Abstract
This article presents a close reading of how-to manuals in which scientists are instructed on how to give scientific presentations and talks, published between the 1970s and the 2010s. The analysis pays particular attention to the advice on respectful conduct and appropriate body language, in order to reveal the underlying assumptions about the nature of scientific authority and credibility. As I show, the importance of etiquette, modesty, and moderation are repeatedly invoked in these texts. In making sense of the continuities as well as differences found in the corpus of texts, I argue that these manuals display an underlying ambivalence about the status of rhetorical and bodily skills in the practice of science; the very thing on which they set out to dispense advice.