When during Graduate Career to Start Presenting at Conferences

[ZeeMore21]

Hi all,

I will be starting a doctoral program this fall in English literature and was wondering if anyone could give me advice on when is the best point in the program to start presenting at conferences. I have never presented at a conference before, but have been to a couple. I read in one book on graduate study that you should start presenting at the end of your second year (or beginning of your 3rd year), as you will be more fluent in your field at this point in your graduate career. However, that sounds a bit late to me.

I am asking this question because I did come across a conference that will be held next year, and abstracts are due this November. Because I will be new to a doctoral program, I am wondering if it is too early for me to think about conferences, and perhaps I should spend my time working hard to develop great seminar papers this school year that could possibly turn into strong conference papers. Also, as someone who needs to build confidence in public speaking and presenting, I also think I might just want to use this coming school year to work on those areas....I'm not quite sure if I am ready to answer questions that may be asked after I presented a paper.

But to end my rambling, if anyone can give me advice/tips on how an incoming doctoral student could prepare for conferences, that would be very helpful. I also would like advice on how to go about writing a conference paper....do you come up with an idea, write an abstract, and if it gets accepted, you turn it into a paper? Or should you already have a paper that could be turned into a conference paper?

[runonsentence]

IMO, the best time to start presenting is: Right. Now. It's a good experience that can give you valuable feedback on projects you're working on, give you a confidence boost, and looks good on the CV. It's also great to shake some hands and meet others in the field with similar research interests. (Network, network, network!)

If you're not feeling ready for a full-blown national conference, student conferences are still a great experience and a good way to get yourself initiated. Also, note that conference papers are much easier to prepare than publications, since (a) you're not preserving something for posterity, just reading it aloud to a room full of people who may or may not be daydreaming, and ( an ideal length is 8-10 pages.

Ideally, one should be proposing presentations on papers that are already written. But in practice, many (most?) people write an abstract, then write the paper. (One of my mentors has a list of people he refuses to room with at CCCC because they will pull an all-nighter the night before their presentation, finishing their paper.)

Now, writing after proposing can mean that your argument evolves in a different direction than your proposed abstract. While it's something that's best avoided—it's false advertising for conference goers choosing sessions when your abstract in the program that doesn't accurately represent the paper you read—it's also just sort of what happens.

[ZeeMore21]

IMO, the best time to start presenting is: Right. Now. It's a good experience that can give you valuable feedback on projects you're working on, give you a confidence boost, and looks good on the CV. It's also great to shake some hands and meet others in the field with similar research interests. (Network, network, network!)

If you're not feeling ready for a full-blown national conference, student conferences are still a great experience and a good way to get yourself initiated. Also, note that conference papers are much easier to prepare than publications, since (a) you're not preserving something for posterity, just reading it aloud to a room full of people who may or may not be daydreaming, and ( an ideal length is 8-10 pages.

Ideally, one should be proposing presentations on papers that are already written. But in practice, many (most?) people write an abstract, then write the paper. (One of my mentors has a list of people he refuses to room with at CCCC because they will pull an all-nighter the night before their presentation, finishing their paper.)

Now, writing after proposing can mean that your argument evolves in a different direction than your proposed abstract. While it's something that's best avoided—it's false advertising for conference goers choosing sessions when your abstract in the program that doesn't accurately represent the paper you read—it's also just sort of what happens.

Thanks a lot for the advice!! I definitely do think that now is the best time to take on conferences. Like you suggested, I think I will start small and see if I can handle a student conference....I'm actually looking on the Penn website right now to see if I can find any. Thanks again!

[Two Espressos]

Ideally, one should be proposing presentations on papers that are already written. But in practice, many (most?) people write an abstract, then write the paper. (One of my mentors has a list of people he refuses to room with at CCCC because they will pull an all-nighter the night before their presentation, finishing their paper.)

My god, people pull last-minute all-nighters for conference presentations?

If I were in your mentor's position, I'd likely do the same thing: it would annoy the hell out of me. That kind of stuff should be avoided as an UNDERGRAD, not to mention a grad student presenting at a major conference!

Anyways, back on topic: I'm still an undergrad, but I'm presenting at a small, undergraduate-only conference this fall. I'm very nervous, but I think it will be a great experience!

[runonsentence]

My god, people pull last-minute all-nighters for conference presentations? !

Yep, and while I don't have names, I know they're faculty, and this is at a national conference.

This, of course, is not a plan I endorse or encourage anyone to emulate! But I think it helps put things in perspective if you're ever feeling jittery about a conference presentation.

[rising_star]

I know lots of people that write their papers the night before, both faculty and grad students. This year marked the first time I showed up at the conference with my paper and presentation completely done and didn't edit them at all. Usually, I'm not that organized.

To answer your question ZeeMore, I wouldn't worry about presenting something your first year unless it's going to be based on your master's work. Once you get your research up and running, then you can start checking out CFPs and presenting more broadly.

[runonsentence]

I've edited, revised, and continued to trim down from a longer paper the night before, but haven't yet reached the point where I write the night before. "Yet."

[Sigaba]

That kind of stuff should be avoided as an UNDERGRAD, not to mention a grad student presenting at a major conference!

Why? Are you suggesting that people should change the way they do their work for their peace of mind--or for yours?

Edited August 8, 2011 by Sigaba

[ZeeMore21]

I agree with Two Espressos here...I haven't given a conference paper before, but I do assume you would want to get your paper done at least a couple days prior to the conference...especially if you are new to conference presentations. In this way, you can be confident that you are presenting a strong conference paper since you did have enough time to have it looked over by others and make your own revisions. Perhaps more experienced academics do have the ability to write conference papers the night before they have to present it.

Edited August 8, 2011 by ZeeMore21

[Kudrov]

This might go without saying, but I'd advise to read the paper aloud and time yourself as many times as possible. Try to keep the paper a few minutes below the time limit to allow for unexpected happenings, especially if you're using technology in your presentation (I am officially 0 for 4 on multimedia functioning correctly during my own presentations). The aim for presenting is to get people to pay attention to what you say, offer good feedback, and hopefully make a few contacts while chatting after the session. The odds of all of these happening plummet if they fall asleep because you're pushing the time limit. Even worse, people tend to remember the names and institutions of presenters that go over time, and this can actually be pretty damning.

Finally, make sure you go to as many sessions as possible, and actually talk to some people. Chatting with someone after their session or during lunch can be as beneficial in the long run as nailing your own presentation.

[starmaker]

Ideally, one should be proposing presentations on papers that are already written. But in practice, many (most?) people write an abstract, then write the paper. (One of my mentors has a list of people he refuses to room with at CCCC because they will pull an all-nighter the night before their presentation, finishing their paper.)

Wow, your field is not like mine. Our conferences are peer-reviewed and a paper in a conference proceedings is a "real" paper (that counts toward tenure evaluation and everything). We generally have to get camera-ready versions of our papers in at least a month or two before the conference. On the plus side, that means that nobody's up finishing a paper the night before a conference. Though they might still be finishing their slides. I highly recommend getting your paper done early.

I think the best time to start presenting at conferences is ASAP (or at least, as soon as you have work worth presenting). Don't be afraid of national or international conferences - in my experience, people are friendly to the kid who's just starting out. I think your idea of developing conference papers from your seminar work is a great one.

[runonsentence]

Wow, your field is not like mine. Our conferences are peer-reviewed and a paper in a conference proceedings is a "real" paper (that counts toward tenure evaluation and everything). We generally have to get camera-ready versions of our papers in at least a month or two before the conference. On the plus side, that means that nobody's up finishing a paper the night before a conference. Though they might still be finishing their slides. I highly recommend getting your paper done early.

I think the best time to start presenting at conferences is ASAP (or at least, as soon as you have work worth presenting). Don't be afraid of national or international conferences - in my experience, people are friendly to the kid who's just starting out. I think your idea of developing conference papers from your seminar work is a great one.

The review process depends on the conference, in my field. The flagship conference—Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), it's huge—does have a highly selective peer-review process, but because we don't publish proceedings (which I have a beef with, but that's the way it is) and because of the sheer number of submissions, the review process as of now rests only on proposals. Other conferences I submitted to as a lit student only asked for abstracts. There are some out there that do ask for full papers, but in English, my limited experience thus far says that they're less common.

I've found the same to be true as well, that more experienced scholars are very kind and supportive of graduate students.

All of my conference presentations (and my one publication) have so far developed from seminar papers, in one way or another. I think it's a great way to make seminar papers really go the distance. Often I use conference or special issue CFPs to help me think of a project, and work toward that goal even when I'm writing the seminar paper.

Edited August 23, 2011 by runonsentence