This morning, I finished making the slides for a talk I’m giving at the BCCE at Purdue next week. (Any of you chemists or chemical educators in the audience planning on being there?) I feel very proud of myself for having the slides written and ready to use days before I even board the plane. I’m even sufficiently enthusiastic that I may just start writing a paper-version of the content I’ll be giving in my talk.
That brings me to my question for academics and others who work in the media of “paper” and “presentation”:
Which do you typically write first?
Do you write a paper first and then adapt it to a suitable format for presentation*? Or do you write your talk first and then use it as the basis for a paper (which might be more lengthy, formal, detailed, etc.)?
Is this a pattern you’re happy with, or do you ever think you’d rather do it the other way around? (If the latter, what exactly is stopping you or has stopped you from doing it the other way around?)
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*Opinions vary on what counts as a suitable format for presentation. There’s this practice in philosophy where, rather than giving a talk, a philosopher will read the audience a paper. This sometimes happens even in instances where the paper has circulated to audience members in advance — which means you can watch the presenter reading his or her paper while audience members read along on their own photocopies of the same paper.
Maybe it’s my early training as a chemist (since, in chemistry, no one gives this sort of presentation), but I have always found the reading-to-the-audience format offputting. But, it’s one where clearly the writing of the paper comes before the “writing of the talk”.