Touching up a paper that's already been accepted by a conf..

[objectivityofcontradiction]

How much tinkering is too much tinkering? I personally was not thrilled with how I conclude in this particular essay and yet it was accepted for presentation at a conference. So, do I leave it alone? Do I just make minor changes that won't effect my argument? Also, this is a very particular question, but as I have been re-reading my paper I find myself running into bits and pieces that seem to me to be the sort of thing that should be left out of a presentation for the simple reason that though they are perfectly clear if one were to read the paper to themselves, some of the arguments and details do seem to me to be a bit drawn out. This sort of nitty-gritty detail strikes me as the sort of thing that would lose an audience during a presentation. 

 

Advice? 

[fuzzylogician]

I'm going to guess here that the presentation style in philosophy may be totally different than it is in linguistics, but if it were me I'd make whatever changes are necessary between when my abstract was accepted to the conference and when I present (including radical changes like "you may have noticed that my abstract says that I will argue for "X", but in fact today I will be arguing that "not-X," based on new evidence that I have recently discovered. I am happy to take questions about this during the discussion period"). The rationale being that any natural development of the same project is fair game, and that I want to present my best research at the time of the presentation, not at the time of writing the abstract; projects develop and sometimes things change. It's rare that changes are radical, but I've had that happen too. Same goes for having N arguments in my abstract and choosing to present only a subset of N, for clarity or for time reasons. I think the best advice is to present the argument in the way that is the most compelling for the audience.

[Guest |||]

I've seen significant changes from conference to published paper

 

Things change, early data analysis are more finely tuned, measures might be added

 

don't forget part of a conference is feedback, and if you can use that feedback to improve the final product then do so

[Gauche]

I don't know how people in Philosophy present at conferences, but in English we tend to read our papers aloud. If you do the same, you should fix your paper so it's readable, i.e. signpost and use simple, emphatic sentences not long complex ones. You want people to be able to understand your argument, so let them know what and when you're arguing. Don't be afraid to say "I argue." That helps a lot, seriously.

 

Cut extraneous details if you can't explain them fully in your paper and think they will confuse your audience especially if you're close to going over the time limit. If you think your talk is too short, leave it all in. If your audience doesn't understand a point you're making, that's what the question session is for.

 

Just remember that you wouldn't be presenting a paper at a conference if it was already good enough to be published in a journal. Conference presentations are supposed to be works in progress, so it's okay if it's not perfect.