You’ve researched, planned, and delivered a presentation. But how do you handle the question and answer (Q & A) period afterwards? Read on for advice on Q & A time during poster sessions and after presentations.
WHY HAVE Q&A AFTER A TALK?
ACADEMIC DIALOGUE. Giving a presentation is usually unidirectional: the speaker talks and the audience listens. Yet academia is built upon lively discussion as a fundament of learning. So, engaging an audience’s questions and ideas draws more perspectives into the discussion, and provides more opportunity for developing your ideas and your work.
PRACTICE FOR PROFESSIONAL LIFE. Whether you deliver conference presentations in graduate school or give work-in-progress presentations in professional meetings, you’re all but certain to need practice in engaging with an audience. Doing so now gives you opportunities to learn different strategies and to test a variety of approaches.
STRATEGIES FOR ANSWERING
PREPARE IN ADVANCE. As you’re planning your presentation, think about the kinds of questions you might receive. What might non-experts want to know more about? What might experts be likely to ask you about? Also, if you have to cut material from your talk (as many folks do when trying to keep to an alloted time), save that material, including slides if there are any. Have that material handy during your Q&A session, and be ready to use it/display it if you receive a question on it. This will help you feel more in control, and it will help show your audience how thorough you are.
If you’re presenting a poster, know that people might break into your brief poster talk with questions before your talk is finished. So, practice giving your talk while friends or classmates break in with questions at different points in the talk. This will give you practice so that experiencing similar interruptions during the actual event won’t feel unfamiliar.
LISTEN CAREFULLY, ANSWER CONCISELY.It’s important to engage fully with the questions you receive so that your audience can learn and you can receive useful information and ideas from your audience. So, it’s essential to listen carefully to your audience’s questions and comments. If you didn’t hear a question completely, or if you’re not sure that you understand it, you should ask the questioner to repeat themselves, or you could ask “I’m not sure I’m understanding your question fully — could you perhaps restate it?”
When giving your answers, aim to answer the question fully, but also concisely. Additionally, feel free to direct questioners to useful secondary sources if you sense that they want to learn more about the topic.
WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER.Everyone receives questions that they cannot answer at some time, so expect questions of this type — and don’t feel like you’ve done someone wrong if anyone asks you a question to which you don’t know the answer. Ahead of time, prepare what you’ll do when this happens. Some strategies include thanking the speaker for their question and stating how you appreciate that they’ve pointed out an area of further study. Additionally, if the question falls outside the scope of your work, you can politely say so.
WHEN WORKING IN A GROUP
EVERYONE SHOULD SPEAK. If your group divides its talk into different parts, the person to answer should be whomever delivered the part that’s related to the question. But it’s expected that every member of a presentation group should participate in the Q& A.
YOU CAN ADD TO SOMEONE’S ANSWER. As mentioned above, it’s customary for all members of a group to answer questions. But audience members might not have questons about all parts of a talk, so some presenters might not know what to do to participate in the Q&A. Yet you can build onto what a group-mate says to answer a question, adding detail or explaining further.
FURTHER RESOURCES
Hanke, Stacey. “The Best Way to Answer Questions After a Presentation or a Meeting.” Entrepreneur, October 8, 2018.
Webb, Caroline. “How to Nail the Q&A After Your Presentation.” Harvard Business Review. January 24, 2020.
