Yes! That moment of conversation. I'm still very self-conscious during these and need to actively conjure up the right state of mind: 'if this were just the two of us over coffee, what would I be curious about?'

Do people have sharable tips about thoughtful Q-asking practice? https://twitter.com/historywomble/status/1380497968818716678

Seriously, the performance of a Q&A is very daunting. I used to utterly hate it because of the showing-off & putting down that it seemed to encourage.

Only when I saw it modelled much more constructively (Lisa Jardine's model stands out in my memory ) did I learn to embrace it

I now actively try to cancel out my worries about how other participants will perceive me as stupid or not belonging in academia, and instead focus on what a conversation with that speaker or that panel would be like.

Because conversations over coffee were often my favourite part of a conference: genuinely asking for stuff I'd been intrigued about, floating balloons about things that resonated in my head while listening, curiosity about what their thoughts would be on [random stuff I'd read]

I'm still self-conscious during Q&As, and I don't always get into the right mindset. But things I've tried to poke my brain with:

1) making a panel speak to each other: that's the bit that makes conferences, the resonances across papers. That's where your research gets a helpful new light shed on it. If not, it might as well have been a publication.

So I often try to: either drawing out some resonances across the panel myself and prod for further comment, or highlight one aspect from a paper and ask if the others have something to say to that from their own research.

Or I just link to another paper at the conference altogether...

2) Lean into the bit that fascinates me, and then try to frame it as a question just to get more... It can be as silly as 'that fascinates me, could you say something more, because it seems to shine new light/complicate/nuance, xyz' [I like to include *why* it fascinates]

(those are the most hilariously open-ended questions, and I'm sure people have rolled their eyes at my asking such a vague thing, but it's often led the presenter to reveal this whole other shiny gem that was cut from the 20-minute presentation)

3) If a presenter is underselling themselves, not really telling us why we would care, I've tried to figure out what I could take away from it and try to nudge them. Sometimes a paper can be really closed, not really inviting Qs or telling us the 'so what' answer.

Sometimes asking about the broader project, where this casestudy/presentation fits into that, what its role is in that broader project, helps the presenter to say something more about why this is of relevance beyond the mere example.

also: asking about the other side of the story can help with that articulating of the significance: if it's a paper largely about reception: ask about creation; if it's about internal debates, ask whether they were perceived as such by outsiders, etc.

yeah, this. If your comment serves the conversation, not your ego, I can be flexible. https://twitter.com/RareBookLibAntw/status/1380522928970809353?s=20

also, I rather like jumping off from other people's questions. Often that's because they helped me crystallise something that had been a vague sense in my head. But also: it mechanically helps to turn that Q&A into more of a conversation.

These sample questions and helpful categories are such a useful tool!

Bookmarking for own use and for passing on to students. https://twitter.com/_drsang/status/1380503552322371586?s=20