I’ve spent some time in hospital recently, for an urgent (for a pretty trivial) operation. One of the things I spent time doing while sitting on the Ward, other than getting bored and counting down the minutes to visiting time, was listening to the way people talked to each other.
One of the interesting things I noticed was the way students were spoken to: I found out that I could tell what year the student was, simply be taking notice of how much things were explained to them. Students newly on the Ward were given all the necessary explanations – experienced students were given only partial explanations or instructions. It was natural and sensible, obviously.
What was interesting though, was that no one realised it was happening – knowledge and experience were assumed by the speaker… and therein lies the problem for presenters. All too often we assume that the audience is ‘trained’ to the level we want them to be at. If they are, great, but check first! There’s nothing more dampening for an audience’s enthusiasm than not understanding you – not because they can’t understand if you explain it, but because you forget to explain it in the first place.
Remember, the more of an expert you are in your field (so the more right you have to be making the presentation) the greater the risk of you making assumptions about what other people know. Something might be obvious to you, because you’ve studied X, Y or Z for months or years, but your audience hasn’t. (If they had, chances are they’d be making the presentation instead of you!).
It’s not disrespectful or patronising to explain your terms and your jargon – it’s actually a simple courtesy… and one which will pay you back fully in terms of how your audience thinks of you and your message!
