By Roseanna Doughty |
A few weeks ago I had a major breakthrough- I finally worked up the courage to ask a question in a lecture. Small victories! Granted I went bright pink in the face and there was a considerable amount of spluttering, but eventually I managed to spit it out. Unsurprisingly the speaker, who had given an excellent paper, did not laugh in my face and instead gave me an equally excellent, in-depth and useful answer.
Since I started my PhD in September the ability to open my mouth in an academic setting, let alone formulating a question, without turning a wonderful shade of magenta has eluded me. So I have become extremely adept at listening, and while this is an honourable quality I am increasingly aware that I need to find my voice. Asking questions is after all an essential element of the historian’s craft. I am by no means a quiet person though, in fact when I pitched the idea of this blog to friends and family they openly laughed (Rude!). Like many historians I suffer from sometimes having too much to say, but over the last few months nerves have got the better of me. Even in social situations I have often elected to stay silent for fear of coming across as ill-informed; although I do find it easier to interrogate speakers over a glass of wine than across the seminar room. There are of course benefits to waiting until the mandatory post-seminar pub visit as it can facilitate… dare I say networking. Once off-duty there is certainly more scope for further conversation, which for obvious reasons can’t be given free rein in the seminar Q and A sessions.
Nevertheless, I still feel I need to master the art of the seminar question; not least for the sake of my liver. Yet providing I manage to come up with a question on the spot I find myself plagued with doubts. What if they answered my question in the presentation and I didn’t pick up on it? What if I woefully misunderstood the whole paper? What if in those two minutes I was daydreaming about Swayze (other celebrities are available) they discussed this? What if this is just a really silly question? I don’t think I am alone in this- chatting to those older, wiser and much closer to the viva it is reassuring to hear that they too suffer from the same malady. Nonetheless it is still easy to feel like the only one in the corner especially when everyone around you seems so self-confident.
I have yet to re-enact my recent battle, but while it may be a long time before I manage the metaphorical lift at least I have made a start. Unfortunately I don’t think a Patrick Swayze character is going to be on hand to coax me into the spotlight; mores the pity.
(Image 1: www.wikimedia.org; Image 2: Tourism Victoria Flickr Account)
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April 28, 2015 at 9:41 am
It’s refreshing to see the fear of asking questions so eloquently discussed. I’ve struggled with this for years, especially at conferences. The internal questions you describe are almost word-for-word what I ask myself. The only thing I do additionally is wonder whether my question is too inappropriate—in terms of being about my research rather than truly pertinent to the paper or lecture just presented. On the one hand, if people stopped asking questions purely for the sake of talking about their own research, that could only be a good thing, right? On the other hand, the point of seminars, lectures, and conferences is to put ideas out there and get people who work on other things to give feedback from new angles. How do these reconcile?! While my quest for an answer to this continues, I want to say thank you for writing this post and making me feel less alone in the corner.
April 28, 2015 at 12:16 pm
Thanks Jane it is reassuring to know even the best of us get stage fright when it comes to asking questions. I hadn’t thought about the problem of asking questions related to your topic, but on reflection I have developed a slight paranoia about asking such questions, because it has developed negative connotations. Yet when I asked my one question it was inspired by my research and the answer I got has proved to be incredibly useful. Then again we’ve all witnessed people asking questions purely for the sake of it, or worse as an ego trip, which can undermine the usefulness of the Q and A session for everyone. I am afraid I am not sure how you can reconcile this- but it is something worth debating so thanks for bringing it up!