At a really interesting symposium I attended yesterday, I realized I hate the question-and-answer period with a passion. I'm sick of narcissistic academic verbal diarrhea, especially when it follows a carefully constructed, well-argued paper. I offer the following list of dos and don'ts in the spirit of intellectual community. To all the smug professors and graduate students out there, please have the good taste to conform to these rules.
1. Do ask a question. Why is this obvious rule constantly broken? Why do so many people stand up and say, "My question is really more of a comment"? Ugh! I don't necessarily think it's because all academics like to hear themselves talk, although there are plenty who do. Rather, I think lots of us are used to thinking aloud, especially when we teach. Classroom settings magnify our own importance. We're also accustomed to having intellectual conversations with one another. A public forum, while it may resemble a group discussion, is not a conversation, nor is it a classroom. If you're sitting in the audience, you're not the most important person in the room. No one wants to hear your navel-gazing exegesis on the decline of the Roman Empire or the problems of the left when the rest of us are thinking about Victorian cast-iron doilies or whatever. If you can't think of a question, don't pretend you have one. Pipe down.
2. Do be brief. Many times challenging questions do not require a lot of mushy convolution in order to be asked. In contrast to Thinkus aloudicus, described in rule 1, is the genuine question-haver who feels compelled to restate his or her query dozens of times. Sometimes this is a matter of giving contrary examples, which is fine, but if you find yourself using the same words over and over again, you might be prattling on and trying others' patience.
3. Don't try to outwit anybody. There are questions that challenge, and there are questions that try to force people into contradicting themselves. Stick to the former. Serious intellectual differences can be addressed directly and don't require forcing people into corners to make them look foolish.
4. Don't refer to your own work. I don't care how famous you are, there are going to be some people in the audience who haven't read all your books. They are not stupid. This also applies to you if you think everyone is intimately familiar with the historiography of your latest research project.
5. Nobody likes follow-up questions or multi-part questions. Don't ask them. Do you want to confuse people? Then ask a three-part question. Do you want to annoy people? Then ask a three-part question.
Here is my basic formula for asking an intelligible question that will get a substantive answer. Always have a concept or theme to your question that you can express in a single word (preferably not jargon): "gender," "order," "power," "utility," or what have you. This concept or theme must be recognizable across fields—in other words, it should be something that most people might consider as they write. Begin by mentioning this concept. Then elaborate. Without sounding like the second-year graduate student who's come up with a few pet critiques ("How would this book look if it paid attention to class?"), ask the speaker something related to this theme: a clarification, an expansion, a connection, a variation. Then restate the theme (one word, remember) and ask directly for comment on it. Don't trail off; this can prompt the speaker to finish your thought for you and avoid your question, especially if they know you're a grad student.
Once I figure out how to get your question answered when the moderator is taking a bunch of questions at once, I'll tell you. Adieu till the next conference.
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