Hello,

Well, I think I have a problem : (
I realized that when I do presentations, I'm expecting people to understand some of the concepts I'm talking about. When I say "people", I mean the examiners or the panel members. Is that reasonable?

Say for example my topic is about X and subtopics xi, xii, xiii and xiv. And now I'm working on a new "discovery" say it's xv, I'm somehow expecting the panel to understand X and xi, xii, xiii and xiv, except my xv, which I will gladly explain. Is that even reasonable? Of course I would be more than happy to explain (briefly) xi, xii, xiii and xiv and X itself but it's going to be brief since I want to make way for my work, which is xv.

Yes. You have to assume people have some knowledge and will ask for clarification if they need it. No-one could present anything in a reasonable amount of time if they had to go into full details of every aspect.

It depends entirely on the audience. In the case of examiners, you can assume they are very knowledgeable, although they may not know the specifics of your particular area of the field.

What if the audience consists of two groups; one that knows what we're doing (experts of the field(s)) and the other one is just merely checking the way we write the thesis; presentation style, etc?

It's something I need to seriously think about, as my project is both medical and legal - so probably neither examiner will be conversant with all of the basic principles. I haven't got an answer, apart from adding a medical and legal glossary to my thesis.

omg docinsanity! at least we are in the same boat! keep me updated ok? I'll keep you updated as well if I could get any ideas on how to solve this.

Anyone who has any advice, will be much appreciated!

As others have said, it depends entirely on the audience. If you're presenting at a specialist conference, it's reasonable to assume some prior knowledge on behalf of your audience (although a short section of background may be useful). If, however, you're making a presentation to examiners who will be judging your PhD progress, it's not just about what THEY know, it's proving that YOU know it as well. That's why theses have quite lengthy literature reviews - I doubt many examiners learn that much from reading them, but you're demonstrating that you are clear about what your work is building on.

Whatever setting your presentation is in, you must always provide context for what you're doing and how it adds to existing knowledge. It just depends on the audience and scenario whether that context needs to be one slide or 20!