What type of papers are accepted to conferences?

[ryan785]

I'm sorry all, this may be a really stupid question, but I thought I'd ask. Do conference papers need to be original research papers with scientific data, methods, etc.? Or more exploratory projects synthesizing other research and its applications (e.g. something you would write in a grad seminar)?

If it helps to know, I am a Masters student in Instructional Science and Technology, which is a subfield of education. I'm just really unsure of how this whole process works.

[ryan785]

Also, I've seen that some conferences will accept abstracts and then not require a final paper submission. In other words, you can just present on what your research project may be without actually finishing it/technically starting that article? Do these types of conferences have any merit?

I could see it being useful to some potential journal article ideas I have, but if it isn't worth presenting at these conferences then I'd rather not spend any hard earned money/grant money.

[fuzzylogician]

There are conferences at all kinds of levels that accept all kinds of work, including the two kinds you mentioned, but I think it's generally much more common for conferences to accept talks on new research as opposed to talks that don't present any new contribution to the field. Review-type talks tend to be invited talks by speakers who are much more experienced and respected in their field. If your synthesis/review work does contribute something new - e.g. you show that some data that is usually not regarded as related to each other should be considered together to solve some problem, or you show that a problem in your field should be recast in some other terms, then that would probably get accepted. Simple review articles that just summarize what others have said - probably not.

Re: proceedings papers: some very prestigious conferences in my field don't have proceedings, so that's not a good measure to go by when you decide whether a conference is good or not. If you don't know a conference, ask your professor or more advanced students in your department about it.

[rising_star]

The major national conference in my discipline requires abstracts but never final papers. Particular sessions may require participants to submit their papers in advance (for example, for a discussant to review ahead of time) or may invite participants to submit their papers to an edited collection for a book or special collection for a journal. But, that's not the norm by any means and it does not make this conference any less important or significant in our field. YMMV since your field is different.

[Hyoma]

I submitted an abstract to a conference, it was accepted and I presented it in the conference. Abstract was published in conference's "abstract book" but i do not have a PDF version myself(Also, they did not require a full paper)

I do not know how should I name it in my CV. which title is more correct and appropriate: "publication" or "conference presentation" or another title?

Thanks

[fuzzylogician]

I submitted an abstract to a conference, it was accepted and I presented it in the conference. Abstract was published in conference's "abstract book" but i do not have a PDF version myself(Also, they did not require a full paper)

I do not know how should I name it in my CV. which title is more correct and appropriate: "publication" or "conference presentation" or another title?

Thanks

Put it under "presentations" or some similar heading. The abstract does not count as a publication.

[miamia]

Is it possible to prepare a conference paper without using any data? How? 

 

I would really appreciate, if any of you at least direct me where to look at for that kind of information.

 

I have a nice research review (about 15 pages) done already and I would like to attend a small conference with that review if possible. But not sure of how to do it.

 

 

Sorry to ask this, but I am inexperienced in research and trying to get my feet wet little by little.

[TakeruK]

Is it possible to prepare a conference paper without using any data? How? 

 

I would really appreciate, if any of you at least direct me where to look at for that kind of information.

 

I have a nice research review (about 15 pages) done already and I would like to attend a small conference with that review if possible. But not sure of how to do it.

 

 

Sorry to ask this, but I am inexperienced in research and trying to get my feet wet little by little.

 

 

I think the type of thing that you present at a conference really depends on each individual conference and also your field. Usually, every conference will have a "call for submissions/papers/abstracts" that detail what they are looking for. What follows is mostly relevant to my field (and I think most of the physical sciences).

 

In my field, a "contributed talk" (i.e. a presentation where you submit your abstract and hope they pick you to give a talk) usually involves original research. It doesn't have to be completely brand new. At many annual meetings, grad students give annual updates on what they've done (usually they would try to single out one accomplishment they made that year) so if you are familiar with their work, you will get to see progress and/or a new angle of their project each year. However, people generally go to contributed talks expecting to learn something new. If all you have done is put together a lot of research done by other people, that usually will not be accepted in most conferences. 

 

You don't have to use data to present at a conference. There are theoretical papers as well. Of course, no one really cares about a theory if it doesn't agree with data/observations, so you would want to show how your theory/calculations are consistent with real life (but you don't have to design an experiment and collect the data yourself!). 

 

It sounds like the kind of talk you want to give is a "review talk", which, like others above have said, are usually special invited talk slots. While a contributed talk might be in a parallel session and be something like 10-12 minutes long, an invited review talk might be the only event going on at that time and could be 45-60 minutes long. When the conference is planned, the organizers typically discuss who they would like to ask to come for review talks and invite them personally. These speakers are usually very distinguished in their field! I have never seen a graduate student give a review talk like this before!

 

Overall, at our stage, the main idea is that our conference talk has to be both a showcase of our own research work (whether it's theory or processing data) and it should present something new. A research review paper is great for coursework, but generally not interesting to the rest of the scientific community.

[miamia]

Thank you TakeruK, this is very helpful.