RULE 1. These days, in a given academic conference held in an English-speaking country, it is more likely than not that half of the conference speakers are non-native English speakers.
RULE 1.1 Among the non-native English speakers, at least one is likely to be from China who speaks such poor English that s/he becomes the pain of the conference; since this Chinese person is likely to be a man, the category that he represents may be conveniently called ‘the China-man at the conference’.
RULE 2. Subject to only a few insignificant contingent factors, most presentations, regardless of their quality/delivery, are generally likely to receive equal amount of responses in the Q&A session, although if the paper is abstract/conceptual/high-theoretical beyond a point, the amount of responses significantly drops.
Explanatory note 1. Due to the nature of their profession, academics are generally congenial animals who rely on each other for their self-esteem. The rule of reciprocity and karma prevails here.
Explanatory note 2. If one’s presentation is very shallow and stupid, listeners will show not the slightest slight, and will rally around by asking basic factual or comparative questions (e.g. 'In which year were the figures released?' or 'I wonder if you have any insights into the comparative situation in X country?') which are easy to answer.
Explanatory note 3. If one’s presentation sounds incomprehensibly sophisticated and therefore devastatingly impressive, the speaker’s oral pleasure is highly alloyed, because: firstly, there will not be many listeners who would ask questions for the fear of appearing stupid, and secondly, even when some listeners do ask factual/basic questions out of courtesy, the speaker feels that s/he is not addressed at the level of intellectual depth or height s/he deserves. In this case, it is always an unwholesome situation.
RULE 2.1 Given the above reasoning, it may be concluded that like any other form of sociality, academic sociality also punishes outliers and reinforces norm.
RULE 3. The more primitive your manner and technology of presentation, the more readily it is to come across as intellectually heavy-weight.
Explanatory note. PowerPoint presentation slides with animation and sound effects belong to undergraduate students; PowerPoint presentation slides with photos and text quotations belong to Masters and doctoral students; a theory-oriented sophisticated academic tends to do away with visual aids, and to read from a few unstapled pages, while leaving the last presenter’s final ppt slide still on the screen; and a true philosopher’s equipment should be one page of scribbles and a pipe dangling between his lips.
Revelatory note. Dense theoretical discourse stripped of all aids for cognition—and therefore most hostile to comprehension—demands rigorous and vigorous cerebral powers from the audience; the speaker knows this, and knows that the listeners know this; and by assuming such powers are with his listeners, the speaker asserts his superiority most aggressively.
RULE 4. In a similar logic with RULE 3, in order to convey a sense of academic gravitas and intellectual authority, one should do away with all forms of verbal formalities and frills.
Explanatory notes.
If you want to sound like an utter novice, you can say ‘I’m honoured to be invited to present at this conference…’ at the beginning of your presentation; you can only do worse than this by saying the same in a thick Chinese accent.
On the contrary, if you want to assert your superiority, you can start your presentation without any preambles, and plunge yourself and your audience directly in the deep end.
'Say what you are going to say, say it, and say what you have just said’ are undergraduate level effective communication cliché; instead, you should adopt a linear or even circuitous narrative that requires the audience to figure out the logics and connections in your talk, if there are any in the first place. If there aren’t any, don’t worry, you will sound brilliant.
Instead of saying ‘let me conclude...’ or things along that line at the end of your presentation, you can say ‘let me leave it there’, or ‘and that’s where I’d like to leave it’; and emphatically, you should not feel obliged to say ‘thank you’—only junior year undergraduate students speaking English as a second language have been taught to say ‘thank you for your attention’.
RULE 5. During the Q&A session, do not ask the questioner to further clarify their question—you will be wasting everybody’s time, including that of the questioners.
Explanatory note. In the case the questioner was not able to articulate her question or did not understand your presentation at all, you may either quietly ignore her question, or catch the key word(s) in the question and say something about it as you wish.
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