hi all,

I did my first presentation in a joint departmental seminar today. Everything seemed perfect before answering questions from the audiences.

The first question, asked by the head of department, was extremely difficult. I answered the question, but I didn't realise that my answer was offensive until my colleague told me. The second question was Okay, but I misunderstood the third and the fourth questions. Although my supervisor didn't say anything, I feel bad about this.

Don't feel frustrated. These things happen even to the most experienced scholar. We all learn by doing it. I have presented many times, and problems appeared when I was more confident! I now think about possible questions and try to find good answers beforehand. I then write some bullet points on post-it and keep it handy. Remember that it is a perfectly acceptable practice to ask people to repeat or clarify a question. If you are still unsure, try to summarise what you think they meant to check that you understood correctly. Ultimately, if you are not able to answer you can say something like: 'I cannot be more specific on this issue now. Can I get back in touch with you?'. I am sure that your perception of what happened is much worse than it was in reality. We always tend to emphasize the negative aspects. O.K. it wasn't perfect, but it will be better next time, because now you know how to deal with it.

I agree with Corinne - I think that feeling frustrated and having the feeling that you could have done better is normal in your first presentations, but on the other side we all tend to be hypercritical with ourselves in these matters and believe that our presentation has been a disaster whereas the audience may have a very different view.
And remember that it is not compulsory to have an answer for everything! Just admit calmly that you haven't researched properly the answer to that specific question but that you plan to (you're a PhD student after all, everybody knows that yours is a "work in progress"), or that you hadn't planned to but thanks to that question you have identified a new line of research for the future. I've only done a few presentations and they were all very relaxed, but I always try to remember that the questions and answers session is not meant to be the Inquisition, but a helpful dialogue for everybody.

I've walked away from every presentation ive ever done feeling like an absolute numpty. I usually get pretty angry at myself too. I'm usually most worried about what my supervisor(s) and other colleagues think of me.

I think its very common to feel low after a presentation - but the truth is, majority of the audience don't judge you as harsh as you may think.

Don't be too hard on yourself. And don't let any frustrations (or in my case, insecurities) put you off doing more presentations in the future.

Thanks for Corinne, Nimrod81 and Sim.

I feel much better now after reading your replies.

Excellent! It's nice to see a smile again. A positive attitude always makes a difference.
I found this web site, which may be of some help. There are a lot of links on how to present and how to deal with the audience. I used it a few times and found it useful.
http://www.khake.com/page66.html

Corinne thats a great website. Ta
I am going to show it to my undergrads next semester.
Their presentations are usually dismal - bless them.

I completely agree with pea; it is an excellent website. Thanks again Corinne.

Moreover - I'm not sure whether English is your first language - if not, it is yet another difficulty and, yes, you can answer in a slightly offensive or unpolite manner without being aware of it! However from my experience academics tend to be quite understanding in these situations.