Ending It

What do you do when you are giving a talk at a conference and you have a lot more to say but not enough time to say it all as you had hoped?:

Behavior 1a. Ignore the almost-out-of-time signal and even the totally-out-of-time signal and plow on to the very end as if there is enough time to go through every slide, including a text-rich conclusions slide (or two!), which for some reason has to be read, word-for-word, all the way through.

Behavior 1b. Acknowledge the almost-out-of-time signal but continue to the very end anyway, not skipping any slides, not even the conclusions slides. This type of person apparently speeds up, and perhaps occasionally interjects "I know I'm out of time, but..", and then they keep going. The fact that they are out of time does not motivate them to skip a slide, not even the conclusions.

Behavior 2. Don't skip any of the research info slides, but skip reading the conclusions slide(s). May show the conclusions slide, but say "I'm out of time, so I'll just stop here."

Behavior 3. Skip some or all of the remaining research slides, and go right to the conclusions slide(s) and read them aloud. (opposite strategy of Behavior 2)

Behavior 4. When warned of approaching the time limit, say "I'm just about out of time, so I'll stop right there", thereby possibly leaving time for questions and discussion.

Note that I am only considering the types of people who reach the time limit when giving a talk. Some people finish on time, and this post is not about them.

It is my considered but perhaps unreasonable opinion that it is the rare talk of 10-15 minutes duration that needs detailed text-filled conclusions slides. I typically find these boring and a waste of talk-time. Conclusions slides can be useful if the talk topic was very complex (owing to the topic or the lack of skill of the presenter) or if the presenter is not entirely comfortable speaking English, or whatever the primary conference language is. In those cases, a conclusions slide or two can be helpful for summarizing what was just presented. If, however, the text-filled conclusions slide(s) are just a summary of what the speaker said 2 minutes ago, it's a waste of time for a speaker to read them to the audience, particularly if there isn't time for this.

At the various conferences I have attended this year, I have seen all of these behaviors (and more? did I leave any out?). I always wonder what someone is thinking by going (way) over the allotted time, especially if they are given abundant warning, by automated signals and session leaders, that the time is almost up, and then up, and then more than up. There is one person I know who commonly talks for 20-30 minutes for a 12-15 minute talk, ignoring all of the increasingly urgent but apparently ineffectual pleas for him to stop. [If I were convening a session in which this person wanted to give a presentation, I would assign him a poster, not a talk.]

I am reasonably sure that it is rare for the audience to be thinking "Oh no! Time is up already?! I wish that person could on speaking for much much longer!"

For me, anyway, the main interest and appeal of conferences is not so much the details of what is presented in talks but getting a general sense for what is going on, having informal conversations with people I wouldn't otherwise interact with or even meet, introducing my students and postdocs to the wider Science World, and all that kind of thing.

It doesn't punch a hole in my conference experience if some speakers talk for a few extra minutes, but life would be a tiny bit better if fewer people did this, and especially if they don't read their text-filled conclusions slides, word-for-word, all the way through.

Question 1: Is it mostly the more senior people who go beyond the allotted time for a conference talk? I have seen people of all ages and talk-experience level go beyond their allotted time, but I think it is more common for more senior researchers. This may be in part because students and other early-career people actually practice their talks and therefore know how long their talks are likely to be, whereas we older people are more likely to wing it a bit more and/or to think that our every word is a precious pearl of wisdom.

Question 2: Are the professors who speak longer than the allotted time for a conference talk also the ones whose classes go beyond their scheduled time?

x% of Infinite

Those of us who got some "stimulus" funding (ARRA) in the form of a research grant a few years ago have to do quarterly reporting on the progress of this research, as opposed to annual reporting for a regular grant; in my case, the grant was from NSF. This quarterly reporting is not arduous; it just takes a few minutes of checking the info generated automatically (e.g., number of persons employed by the grant) and updating some text about research activities.

I have no idea who, if anyone, reads these quarterly reports. Unlike annual reports, which have to be approved by a program officer (at least at NSF, I don't know about other funding agencies), once these quarterly reports are done, they seem to be done.

The one part of the reporting that always makes me have to think a bit is the part where I have to report the % of the research that is completed. In some senses, of course, a research project is never really done. You can always do more, and then some more. Particular research questions lead to more research questions which lead to .. etc. That's one thing that is so great about research.

Realistically, though, a grant has a finite time span, so things do come to an end (financially). Therefore, I could answer the question in terms of "How much money is left in the grant?". That is a number that, in theory, can be determined well enough for reporting requirements, although never exactly at any given moment, given the complexity and vagaries of my university's accounting system.

Another way to phrase the question is:"What % of what you said you would do in the grant proposal is done at this time?" That's a tricky question for research projects that veer -- for scientifically valid reasons -- from what was proposed in the proposal. I have written about this before: my research group's grant proposals are our best guess for what we will do to solve the questions and problems posed, but, once the research starts and we get some results, we may find a different/better way to approach these problems, at least in some ways.

In that sense, the % completed of what we proposed to do may be a very different number from the % of the project that will be "completed" by the time the funding runs out.

I have been thinking about this over the last few years as I do my quarterly reports and have to select an answer from a pull-down menu with possible responses to the % completed question. For a long time, I was answering with low numbers because we were in the data-gathering stage (for well over half the duration of the grant), but once we were >>50% in terms of time and money left on the grant, I realized that the % completed should probably kick up a bit, even if we still have a lot more to do.

I suppose at some point I will have to say that the project is 100% completed; that is, when the money runs out, even if the research is not really completed. For accounting purposes, this is probably fine, but it will not be entirely true.

Reviewerzilla

Today in Scientopia, I post a reader's question about what to put in a review for one of the High-Impact Journals. This reader wants to avoid being one of 'those' awful reviewers that bloggers and commenters complain about.

Mean Women

Here is an e-mail I got in response to my post yesterday. The subject line of the e-mail read: University Women's Club - don't celebrate your ignorance. Since I assumed that that was not the motto of the clubs, I guessed instead that it was a clue that the e-mail wasn't going to be very nice.

************

Your blog re UWC was sent to me from one of our clubs.

I am wondering if you have received emails from members of the University Women's Clubs in America or anywhere else in the world.  Most members nowadays are retired professional women with common interests, ergo the interest groups and daytime meetings etc- but our biggest role is in advocacy on all levels - from local to international and fundraising for scholarships and bursaries..  In my province the 23 clubs raised about $250,000 dollars last year.That is a lot of scholarships for women in BC who need the $$.  (When you received your first brochure several decades ago - the UWC members were mostly younger women with small children who stayed at home which was the norm in the 50s and 60s who wanted to use their education outside the home in a meaningful way and to hold discourse with like minded women)

You could have googled about UWCs before embarrassing yourself with your comments. Don't professors do some research before making statements?

Just have a boo at our National website and you will see that we are all about.   www.cfuw.org

Maybe an apology?

Your nom de plume or whatever the nomenclature is in bloggerland........very curious. 

The foregoing is written from just me and not in my official role on the BC Council.

Regards,

Monica von Kursell

--Communications
BC Council

************

Nice! I really wish I could spend more time with people like this. Maybe we can form a club?

Anyway, I stand by my original post, which I do not find at all embarrassing, despite my failure to mention the important fundraising activities of some of these clubs.

** Note: Some of these clubs do advocacy! **

A careful reading of the post might show that I did not disparage these clubs -- not their missions, not their membership, not their existence, whether or not they raise funds for scholarships. I wrote that, while understanding the historic context of the name, I wish these clubs had a different name, one that does not imply that the most common definition of University Women = Wives of Professors.

I still feel that way.

I have been in bloggerland long enough to know that even mild statements about something seemingly uncontroversial can somehow inspire anger and contempt, a reaction I still find ....... very curious. 

University Women

When I started my first tenure-track faculty position, the university resource center sent me a brochure with information about a University Women's Club. I thought "Great! It would be interesting to meet other women professors, researchers, staff..", but then I saw that this club met in the mornings, on weekdays, for tennis, bird watching, a book group, handicrafts.. It was a club for faculty wives and partners. I was confused by the name; to me "University Women" included me, when in fact, it did not in this context.

Every new faculty member got this brochure, whether or not they had a wife. I guess it was more efficient to send it to everyone than merely to have it available for those who wanted it. I recycled the brochure and didn't think about it again.

Years later, on arrival at University #2, I saw no such brochure, or, at least, don't remember getting one, and I don't think my husband was given one either, but we arrived with an infant and didn't spend a lot of time going through our campus mail at that time. There may be such a club; I have no idea.

Fast forward 20 years from the first incident: During an extended visit to another university, my husband was given a brochure to give to his wife in case she wanted to get together with other faculty wives at a University Women's Club, which met on weekdays, typically in the mornings. There is tennis, bird watching, a book group, handicrafts..

That's fine. Some of my good friends and neighbors are married to professors; some of these women work, some do not. I am not criticizing anyone for the choices they make in their own life, and I am not criticizing the existence of such clubs, but..

and it may seem like a small 'but'.. but ..

I wish these organizations had a different name.

The name University Women no doubt derives from bygone days when women were far more likely to be connected to a university by marriage than to be employed there as a professor or administrator. The phrase "University Women" used in this classic sense therefore refers to women who are married to professors and administrators (etc.) at a university, not to women who are professors. The University Women are in-laws of the university.

I think the phrase University Women should instead imply 'women who are directly related to a university; i.e., as students or as employees'. The archaic use of the term University Women to refer to faculty wives is rather unhelpful to those of us who would like to overturn the stereotype (at least in certain fields) of professor = man.

If you heard the term "University Men", would you think of the husbands of female professors? I must admit that the term doesn't evoke that for me, or male professors for that matter. What comes first to my mind is an image of well-groomed male students (wearing sweaters, I don't know why). I am therefore not advocating that University Women = Female Professors, just that University Women does not equal Faculty Wives.

I have no idea how active these groups are, and whether their members are mostly/entirely of a certain age, and (I repeat) I have nothing against these groups, I just think the name of these organizations shouldn't imply that the main association that women are likely to have to a university is as wives.

Destiny's Woman

On a recent, long plane flight, I read The Marriage Plot (Jeffrey Eugenides), and found a few sentences of interest. If I were an underliner, I would have underlined these, both on the same page of the novel:

Madeleine worried that there was something paradigmatic in this, that she was destined to go through life being cowed by less capable men.

and

Phyllida's hair was where her power resided.

OK, I stand corrected about hair and power.

The first quote is interesting, in part because of the use of the word "destined". Is Madeleine worried about being cowed by less capable men because she can't do anything about it, or because she won't do anything about it? Either way, she has a sense of foreboding that this might be a feature of her life.

But why would it be a feature of the life of a young woman like this character in the novel -- an intelligent, literature-loving, Ivy-league graduate?

Have any of you ever felt that way, particularly early in your academic career?

I never felt that I was destined to go through life cowed by less capable men, but I did worry that I was destined to have lots of experiences in which I was automatically assumed to be less capable than less capable men, just because I am a woman. And in fact, this has been my destiny.

I have met this destiny, and it was mine, but that was then, this is now.

I got older. Some of the less capable men fell by the wayside, some are still around and doing well. All of this matters less and less to me as I get older and have more freedom and confidence in my work.

Even so, I liked the sentence in the novel because it captures a feeling you can have, particularly when you are young, about how things might go in the future, in part because you do not have super-human confidence in yourself and in part because life is unfair and strange.

Just don't be cowed. You don't have to be cowed. Just say no to being cowed. Or, if you are cowed now and then, OK, that happens, but don't let it be your destiny.

You may find yourself in another part of the world

Same as it ever was, or at least how it has been for the past 3.5 months, I am going to be spending a lot of time up at 10,668 meters this week. For this final onslaught of busyness before a (relative) respite, I am taking a blog-break this week -- or, at the very least, things will get very sporadic around here for a while.

While I am suspended over various oceans and continents of the world and doing in-seat exercises to avoid deep vein thrombosis, I think it would be entertaining if the readers of FSP would share stories of

THE STRANGEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO YOU AT A CONFERENCE.*

* or workshop or other types of professional meetings.**

** It's sort of cheating if you tell a story of something that happened to someone else, but if it's a really good story, go ahead and tell it anyway.***

***My apologies in advance for delays in comment moderation.