn’t your field. Try to “ask” lots of questions, and at the end decided on what were the top 1 or 2 questions…and try to add more of the different categories (background, methodology, next steps).
@bmutlupakdil 5) Eventually, try asking the best one from the list - and write down the answer. 6) When you are preparing your own talk, write down what you think the questions would be in those three categories, and then write down the ones you *actually* get asked. How were they similar?
@bmutlupakdil We tell students to just “take the plunge” when asking questions - but really it is a slow process that you *can* practice before you’re ready to speak out loud. [Also, find me at coffee and practice with me, and I’ll tell you the ones I thought of - you get bonus points :D]
