Topic 6: Answering Questions We discuss strategies to ensure that our answers not only satisfy the questioner who has presented us with a question, but also provide the rest of the audience with the appropriate information to gain maximum benefit from the question and answer portion of a scientific seminar. We look at ways to confirm question meanings, to provide appropriate background information, ways to defend our ideas, and also at ways to admit that we can’t answer a question or need more time to do so. Students make short speeches on a common scientific topic of their choice and then field questions asked of them by their classmates. Students will have ample opportunity to apply in a practical way the skills covered in the previous topics of summarizing, paraphrasing, and asking questions.