This is a relatively new way of disseminating information in the Humanities. The
Lightning Talk for History of the English Language class should be no more than five to ten
minutes, which translates to an approximately two to four-page doubled-spaced paper. The point
of a Lightning Talk is to present ideas that are getting tried out for the first time. Most of this
Lightning Talk site provides very useful information. As always, schedule a zoom meeting if you
need more clarity. The Lightening Talk and the following paper should include five thought-
provoking questions to introduce in the brief minute talk. This Lightening Talk will enlarge upon
one of the fourteen ponder points. You should build this class and paper on at least five juried sources. Feel free to set up a time to discuss your choice(s) and your class. Share the Lightning Talk
with me as a one-to-two page paper with a Bibliography or Works Cited of the texts you consulted (both the ones in our class and outside of our class). All texts should be juried.
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What are Lightning Talks?
Lightning Talks are sixteen five-minute talks in a ninety-minute time slot (or eleven in a sixty-minute slot.)
Why Would You Want to do a Lightning Talk?
Maybe you've never given a talk before, and you'd like to start small. For a Lightning Talk, you don't need to make slides, and if you do decide to make slides, you only need to make three.
Maybe you're nervous and you're afraid you'll mess up. It's a lot easier to plan and deliver a five minute talk than it is to deliver a long talk. And if you do mess up, at least the painful part will be over quickly.
Maybe you don't have much to say. Maybe you just want to ask a question, or invite people to help you with your project, or boast about something you did, or tell a short cautionary story. These things are all interesting and worth talking about, but there might not be enough to say about them to fill up thirty minutes.
Maybe you have a lot of things to say, and you're already going to give a long talk on one of them, and you don't want to hog the spotlight. There's nothing wrong with giving several Lightning Talks. Hey, they're only five minutes.
Why Would You Want to Hear a Lightning Talk?
On the other side, people might want to come to a lightning talk when they wouldn't come to a long talk on the same subject. The risk for the attendees is smaller: If the talk turns out to be dull, or if the person giving the talk turns out to be a really bad speaker, well, at least it's over in five minutes. With lightning talks, you're never stuck in some boring lecture for forty-five minutes.
Notice of Intent
A lot of people are not getting the point of these. They hear that they only get five minutes to speak, and they get all tense. ``How can I squeeze a whole talk into five minutes?''
Sample Solution