14.1 Regular seminar participation

Becoming a good researcher means much more than studying in isolation. An essential part of the learning process comes from regular participation at an academic seminar.¹ Even if the format seems initially strange (and most groups are welcoming these days and have open-house admission), it is worth persevering. Seminars are access points to the world of sustained study. So all researchers should find an appropriate group and attend regularly. Many seminars form real communities, whose debates and ethos evolve over decades. Such groups are key antidotes to intellectual isolation. It’s perennially instructive to learn about other projects and to assess how people use the chance to address a knowledgeable audience. By the same token, it’s vital also to learn how to participate by studying the live arts of asking and answering questions.

Better still, it’s highly educational not just to audit a seminar but also to participate actively. And that requirement entails being prepared regularly to ask probing questions; and being able, when giving one’s own research presentation, to answer questions confidently and well.

The core reason for such participation is that a good seminar in effect provides a free consultancy for the speaker and an educational process for all present. Helping to create that positive experience boosts inner self-confidence; wins respect from supervisors and fellow researchers; and helps towards the advancement of knowledge and the making of communal judgements. It’s an iterative process – and an excellent one in which to be not just a silent witness but an active participant.

These days, there’s an increasing chance that the gathering will be organized virtually rather than face-to-face. All the advice here applies to all seminar formats. However, it’s worth noting that speakers in virtual gatherings do not get the immediate feedback (ranging from laughter to murmured agreement or dissent) which ‘real’ participants spontaneously supply. So the first experience of talking to camera and being received in dead silence can prove somewhat disconcerting. The answer is to persevere, speaking succinctly – and making the voice and face as expressive as possible.

Researchers at all levels of experience are now learning this stylized version of speech. It constitutes a refinement of standard communication skills. The closest analogy is talking on the radio. Infusing the voice with warmth really helps – and, given the head-and-shoulders visibility of virtual conferencing, so does a warm smile.

14.2 The range of questions

Many straightforward enquiries exemplify a wholesome quest for further information or clarification. They ask for further detail about the sources, including their provenance and reliability. Or they seek further elaboration of the definitions and concepts that have been referenced. Sometimes, too, questioners will challenge a given terminology, even if still accepting the general thrust of an argument. Thus it often happens that requests for further information or clarification constitute the majority of all enquiries. It follows too that there is no presentation which cannot be questioned.² Every name, place, date or detail can prompt a follow-up request for further information.

By the way, it is wrong to assume that simple enquiries are somehow automatically ‘inferior’ or easier questions. One effective example was voiced after a presentation on the religious policy of the eighteenth-century British state and its dominions. The speaker had claimed that an inflexible Anglicanism was imposed everywhere. But one questioner asked simply: ‘What about the Quebec Act?’ Under this legislation (1774), Britain allowed freedom of worship to the French-speaking Quebec Catholics and enabled them to swear allegiance without reference to religion. This flexibility ran contrary to the speaker’s stress upon the immovable Protestantism of British policy. Afterwards, it was generally agreed that the question was the verbal equivalent of a knock-out.

Another smaller but still substantial range of enquiries focuses upon the chosen methods of classification, selection and/or organization of research material. Challenges are especially required if the criteria have not been well explained in the presentation. Social-cultural classification systems, in particular, always benefit from debate, whether focusing upon class, ethnicity, religion, nationality or any other special identities. One phenomenon that is often under-studied is the extent of intermarriage between ostensibly different or even hostile groups. That process, which is very common historically, can greatly complicate assumptions about the rigidity of social divisions, and makes a good topic for questions. Most other systems of grouping data can be queried too. All such interventions can helpfully assist presenters to clarify what they have done and why.

Meanwhile, a minority of questions take the form of a direct conceptual challenge or philosophical counter-argument. Such strong interventions often provoke a lively general debate. One line of questioning is to consider the speaker’s core argument and then assess whether it is internally consistent and upheld by the evidence. If not, then it’s fairly open to challenge.

Another way of probing is to search for the speaker’s underlying assumptions (maybe implicit rather than explicit) and then evaluate them. Perhaps the material could be used to make the opposite case – or at least to argue something very different. Such bracing questions are eminently valid. Sometimes those who raise fundamental objections don’t necessarily endorse them but are playing devil’s advocate. They are using the seminar as a forum for testing out ideas. At other times, questioners and presenter may discover that they disagree fundamentally. So be it, provided that the debates are conducted without aggression or personal animus.

If the speaker is a novice giving a first presentation, then the audience generally treats them comparatively gently (and the chair is usually protective too). By contrast, experienced figures will expect to get the compliment of a bracing set of questions, and will welcome a fundamental challenge. All should strive to be ‘good seminar citizens’: ready to enjoy the stimulus of debate.

Academic styles vary over time. At one stage, questions were asked aggressively, even savagely. But for the last thirty years or so, the prevalent style has become more courteous, even dulcet. However, the intellectual context of questions should not be diluted. In the seminar context, tough, well-honed, to-the-point criticisms are intellectually very helpful. As the poet-artist William Blake once remarked: ‘Opposition is True Friendship’.³ Good criticisms put speakers on their mettle. Sometimes, they are initially surprised; even indignant. But they should be triggered to defend and re-expound their arguments more effectively. That process also means that next time they present or write about this material they can anticipate and rebut criticisms in advance.

It’s true that it takes a bit of debating experience to realize that a severe critic is in reality a friend lurking in disguise. But seminar participation is one of the best ways to learn.

14.3 Practising the art of questioning

Attracting the attention of the chair, indicating a willingness to ask something and then making a good intervention in a flowing debate is a creative skill and, like all skills, it is one that can be learned and improved with practice. Having taken the plunge, the process becomes steadily easier. By contrast, those who hesitate and remain silent find that it gets progressively more difficult to break into the debates. Hence all new researchers should be encouraged to start with short, punchy, wholesome requests for information.

Any intervention that launches one’s voice into the room is good. In that way, new questioners can get used to the rustle of accompanying attention, which can at first seem off-putting. Then, over time, researchers can progress to making longer enquiries and eventually to offering counter-arguments. Such attempted refutations, by the way, should be kept relatively brief. It’s very bad form to launch into a lengthy counter-lecture. Any questioners who detect signs of that tendency in themselves should control it quickly. Otherwise they are likely to become classic audience bores, causing others to sigh heavily and rustle papers to deter them. The focus should remain throughout upon the presenter and the content of the presentation.

Some supervisors these days require research students to ask a given number of questions per academic year (rising in number as the years pass). That instruction sounds a bit mechanical. But it provides excellent training because, actually, it is easier to ask a question when the decision to intervene has already been made. Otherwise, a lot of time is spent dithering: shall I, shan’t I? Afterwards, it’s also good practice for postgraduates to review their intervention with the supervisor. Generally, newcomers to the art are buoyed by a successful first question – breaking their seminar duck – and gain confidence for next time.

If there is great competition to join the debates, as sometimes happens, then not everyone will manage to speak every time. Nonetheless, it’s excellent mental practice for all auditors to cudgel their brains throughout the presentation, whether they succeed in joining the debate or not. The minimum target is to devise at least one potential question. It’s a great way to remain intellectually alert. And, having become accustomed to that good practice, more advanced targets can be set. It’s a subtle task to devise three different questions: one in the form of a general enquiry to start the questioning; the second a definitional question to probe more deeply; and the third a seriously tough critique, in case the meeting is giving an experienced speaker too easy a ride.

Such mental preparation is also helpful for those who are invited to chair seminars and lectures (see chapter 15). It has the further advantage in that if summoned unexpectedly to ask a question (rare, but it does happen), then something apposite is ready to hand. With these matters to occupy the listening mind, no seminar presentation is ever boring.

14.4 The need for effective answers

Both the audience’s questions and the speaker’s answers are crucial. In general, their specific wording remains non-memorable. But, while the details of questions and answers are subsumed into the broad academic debate, the nature of the answers matters just as much as does the thrust of the questions. Effective responses greatly enhance a good presentation. By contrast, poor and/or evasive answers can backfire. Indeed, at worst, they can ruin a superficially fine presentation by failing to rebut a fundamental criticism.

Hence the overwhelming rule is to reply rather than to sidestep the question. Nothing is more annoying for an academic audience than to realize that the presenter is intellectually absconding. (In politics, the art of evasion has become so highly developed that even the toughest and most persistent interviewer may find it impossible to extract an answer.⁴ But academic life has a different set of expectations.)

One possible diversionary tactic is to attack the motives and probity of the questioner. Yet responses of that sort cut absolutely no ice in an academic seminar. Audiences think poorly of all speakers who evade questions and refuse to enter into debate. A general seminar convention, which is almost invariably upheld, requires both engagement and complete courtesy. On the rare occasions when someone (whether the speaker or a member of the audience) is personally abusive or unduly aggressive, then the entire room turns against the person who is being rude (or rudest). The chair may also intervene, depending on the circumstances, to halt unpleasant exchanges. In sporting terms, the correct advice is to kick the ball, not the player. As already indicated, however, hostile comments are very unusual during academic meetings.

Very terse replies are also unhelpful ways of evading discussion. Single-word answers, such as ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, generate an initial laugh, especially when following an over-long and tedious question. Yet such extreme brevity is not really playing fair with either the questioner or the audience. It is fine, meanwhile, to start an answer with a single brisk word, provided that the respondent then goes on to justify the verdict. Then the speaker gets approval for providing both clarity and content.

Overall, there’s a balance to be struck. Answers to questions should be not too short but … not too lengthy either. If anything, respondents tend to speak for slightly too long, often in their anxiety to cover every nuance. These days, however, chairs usually try to keep a good flow of questions coming. If and when speakers are unwisely tempted to give a reprise of their entire presentations, the audience quickly switches off. The same applies when evasive answers turn into nothing more than higher waffle. A crisp response, answering the point(s) – and nothing more – works best. Also, crispness allows time for more questions, to the benefit of both speakers and audiences. As a broad generalization, the seminar time is expected to be divided approximately fifty/fifty between the presentation and the discussion – with forty-five to fifty minutes given to each half – although in some national traditions – disappointingly – very little, if any, time is allotted for questions.

14.5 Tips for answering

A first pointer for respondents is to start with a short ‘holding’ phrase, which provides a brief moment for cogitation. When listening to a complex or tricky question, it can be difficult to grasp the real point and simultaneously formulate a good answer. But many respondents find that while starting with something pleasant, like ‘I’m glad that you raised that point’, their subconscious minds are getting into gear. In other words, speakers have given themselves a short mental breathing space. However, it’s sensible to use many variants of such ‘holding’ phrases. It sounds too saccharine if every question is welcomed with the same apparent rapture in identical phraseology.

While listening to a question, it’s very helpful for speakers to have discreetly at hand a notepad on which they can jot down very short headings that indicate the topic(s) raised. Having that reminder is especially useful in the event of two-pronged questions. When answering one half of a query, it’s too easy to forget about the other half. Looking down to check one’s notes can provide a useful prompt. Furthermore, a brief memorandum of the points raised by the audience is an invaluable recourse. Their comments and queries may be intricate or plain-sailing. But, either way, they tell speakers which elements of their analyses need clarification and where the arguments need bolstering.

Hence it is good practice to institute an auto-debriefing fairly soon after every public presentation (before the debate has faded from the mind). The notes can be expanded into a mini-review, to keep on file for one’s own eyes only. Then, should speakers wish to revisit the material (for example, when writing research chapters), they have an instant critique to hand. Next time, they can either improve their work and refute criticisms more successfully; or instead, they can accept the criticisms and switch their core argument. Such complete reversals happen relatively rarely. Yet the point of exploring ideas in open debate is to offer options for intellectual growth, which may lead in unexpected directions.

It follows also that, in the interests of frankness, speakers should never pretend to knowledge they don’t have. If unable to formulate an answer immediately, which is a problem that can happen to anyone on a bad day (or when presenting new and untested material at the research frontier), the best reply is: ‘That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer off-hand; but I will check it out and get back to you’. And, having promised, then it’s naturally important for speakers to deliver. Audiences will cheerfully accept a frank confession of an inability to answer immediately. They greatly prefer that to listening to prevarication and fudge-and-mudge. Following up a question in this way also provides an opportunity for longer correspondence and engagement.

Above all, the key point for respondents is to stand fast on their core arguments. It is acceptable to give way graciously when faced with minor challenges, if they are well posed. Accepting valid corrections is part of the give-and-take of the debating process. On central elements of the argument, however, speakers are expected to stand their ground, politely but firmly. Later on, people can reconsider and change their minds – which does happen, albeit rarely. But after a presentation that has attracted probing questions, the audience expects the core case to be defended in full.

An excellent example occurred at a meeting of the American Historical Association in December 1996. The eminent social historian Lawrence Stone was in a crowded conference session where his latest publication was given a searching critique by a new researcher.⁵ Standing up, he exclaimed: ‘Oh, dear, I think I’ve been holed below the water-line’. Then, with a cheerful laugh (shared with the audience), Stone rallied and, on the spur of the moment, articulated a robust response to the (valid) criticism. He was neither rancorous nor flustered. It was a sparkling moment, showcasing academic debate at its best. Stone was arguing for the exclusivity of aristocratic lifestyles in the later seventeenth century. By contrast, his critic found the personnel of commercial, professional and landed society to be overlapping.

Adding to the interest of the occasion was the fact that Stone’s critic was one of his own postgraduate students. But he was utterly fair-minded. He fully supported Susan Whyman, the postgraduate in question, who is now a distinguished freelance historian.⁶ Thus, while some established professors cultivate in-groups of close supporters, the more generous ones, like Stone, are dedicated to the advancement of historical knowledge, even when their own arguments come under attack.

14.6 Summary: not always one right question or answer but a right process of debate

Manifestly, there can be no one right answer in absolutely all cases. Some historical issues are too intractable, and some sources are too fragmentary, to be resolved into one single unanimously agreed outcome.

There is, however, a right process of firm and thorough but courteous debate.⁷ That’s the aim of a seminar and often the outcome. Speakers should be ready to respond appropriately. Replies should be brief, pertinent and positive. It’s good to learn from the questions and the responses. It’s nice to win the argument as well. Above all, therefore, all parties should remain on their toes intellectually. Having given a presentation, it’s fatal to relax too soon. Equally, it’s fatal to underestimate an audience. Anyone, whether highly trained or a complete novice, can ask a searching question. There’s always scope for an unexpected angle or a fresh critique.

Questioners and respondents are sustaining an impromptu debate, until the chair finally winds up proceedings, usually with thanks all round. The collective sense of the historian’s discipline is forged in many arenas; but the interactive format of the seminars, combined with the regularity of their meetings, makes them particularly crucial. Even if specific presentations seem boring, the deeper overall processes are not. Participants may try to move the debates onwards by (politely worded) probing questions, conceptual challenges and deep theoretical disagreements, excluding only personal rudeness, slander and hate speech. And, out of reasoned argument comes knowledge.

1. 1  J. H. Anderson and A. H. Bellenkers, Leading Dynamic Seminars: a Practical Handbook for University Educators (Basingstoke, 2013).

2. 2  L. Elder and R. Paul, The Thinker’s Guide to the Art of Asking Essential Questions (Tomales, Calif., 2019); M. N. Browne and S. M. Keeley, Asking the Right Questions: a Guide to Critical Thinking (Boston, Mass., 2015).

3. 3  Illustration in William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell (London, 1793), showing a writhing serpent of knowledge and the faded words: ‘Opposition is True Friendship’.

4. 4  J. Baggini, Do They Think You’re Stupid? 100 Ways of Spotting Spin and Nonsense from the Media, Pundits and Politicians (London, 2010).

5. 5  The rival views eventually appeared in print. Compare L. Stone and J. C. F. Stone, An Open Elite? England, 1540–1880 (London, 1984); and S. E. Whyman, ‘Land and trade revisited: the case of John Verney, London merchant and baronet, 1660–1720’, London Journal, xxii (1997), 16–32.

6. 6  S. E. Whyman, The Pen and the People: English Letters Writers, 1660–1800 (Oxford, 2009); The Useful Knowledge of William Hutton: Culture and Industry in Eighteenth-Century Birmingham (Oxford, 2018).

7. 7  J. Brimble and D. Pritchard, Guide to Debating: the Principles and Practice of Debate (Pontypridd, 2003); R. Feldman, Reason and Argument (Harlow, 2014); D. Walton, Argument Evaluation and Evidence (Cham, 2016).