ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries Septem ber 1986 / 497 Speech writing fo r lib rary conferences By Susan Matson Assistant Serials L ibrarian Southern Illinois University A whimsical look at the art of research paper presentation. I t has long been suspected that only a restricted number of words occur in speeches given at library conferences. The facts have now been clearly es­ tablished and it is possible to publish a definitive list of those words. This list should prove to be of great value to young librarians who are about to prepare their first speech as well as to seasoned speakers who in the past have encountered difficult moments during question-and-answer periods be­ cause the wording of their talks left them open to argument or criticism . Analysis shows that the words can be categorized into two short closed lists and one list which, while open-ended, consists of a narrowly defined category of terms. These lists appear in print for the first time in this article. Speakers, and indeed writers of articles for library journals, should study these lists carefully in preparing their contributions. The lists, and the ac­ companying suggestions for their use, should prove an invaluable aid, especially to young people in the field who are still “feeling their way” into the liter­ ature. The key, the cornerstone, of any talk is the title. The title should sum up in a few words the scope of your remarks, enabling others to decide, as they scan a program, whether they wish to attend your presentation. Up until recently, all research on the words used in conference speeches concentrated upon the exam ination of titles alone. A recent breakthrough in theory, however, has led to the ex­ pansion of the investigation into the actual text of speeches. This has opened up exciting new ground which will be discussed later in this article. L et us look first at the construction of titles and discuss the word lists one at a time. The first list ontains the words occurring with the highest fre­ uency as compiled by researchers m onitoring peeches at ALA conferences over a period of years. t might be termed the “common list,” although for time researchers referred to it as the “C P” list, re­ erring to the extraordinary frequency with which ords beginning with the letters “c” and “p” occur. xpansion of the list to include words beginning ith a limited number of other letters has necessi­ ated the name change. The list is as follows: Common list communication organization cooperation participation coordination planning development procedures decision-making program goals project management standards objectives survey The key to creating a title using this list is simply o connect strings of the common words with prep­ sitions. You will quickly get the knack for it. Here re some samples to give you the idea. •Communication and Cooperation in Program evelopment •Planning for Participation in M anagem ent nd Decision-Making •A Survey of Standards for the Organization of anagement Goals and Objectives •Coordination of Procedures for Project Devel­ c q s I a f w E w t t o a D a M opment 498 / C & RL News Do you get the idea? Sure you do. Now, if you wish to be perceived as one of the Young Turks in the library field, if you wish to be perceived as m oving up fast, as “someone to w atch,” you will also want to use terms from the second, or “buzz” list: Buzz list access information chain automation network bibliographic control online environment collection develop- paraprofessional ment resource sharing database utilities Try stringing a few of these together just as you did with the common list: •Automation of Bibliographic Control: A Key Link in the Information Chain •Resource Sharing through Access in an Online Environment •The Involvement of Paraprofessionals in Col­ lection Development using D atabase Networks Other Than the Utilities Are you getting the idea? Now try combining the common list with the buzz list for some real knock­ outs: •Planning for P articip ation in Cooperative C ollection D evelopm ent through Network R e­ source Sharing •A Survey of the Participation of Paraprofes­ sionals in the Automation of Bibliographic Control Are you in the swing of it? Now we come to the clincher list, the list that separates the sheep from the goats, the men from the boys, the librarians from the educators. The list of library-specific terms, or A C R O L IST . Unlike the previous two lists, this one is open-ended. A small sample is given below. Use those you see here and add to the list freely. You can never have too many. ACROLIST AACR LC AACR2 LCS ACRL L IT A ALA LS2000 ANSI MARC ARL RASD BLS RLG BISAC RLN C L R RTSD C LSI UTLAS C R L W LN LAMA etc. Try to work in as many A C R O LIST terms as possible into a framework composed of words from the other two lists. •Survey of Collection Development Projects in ARL Libraries using the O C L C , RLN, and W LN Utilities • T h e Particip ation or Paraprofessionals in C L SI Development among SO L IN E T Libraries •Do the ANSI Standards Impact on AACR2 Records in MARC Format? And W hat about BI- SAC? Your aim in constructing a title is to avoid all words that actually convey meaning. If you must refer to a concrete entity that exists in the real world, always try to use a term from the ACRO­ L IS T . You will find that the nouns in these three lists, com bined w ith a handful of con nective words, will suffice for the title of almost any paper you might wish to present. Now, it is true that this rhetorical technique has been known for some time. A recent discovery, however, offers exciting possibilities for the expansion of the concept. Re­ cently it has been shown that if you allow the use of dates in addition to words from the lists, this tech­ nique will serve for the entire text of your speech. The use of dates is crucial to your opening re­ marks. You will want to begin your speech with a “brief historical perspective.” Always begin this perspective at least ten years in the past, and make heavy use of the A C R O LIST and specific dates. (You will want to save the bulk of the common list for the body of your talk, and to use the buzz list for the real fire.) Aim for something like this: “In the fall of 1972 U TSH LC received an NEH grant to survey the cooperative development objec­ tives in selected N U LCN ET libraries, including NLCU and NTU. By the spring of 1973 a Title II-C grant was met w ith m atching funds from the C T L C division of NTU and the project was re­ named N L C U C T L C L IN E . In October of that same y e a r...” W atch your audience. The eyes of the majority should have begun to glaze over by now as people realize how long it is going to take you to get to 1986 at this rate. You will notice a flurry of activity as many people appear to begin taking notes. Actu­ ally they are drawing rows of little snowmen and elaborate mazes around the edges of their yellow pads, but each one thinks he is the only doodler and that everyone else is really taking notes. Anyone coming in at the back of the room will notice the writing activity and hasten to find a seat and get out his own yellow pad. This is what you are aiming for. You wish to stun the audience within the first three or four minutes o that they stop listening, and yet you must appear to be making an impressive impact. By the time ou get to w hat we laughingly refer to as the “meat” of your presentation, no one will be paying attention and no one will be able to catch you out in a mistake or realize that in fact you have nothing to ay. The “brief historical perspective” part of your peech should last about ten minutes, but you can o on longer if you are enjoying yourself. Some peakers are quick enough and clever enough to rab the “backgrounder” slot on panels. (“Beverly, an we ask you to set the stage for the other speakers ith a kind of background talk on the whole proj­ s y s s g s g c w September 1986 / 499 ect?”) These lucky ones hardly need to use the com­ mon or buzz lists at all— the A CRO LIST and a set of dates are all they need. Unfortunately, it is usu­ ally people who have been around a while who are able to pick off the backgrounder assignments. You and other neophytes will be expected to move on to your “topic” after the first ten minutes. Your topic can either be a description of how some task is performed at your institution (com­ monly called the how-I-did-it-good speech), or it can deal with something that you have counted (commonly called research). There are advantages and drawbacks to each type. The how-I-did-it- good speech requires less work, but has somewhat less prestige. The research type has greater pres­ tige, but it does require that you go to the trouble of counting something and then tallying the results. A how -I-did-it-good talk should p ractically write itself unless you are too stupid or too unob­ servant to notice what goes on around you at work, or unless you have unwisely agreed to describe a part of the task you are not actually involved in. Do not agree to give an overview of your institution’s dealings with a regional cooperative microfilm preservation project if you in fact spend all your time cataloging German philosophy books. In ­ stead, cut your cloth to fit yourself. Title your talk “Decision-Making in the Coordination of Proce­ dures for the Development of Online Access to Se­ lected Subject Areas” and then talk about catalog­ ing German philosophy books. Think about the graduate student that your boss assigned to you half-time to help you catalog “all that stuff that’s been sitting on the floor behind you for six years.” Speak of this event as a “project” and refer to the “coordination” and “cooperation” nec­ essary to it. Speak of the development of proce­ dures to meet the organizational objectives of the project. Mention the desirability of standards, and stress the need for communication (even though in reality your only communication to the graduate student during the last six months was a shouted “You dumb nit!” when he spilled a can of Tab over a three-volume set of Hegel). Make use of the fact that every day some student takes your worksheets away to be typed into a com­ puter. You can point out that resource-sharing is one of the goals of bibliographic control in an on­ line environment. Be sure to refer to cataloging philosophy books as “providing access to biblio­ graphic data,” and assert that being part of the in­ formation chain excites you. Or, alternatively, you can focus on the personnel aspect. Refer to com­ plaints by the typists that they cannot read your handwriting as “the involvement of paraprofes­ sionals in achieving the goals and objectives of the project,” and speak of the need for participation and decision-making in management. Do not fail to conclude with a statement of the percentage of time that you and the graduate student and the typist each spend on the “project.” If possible, state the same data in hours, dollars, and percentages. A research paper requires more prelim inary ork on your part than a how-I-did-it-good talk. hat is why so few are presented. It is necessary to ind something to count and then to count it. The ommon practice is to send out a questionnaire and ount the responses to it. This can take some time, nd often presents problems of presentation. Ex­ laining what it is that you have counted is not too our summary should stun he audience in the first 3 -4 inutes. ifficult, but the effort to explain what the result­ ng tallies mean is often so embarrassing that many eople prefer simply to graph the tallies on colored aper and present them in a poster session rather han making the effort to write a speech. There is o need for you to avoid a speech on a research opic if you make full use of the lists and techniques escribed above and below. Your problem is essentially in deciding what you ant to count. The most common formula is to ally how many libraries perform some task one ay and how many perform it some other way. It s then usual to follow up by asking how many like oing it the way they are doing it as opposed to how any would do it some other way if more time and oney were available. This basic formula can be pplied to almost any aspect of library work and ou should not hesitate to use it. The first ten minutes of a research talk should be evoted to describing how you got grant support to ay for things like stationery and stamps, and in illing in the audience on the need to ask for fund­ ng for secretarial help, a graduate student, and ime on the university computer to perform the sta­ istical analysis. During this part, do not omit to ame the fund sources and the type of computer sed, using the A CRO LIST. Explain in detail how any responses you got to your first mailing, and ow many reminder mailings you had to send. ever apologize for the fact that your final figures re based on a response of 36 out of a mailing of 25. Explain about chi squares. You may get some ympathetic knowing chuckles from the audience uring this part, as fellow researchers recognize hat you have gone through. Researchers and non­ esearchers alike recognize the tiresomeness of the ask and do not hesitate to honor those who under­ ake it. That is why a research presentation is re­ arded more highly than a how-I-did-it-good pre­ entation. The next twenty minutes of a research talk w T f c c a p Y t m d i p p t n t d w t w i d m m a y d p f i t t n u m h N a 8 s d w r t t g s 5 0 0 / C & RL News should focus on what you counted. Lavishly use th terms from the common and buzz lists to define fo the audience what it was you thought you were do ing. You should then go on to read the question naire to the audience. At this point you have a rea opportunity to show that you know how to do mor than talk. In addition to passing out copies of th questionnaire as handouts, you should use an over head projector to splash the questionnaire up on big screen. You can then use a pencil to point to th lines you are reading. It is considered visually excit ing to have highlighted some questions with a yel low marker pen beforehand. You should then pro ject one or two of the colored graphs of your tallie that you were going to use in a poster session. You will find that the request to darken th house lights and turn on the projector will create stir of interest, or at least a stir, among the audi ence. W hen the projector is turned off and th house lights come back up there will be a furthe increase in this stirring as the audience senses, like puppy who hears your car in the driveway, an en to its captivity. This is a crucial time in your talk. You must be alert to this audience reaction be cause your final task, and the last ten minutes o your talk, should be devoted to a detailed summin up, using every list word you can, of what th results of your study mean. Your aim is to restor apathy so that only two people will get up and as you boring questions during the question period, e r ­ ­ l e e ­ a e ­ ­ ­ s e a ­ e r a d ­ f g e e k after which the rest of the audience will walk away saying, “I liked so-and-so’s talk. At least she offered some hard d ata.” “Yes, and those colored charts re­ ally showed you at a glance what the story is.” Your aim in giving a speech is probably three­ fold: to share information and insights with others, to create another entry in your dossier, and to be able to answer people who ask you if you are going to the conference with something offhand like, “Yes, I can’t get out of it— I ’m on the program, you know.” Impressing your friends with your world- weary modesty, showing your boss that you are a go-getter who is developing a “national reputa­ tion,” and sharing your knowledge with others are the goals. The objective is to achieve all this with as litt le em b arrassm en t to you rself as p ossible. Therein lies the beauty of this technique of rhetoric and the reason for publishing the word lists at this time. If you learn to make really effective use of the lists and keep in mind the importance of dates, you will find that you can keep ideas to a minimum and you will never suffer the embarrassment of having your facts challenged or your points ridiculed. E d ito r’s note: Satire can often get the point across m ore effectiv ely than serious exposition. Susan M atson’s article first a p p ea red in the Ju n e 1986 is­ sue o f Southern Exposure, the library sta ff bulletin o f Southern Illinois University.