For more successful writing, answer these discovery questions before you begin!
Exigence
- What’s the conference theme or topic?
- What’s the idea in a nutshell? (one simple sentence)
Audience
- Who’s my audience? Who’s coming to this conference?
- What level am I pitching this to? Is there a range of levels of understanding in the audience?
- Do I anticipate any audience issues? (e.g. expectations, preconceptions, hostile, disinterested…)
- If they have options at the conference (e.g. Stream A vs Stream B) then what would make them want to show up to my talk?
Content
- What information do I want to impart to my audience? Prioritize the key pieces of info.
- How does that differ from audience expectations?
- What do I have to offer that’s new?
- How much material have I already got that I could recycle?
- How much new research is required?
Genre
- What’s the most appropriate format? (e.g. PowerPoint, video, Prezi, etc.)
- What info can I pull out of the presentation? (e.g. handouts, web references, etc.)
- What’s an appropriate tone for the talk? (e.g. inform/persuade, lecture/entertain, etc.)
Sanity check
- There’s always too many slides and too much text in a presentation.
- Leave time for questions.
- Seriously, what possessed me to submit this abstract/proposal?
