Dressing up stuff with words
THIS is the 511th consecutive week in which I have written my Wednesday column.
I love doing it! I would like a dollar for every time someone has been kind enough to ask me “How the hell do you think of something to write about each week?” Or words to that effect such as “Surely .... not more of the same Swannell rubbish .... ?”
The fact of the matter is that it’s not easy! Or, more precisely, “It’s not always that easy ..... ” The truth is that, sometimes, there are lots of topics itching to be written about. Those are the easy weeks and the only challenge is to pick up on the topic and get on with writing the words.
How can I not only get my head round the topic but also to try to give it a theme which, even if not original, at least gives it original emphasis and something distinctively “Swannell”? Sometimes I think I achieve that. Often I fail! Same old stuff dressed up in a different set of words!
Often, the less I really understand the topic, the easier it is to say something “original”. When I am going on about a subject in which I fancy myself as being fairly well informed, I tend to pontificate.
University education is an example of something I should try to stay well away from. It’s OK if I am talking about the Arts, about which I really know very little but I steer clear of science and technology areas where I’m supposedly well-informed .... the mathematics of such things don’t lend themselves to riveting reading over breakfast.
There are many similarities between writing about subjects that you have to pretend to know something about and giving talks/lectures about topics where your knowledge of the subject is only very marginally greater than your audience. It’s a con for much of the time .... I’ve heard it said many times that what the lecturer says is largely irrelevant since nobody is listening anyway.
There’s often a lot of truth in that and it’s just as well too. However, what the lecturer should never be allowed to get away with is “lack of detailed preparation” and a realisation that how things are said is vital to the effectiveness of the presentation.
I am sure too many of us have experienced the agony of having to sit through or read a presentation in which it is very, very obvious that the speaker or writer has no interest whatsoever in what he/she has written or is saying.
Sure, the content of any presentation is “lifted” by an engaging presentation or a choice of challenging written descriptions. But “content” is still important. A smart author or lecturer will spend many hours in “getting the words right”, matching those words to the needs and expectations of the audience.
The big challenge for the lecturer is to get the words right, satisfying reasonable expectations with the factual needs of the subject matter, unavoidable truth and rigorous syllabus demands.
It’s all a beautiful challenge. It’s what makes public presentation one of the great components of a successful exchange of knowledge. I gave my first public lecture back in 1962, addressing a group of second year Birmingham University electrical engineering students on the mysteries of the stresses in loaded beams.
I was brilliantly prepared and suitably coherent. I got 35 minutes through a 50 minute session, and very pleased with myself. At 37 minutes I suddenly realised I had no idea what I was talking about, had a fearsome attack of the terrified, collapsed in a heap and needed help from students who thought their new young lecturer had died.
I’ve never been that scared ever since, no matter what the occasion or the quality of the audience.
At 37 minutes I suddenly realised I had no idea what I was talking about, had a fearsome attack of the terrified, collapsed in a heap and needed help from students who thought their new young lecturer had died!