| TLDR; Recognize impostor syndrome and include 'basics' even in presentations for highly skilled people. I'm in the physical sciences and routinely give fairly math-heavy presentations. It's easy to think that an audience of Phd's and professors know all prerequisites and just need the hard facts in a rapid succession. On the contrary over time I found that my audience typically appreciates when I start from the very beginning (in my case meaning advanced undergraduate level or so), and working up to the actual problem setting. Although my audience is very much expected to know that material they A) get primed for the topic and have a chance to feel good about 'I know this' and B) understand my view of the topic so that we have a common language. With that I'm ready to frame the technical problem and explain my work. The last time I did this I actually spent 10 out of 20 minutes on the first part, and the talk was very well received and generated an 'invited paper' request for a journal. No one has ever complained that my talks are 'too basic'. EDIT: Btw, the metric I use to measure success is amount of generated questions & engagements in and after the talk. If the moderator has to cut off Q&A for the next speaker you win. If people hunt you down to talk more you win. |