{"id":180,"date":"2016-10-12T04:13:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T04:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesis-doctor.com\/?p=180"},"modified":"2023-01-16T21:46:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T21:46:00","slug":"be-a-specialist-but-please-speak-to-your-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/12\/be-a-specialist-but-please-speak-to-your-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"Be A Specialist — But, Please, Speak To Your Audience"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Some years ago, I found myself with a medical situation that perplexed a specialist, so he sent me to another specialist.<\/p>\n

Three months later, the problem was still unresolved — and didn\u2019t seem like there was even a medical term for it.<\/p>\n

Will I ever recover?<\/em> I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I knew, I\u2019d be retired in Florida,\u201d was his answer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s probably a common joke among physicians at parties, but certainly not the answer I was hoping for.<\/p>\n

As a social scientist, I wanted to get to the bottom of it \u2014 I want to know all about causes, consequences, literature review on the matter, statistics, and more \u2014 and whether this condition had been extensively written about in medical literature, or if it was a new, or increasingly common, phenomenon.<\/p>\n

I recovered \u2014 and still have no clue what \u201cthe problem\u201d was, or what caused it.<\/p>\n

By then, the doctors no longer considered it \u201cthe problem.\u201d To them, it had become \u201cmy\u201d problem.<\/p>\n

As specialists in our respective fields, we often find ourselves swept up in the complexities, terminology and hair-splitting issues that we believe only those in the field know, or care, about.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We forget that what we know is just a minutiae of all of the knowledge in the world \u2014 and there\u2019s not much value to what we know, if we can\u2019t simplify the issues, complexities, or terminology for our audience.<\/p>\n

In my classes, I always remind students that the real test of what they really know is not what\u2019s in their head or what they put on paper for me, but whether they can explain the issues, complexities and terminology to their grandmother \u2014 or their five-year-old cousin \u2014 at a level their audience can comprehend, and in a way that holds their interest.<\/p>\n

If your audience can\u2019t grasp what you\u2019re saying, or why they should care, it becomes your<\/em> problem, not theirs.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You\u2019ve probably taken high school or college math courses with brilliant mathematicians and professors, but what they\u2019re saying seems to be beyond you. You probably wrote off math as \u201cnot my cup of tea (or coffee).\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, when you\u2019re in that lecture theater or conference room for your viva voce<\/em>, to defend your PhD dissertation, or to present at a conference, job interview or grant presentation, you<\/em> are the one \u2014 no matter how brilliant you are \u2014 that has to make your audience understand what it is you\u2019re saying\u2026 and why they should care<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And if they don\u2019t understand \u2014 or care \u2014 what your expertise is, it\u2019s your<\/em> problem, not theirs.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The seemingly innocuous but absolutely dreaded question, \u201cWHY should we care?,\u201d is guaranteed to spark off a flood of tears at any Doctoral oral defense or viva<\/em>; my formidable Doctoral Adviser recalls a heavily pregnant student almost going into labor when asked that at her defense.<\/p>\n

Why should you care?<\/em> Because (for a host of reasons, including if you claim to be a specialist) you should<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bring what you know to your audience\u2019s level\u2026 and show why they should care.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Lose Your Audience.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

(My one-on-one mentoring program coaches and prepares you for that important viva<\/em>, oral defense, tenure-track presentation, grant interview, and more.)<\/p>\n

Copyright 2016-2019.\u00a0 Dr. Serene Lim, PhD\u00a0 and The-Thesis-Doctor.Com.\u00a0 All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some years ago, I found myself with a medical situation that perplexed a specialist, so he sent me to another specialist. Three months later, the problem was still unresolved — and didn\u2019t seem like there was even a medical term for it. Will I ever recover? I asked. \u201cIf I knew, I\u2019d be retired in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academia","category-editing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thesis-doctor.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}