DO NOT GIVE TALKS ALONE. Use plenty of rhetorically skilled collaborators to reduce your chances of being surprised by a questioner. Give talks in groups, with senior collaborators supervising younger ones. A sturdy pointing stick is a good idea: you can use it to ward off a questioner as well as to point to the screen or chalkboard.

KEEP GRADUATE STUDENT CO-AUTHORS CLOSE TO YOU. Observations of captured questioners reveal that they seem especially drawn to graduate students. Keep graduate students within your sight at all times.

STOP! Do not run from a questioner. Back away from him or her slowly, but only if you can do so safely. Running may stimulate a questioner's instinct to chase and attack with a supplementary. Face the questioner and stand upright. Make eye contact. If you have small co-authors with you, pick them up so they won't panic and run off the podium and embarrass you. Although it may seem awkward, pick them up without bending over or turning away from the questioner.

DO NOT BEND OR CROUCH OVER; DO ALL YOU CAN TO APPEAR LARGER. A speaker hunched over a lectern looks a lot like a prey animal in submission posture. Raise your arms. Open your jacket, if you're wearing one and have something on underneath it. Turn up the volume on the lapel mike. Use rhetoric, abuse, or whatever you can grab without crouching down or turning your back or actually inventing data. Wave your arms slowly and speak firmly in a large voice.

DO NOT APPROACH A QUESTIONER, especially one that is carrying a bag of his own offprints or has flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth. Most questioners will try to avoid a rebuttal. Give them a way to escape.

FIGHT BACK IF ATTACKED. Try to stay on your feet if a questioner attacks you. Aggressive questioners have been driven off by speakers who fight back. Some speakers have fought back successfully with pointing sticks, chalk, counterassertions, unsubstantiated claims about little-known languages, vague allusions to unpublished forthcoming works, and their bare hands. Since questioners usually aim for exposed parts of the argument, try to remain standing, face the attacking questioner, and obscure the issue as much as you can.

For more information about aggressive questioners, please contact the Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Cruz.

PLEASE REPORT ALL AGGRESSIVE QUESTIONER SIGHTINGS ON OR NEAR THE UCSC CAMPUS, AS WELL AS ANY STUNNED SPEAKER THAT COULD BE ATTRIBUTED TO AN AGGRESSIVE QUESTIONER ATTACK, TO THE UNIVERSITY AGGRESSIVE QUESTIONER CONTROL OFFICER

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