Lena's erroneous zone

http://www.marquette.edu/aegs/advice/condensing.htm

Dr. Rebecca Nowacek, Department of English, Marquette University

How much ground can I cover in my presentation?

If you're wondering how many pages you can read aloud, the answer will vary depending on your font, its size, and how many quotes or diagrams you include. Generally, though, you can expect to get through about 2.5 double-spaced pages in five minutes. Be sure that you read your presentation aloud to make sure that this rough estimate is accurate for your own presentation.

Here's another way to think about how much you can include: you can probably elaborate on and support 3 or 4 points in a 15 to 20 minute presentation, You don't have to give all the details of your argument or study; save those for the paper or conversations afterwards. Instead, focus on the big findings or the 3 or 4 main points, and make sure those are very clear throughout the presentation.

In all of these steps, it is important to have a clear sense of your audience: what are their interests? what do they know already? what do they consider appropriate evidence? Based on your title, what are they expecting?

1. Make sure you have a clear point or "take-home message." Ask yourself: What is the story I'm telling? Can you articulate, in a sentence or two, what you want your listeners to take away from the presentation? If you can't, how will they?
2. Don't be afraid to ruthlessly condense your literature review. Of course, you do need to demonstrate to some degree that you're familiar with the most important problems, researchers, and texts--but often you can convey that sense of mastery and familiarity through, several brief but well placed references or in a handout. Establish the "gap" or "problem" that your presentation is responding to, but don't lose your listeners in a catalogue of famous research or great books.
3. Once you have clearly articulated your "take-home message" choose the pieces of evidence that most effectively develop that message and eliminate these that distract from your message. (But also remember that to explore the complexity of your point or to flesh it out can be useful.)
4. Evaluate carefully the need for long quotes or complex sets of data, for listeners may lose the gist of your argument as they get interested in the details of a data set or drift off during the reading of a long quote. If such information is necessary, consider putting it on a handout or an overhead so your listeners can follow along and stay focused.
5. If there's a very important section or a problem that you don’t have time to address (the details of your methodology, the history of a concept, your answer to a possible objection, etc.) you can invite people to ask for more information in the subsequent question-and-answer period or after the session. But if you invite such inquiries, then do be prepared to answer them.

But also remember that it's a good idea to run your simplified version by someone with expertise in your field to make sure that you haven't made it too simple and therefore obvious or dull.

Here is an example of the kind of condensing you might have to do to turn 25 pages into fifteen minutes.

Original passage: It is this shadow of doubt that I would like to explore in relation to twentieth century understandings of writer's block. While blocking has been a point of interest for perhaps as long as writers have (not) been writing, the body of research literature on writer's block remains relatively small and somewhat scattered. I'd like to gather and tease out the implications of these theories, examining how they build on and relate to each other. But further, as a writer who has experienced first-hand the frustration of extended periods of blocking and as a writing instructor who works with blocking writers, I'd like to examine this literature for its practical utility. How can 1, as a blocking writer or an instructor of blocking writers, put these theories to work? How does each facilitate a process of unblocking and how might each unintentionally contribute to blocking? As a theorist, I'm eager to discover if there are theories that acknowledge and respond to the doubts that Sidney's poem raises; as a practitioner, I'd like to find out what this body of research "buys" within the economy of the lived experience of blocking.

Revised version: So, in this presentation I want to explore this "doubt" in twentieth century research and relate it to my practice as a writer and as a teacher.