I struggle with this frequently. Of course, in many cases I waltz into a talk where (I think that) the rest of the audience knows more than me, and in those cases I don’t say anything. The best solution I’ve seen is to first build up a ton of social credit and then ask tons of questions. I’ve seen a few cases of fancy professors asking very basic questions that I was too afraid to ask, and knowing that nobody thought they were stupid afterwards.
If you feel like you’re in danger of giving this talk at the beginning, it might be best to explicitly say at the beginning that you encourage all questions, even if they’re naive. I recall going to a talk where the speaker did this twice, lots of people asked questions, and I learned that the axes of a graph meant something different than I first assumed.
On the weirder side of solutions, you could try classically conditioning yourself not to take embarrassment so poorly. If you’re a sugar fiend, bring some candies to a talk and eat one for each question you ask.
I also struggle with the fact that sometimes during a talk, I zone out and don’t know whether the speaker already answered the question I have, precisely because I was zoned out when they might have answered the question. In this case, I tend not to ask the question, since I don’t want to take the time away from other people listening to the talk.
I struggle with this frequently. Of course, in many cases I waltz into a talk where (I think that) the rest of the audience knows more than me, and in those cases I don’t say anything. The best solution I’ve seen is to first build up a ton of social credit and then ask tons of questions. I’ve seen a few cases of fancy professors asking very basic questions that I was too afraid to ask, and knowing that nobody thought they were stupid afterwards.
If you feel like you’re in danger of giving this talk at the beginning, it might be best to explicitly say at the beginning that you encourage all questions, even if they’re naive. I recall going to a talk where the speaker did this twice, lots of people asked questions, and I learned that the axes of a graph meant something different than I first assumed.
On the weirder side of solutions, you could try classically conditioning yourself not to take embarrassment so poorly. If you’re a sugar fiend, bring some candies to a talk and eat one for each question you ask.
I also struggle with the fact that sometimes during a talk, I zone out and don’t know whether the speaker already answered the question I have, precisely because I was zoned out when they might have answered the question. In this case, I tend not to ask the question, since I don’t want to take the time away from other people listening to the talk.