A new wording for layman’s talk

Two years ago, a wish of many Utrecht University PhD candidates came true: finally, just like PhD candidates at many other universities, they were allowed to give a short, easy-to-follow presentation about their research immediately before defending their dissertation. This is enjoyable for their family and friends in the audience, who can hopefully follow the defence a little better afterwards. An added benefit is that it may help calm the PhD candidates’ nerves. During the presentation, they can get used to the room and, at the very least, have complete control over the first 10 minutes of the ceremony.

More importantly, it also gives PhD candidates an opportunity to practise science communication. Telling your story to a broad audience is far from trivial—and where better to practise than in front of a room full of people you know? It is therefore wonderful that the Centre for Science and Culture offers training to help PhD candidates do this properly.

According to the beadles, 85 percent of PhD candidates now give such a presentation. The layman’s talk is clearly a very good idea!

But why that name?

Layman’s talk is not only unnecessarily gendered, it also has a derogatory connotation. Most PhD candidates spend a great deal of time on their presentation, which is polished and slick—much more than merely a “talk”. Moreover, through Open Science we are trying to move away from the us-versus-them dichotomy between science and society. Yet during PhD defence ceremonies, the audience is labelled as “lay people”. That is, of course, not very friendly…

Just before the summer, I discussed this with some colleagues from the Freudenthal Institute, and we soon came up with several much better alternatives.

One important characteristic of the layman’s talk is that it takes place before the PhD defence ceremony. We could therefore call it the prologue—a small witticism to the three cycling tours that have started in Utrecht. The musical variant, the overture, is also appealing. Or we could choose the culinary option: the amuse. If we want something a little more formal and literal, we could henceforth call it the introduction.

But my favourite is the warm-up. Because that is exactly what the presentation is before the PhD defence ceremony: a warm-up for the audience, and especially for the PhD candidate. So that, warmed up and ready, they can put on a spectacular show!