How to Avoid Giving a Crap Lecture

The Onion famously reuses the same headline when there is an episode of gun violence in our country of absurdly lax gun laws:¹

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

This article will be my version of The Onion's headline, to be trotted out every time I sit through a particularly bad lecture.

In my lifetime of listening to lectures, most have been forgettable, leaving me bemoaning an hour of life wasted. Thankfully, in recent years, at least I can be productive — or distracted — by my phone.

I have sat through a few transcendently bad lectures, true fiascos. The most memorable one, given by a plastic surgeon during medical school, was so misogynistically offensive that students walked out.

Then there are the few lectures that I remember years, or even decades, later. I have written about a talk by my Haverford College chemistry professor. I remember a talk that Booker Bush, a mentor during my residency, gave on counseling behavioral change. There was also a talk that George Daley gave — to a nearly empty room — at a AAMC meeting about the ethics of gene therapy.

There are also lecturers who stand out as memorable, people who were clearly dedicated to the craft, whose every lecture was entertaining and informative.

After a busy season of lecturing and listening to lectures, I thought I could give a few pointers on how to avoid giving a forgettable lecture.

The person who should have written this article died over 10 years ago. I never had Herbert Friedmann as a professor, but I did watch him lecture a few times. He must have been a joy to learn from. It might seem absurd to compare Friedmann — a Jewish biochemist, born in Germany, raised in India — to Muhammad Ali, but they had the same twinkle in their eyes when they spoke. You could tell that Professor Friedmann was enjoying himself when he lectured. You could tell that he knew you were enjoying listening to him. And you could tell that he was enjoying entertaining you. I get the same sense when I watch old films of Ali.

I have met only a few people who took their teaching as seriously as Friedmann. In 1990, he published a masterpiece in the Journal of Chemical Education: Fifty-Six Laws of Good Teaching. Please read it now. If you don’t come back to me, you’ll have gotten 99% of the wisdom this piece has to offer.

Standing on Friedmann’s shoulders, I have 5 recommendations inspired by some not-so-great lectures. Following these won’t guarantee you’ll give a great lecture, but it will at least help you, in the words of Joe Madden, try not to suck.

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