Hi, I was wondering if anyone else is having problems with speaking up and feeling confident, in seminars or just generally? After 6 months of studying for my PhD I thought I'd be able to talk intelligently and confidently about my work, but often find that if one of the academic faculty (except my supervisor) asks me a question I'm mentally going blank or I'm blithering: of course, after the event I know exactly how I should have answered. If anyone else out there has been through this I'd love to know how to deal with it.

Dianerose, I'd be surprised if there was anyone on here who hadn't been through that! I think it takes time to get comfortable with your topic, after six months I think I was actually getting less confident, as it was becoming apparent just how vast the area was, and just how little I knew relative to that. The best cure is experience, go to as many seminars and networking events as possible; you'll then meet people who know less than you, yet survive perfectly well! Also, you'll experience the double edged sword of vindication and frustration as you hear people asking questions you've been sitting on through shyness, thus realising your thoughts did make sense. And really, practice is the only way, once you've stuck your head above the parapet or fielded a few questions of your own you'll naturally gain confidence, but don't worry about being a little shy at first, it'll come.

I find I have a very bad memory. So

Supervisor: "are there any papers looking at X?"
Me: "oh yeah, there was this one, by erm...Smith and erm"
Supervisor: "what was their method"
Me: "erm....."

So I look like I haven't bothered reading anything - but i have! I've got over that just by taking notes with me to meetings.

In terms of confidence when speaking up, I found that mine came when I had a few meetings with other people who were not in my uni. I suddenly found I knew a lot more about my subject area than they did and there wasn't anyone from my uni there to make me feel like I was being 'above my station'.

I can never properly present work in front of people from my own uni, because i just feel like they're thinking "oh she thinks she knows it all" - I don't know how to get over that, apart from not inviting them to talks!

Thanks for being so helpful and encouraging, I feel more confident already just knowing other people feel/felt the same way, especially about the memory lapses.

I suffered from it and still do in everyday life! I had an interview the other day and made a complete boob as I had brain freeze and just went completely blank (luckily I recovered and they've invited me back for second interviews!)

The best way I've found is sometimes it's just better to think and wait - it's tempting to just try and blabber away to fill the silence but just say "Let me think about this..." and then think. The answer then should hopefully come in some form or other, or at least that's my experience.

I've suffered from this all my life and I suspect it will get worse over the next few years... my problem is that I can't articulate my thoughts at all. I can write them down fine but I've been in conferences for my old job and someone would ask me a question, I would generally just stare at them and come out with a tangled answer of word spaghetti. Or I won't answer the question properly, I'll say "no" instead of yes (or vice versa) or "I think so" if I didn't hear the question properly. I get lots of odd looks, so embarrassing...

Still, I can write my thoughts down just fine, which is incredibly frustrating for someone wanting to have a sane, in-depth discussion about an interesting piece of written work or ask a follow-up question in an interview.

Sigh.

Hey! I always get this, regardless of who's asking the question! My mind will go blank and I'll start wittering on then when I've finished wittering I realise that I didn't come anywhere near to answering the question! I think I'm actually worse when it's non-academics I'm talking to because I find it really hard to explain to people what I'm doing in layperson speak. I now have a standard answer for lay people who ask what I'm doing but as for academics, you can never be prepared for what they will ask! As one of the other posts said, just take a few seconds to actually think about it before blurting out your answer. I think it does get easier with practise, but it's quite common to feel like this to start with! Best, KB