Beyond content, what else matters when giving a talk? At a workshop held by National University of Tainan, Utsudo noticed that however rich a speaker’s content, the way it’s presented greatly affects how much the audience absorbs. A talk with a focused theme and a coherent thread is much easier to follow than a sprawling one that keeps introducing new terms, and a bit of humor helps ease the pace and pull wandering attention back.

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

Attending a workshop at National University of Tainan

In mid-February, I attended a workshop held by National University of Tainan.

For this difficult subject, the organizers invited many leaders in the field. Over three days, the workshop let me view a silent period in history through many different cases, perspectives and disciplines.

Anyone who researches this area knows it’s a period of history that’s very hard to explore and piece together. Those who lived through it aren’t necessarily willing to talk, and the scars of the era are still engraved on their souls. There’s also another important reason: much of the key material was deliberately destroyed.

So scholars work hard to assemble the puzzle, trying to restore what really happened. But the people who lived through that time are now elderly, and many have already taken their unexplored memories to the grave.

As the scholars urged, if this generation doesn’t do it, it will be even harder for the next generation even if they want to. And I realized that understanding this history is a very important key to exploring our “sense of identity.”

When discussing the foundation of everything, without understanding this part, it’s all meaningless. Yet ordinary people won’t touch this cold story on their own; they even steer well clear of it.

Now that I’ve realized this, I want to hand this “key” to more people in my own way. Whether you take it is up to you, and whether it matters isn’t for me to decide. I just want to say it, and feel I should. That’s also the work I’m currently preparing to write.

This time I want to talk about teaching style

But that’s not today’s topic. This time I want to talk about “how talks are delivered.”

(I can already sense someone asking why I said all that first. Because I thought it sounded cool, heh heh)

At that seminar, several lecturers covered different aspects and themes.

Their content was all very rich. Less than two hours was nowhere near enough to cover all the results they’d spent so much time and energy researching and organizing, so they could only pick parts to talk about.

Focused, coherent talks are easier to absorb

That’s when I noticed that the more systematic and connected the topic—simply put, if a talk has a focused theme and a coherent thread—the easier it is to absorb than a sprawling approach.

And if you add a bit of humor along the way, it not only eases the pace of the session but also instantly brings the participants’ drifting souls back XDDD

A sprawling approach keeps expanding. You finally understand one unfamiliar term, then suddenly more terms pop up. By the end, the names seem vaguely familiar but you can barely remember any, not to mention how long you zoned out in the middle (X

Of course, some topics may suit a sprawling explanation better, or maybe I just wasn’t focused. But if I give talks in the future, I’ll pay more attention to structure and coherence, hoping to make things easier for everyone to absorb.

Now I’m starting to worry whether my past talks made lots of people’s minds wander too.

Speaking tips: don’t put your audience to sleep

Back in school, I never paid special attention to how lectures were given. I just felt some teachers’ classes were especially interesting while others made me drowsy.

Now that I’m aware of it, I want to remind myself not to put people to sleep XD

If you ever get the chance to speak on stage, pay attention to delivery as well as content. That way, when you finish, they’ll be awake to applaud you (X

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Further reading

• Previous: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #130: How Far Would You Compromise or Change for Your Dream?
• Start from the beginning: Hey! I Heard You’re a Writer on Ghost Island #01: Utsudo’s Debut — A Road to the Dream Covered in Frost
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.