Tomorrow I am giving a lecture on research on popular culture. 10 years ago I wrote out every word of every lecture, I was that nervous. They were packed with references, structured almost like articles, but more oral. Sometimes I wrote them in my own dialect, in order not to sound like I was reading from a script. Back then writing a lecture and writing an article was pretty much the same thing, only slightly different audience.

Today I find that I think about the lecture totally differently from an article. At first I wasn't sure if this was bad or good, but they are different beasts, so I have to approach them differently. Where an article demands a stringent argument and low redundancy, a lecture demands repetition and a meandering approach close to non-linearity. Where the article needs a reference every time I make a claim, the lecture needs some important references of book which might be important to the students - the rest should be mentioned, but not emphasised. Where an article has to stand alone out there and contain enough information that it will be understood in the correct context as the correct object by the right people, the lecture lets me explain, ramble, backtrack - and not the least: address the audience. That's one of the things I like to do - turn around and talk with the students, not just past them.

How I prepare for this topic? Well, I guess I have to read a lot of comix, don't I?
No, really - I am most concerned about gathering examples of popular culture to use as examples. It will be fun.