Participating a conference by only publishing the abstract in proceeding, worth it?

[Saghar]

Hi everybody,

 

My abstract was accepted in a conference, and I wanted to participate and have a presentation in that. But I found out that I cannot receive a visa to go to the country the conference were held, as they have no embassy in my country, so I refused to go.

 

The conference holders, proposed that I can still be part of the conference by paying the fee (not that much expensive comparing to other conferences), so they will publish my abstract and send me all the conference material including a certificate. 

 

I don't know if having a published abstract in an exactly related conference to your field of study, worth paying a conference fee (and not actually going there) or not? Would this make my CV stronger? (I want to apply for an MA)

 

Do you have any idea about it?

 

Thanks a lot.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Saghar

[fuzzylogician]

This will allow you to put the conference on your CV in some way (the abstract could go under publications), where otherwise I think you would have no way of mentioning it. If this conference publishes full proceedings papers, this will probably also give you the right to submit a paper for the proceedings, and that will be very valuable. At the stage you are at in your career that sounds like a good thing to have, unless you already have many other presentations on your CV. Can you consult with your advisor about this issue? 

[Saghar]

This will allow you to put the conference on your CV in some way (the abstract could go under publications), where otherwise I think you would have no way of mentioning it. If this conference publishes full proceedings papers, this will probably also give you the right to submit a paper for the proceedings, and that will be very valuable. At the stage you are at in your career that sounds like a good thing to have, unless you already have many other presentations on your CV. Can you consult with your advisor about this issue? 

 

Thanks,

 

Actually, the process of publishing full articles is completely different. If you wish you can send your full article to their independent Journal, they will review and (maybe) publish your article, and this have a separate fee. I'm actually too busy to write the full article, so I prefer not to do that. (If I write the full article, in this case I prefer to submit it to a valuable magazine at least) . Is publishing the abstract still valuable without a full article?

 

P.S: Do you mean that in a CV we have a publication part and under that we have an abstract part? or I can easily just put it under publication part, indicating that this is an abstract? (I used to have a separate part of "conferences" in my CV and put everything related to a conference in that section)

[fuzzylogician]

Again it depends on what your CV looks like at the moment. CVs can be structured in different ways and you want to choose the one that presents your accomplishments in the best light. This means you could perhaps have this under "conferences," but I'd be careful not to give the impression that you presented your talk, when in fact you didn't. When you have a large CV, you would have conference proceedings papers (which, in my field, are distinct from full journal papers which are more prestigious) separate from journal papers and also separate from book chapters. Similarly, you separate refereed conferences from unrefereed ones and from invited talks. When you have less things under each category, it normally looks better to have all the presentations together under one headings and all the publications together under one heading. But CV structures are also field-specific, so you should follow what's customary in your field. 

 

Generally, I don't think you can keep this conference on your CV if you don't go and you also don't have an abstract or proceedings paper published. So you need to decide if this conference is worth having on your CV, and if so then pay the fees and publish the abstract. If you think that publishing the full paper independently is sufficient, that's your call. It's certainly more prestigious, but the question is first, how sure you are that the paper will be accepted for publication, and what will the timeline be - will you be able to have an accepted paper on your CV when you apply? Will you at least have a full submitted draft by that time (also quite good for an MA application)? At an early stage in my career, I would choose to have the conference on my CV if it's at all prestigious, and honestly the option you're given is a good cheap way to add a line to your CV without needing to travel, spend money, and prepare a talk. It's not a bad deal.