Does "presentation" always mean "paper"?

[sofiefatale]

I was recently accepted to my first conference and wondered if you more experienced folks had any insight on this: the acceptance mentioned only the guidelines for the presentation, with no info about submitting a paper to accompany it. Would you assume that "presentation" means they'll expect a copy of a polished "paper" as well? Or are there cases where a conference would just want the presentation? For context, this is a media studies conference being hosted within a larger (non-academic) media convention.

I'm going to double-check with the organizers either way, but I'm mostly just trying to figure out from which assumption I should be framing my question to look least like a total newbie (which I obviously am)!

Thanks!

[fuzzylogician]

There are different expectations for different conferences even within the same field, so this is impossible to answer. In my field, the major conferences usually publish a proceedings volume, with contributions by all accepted authors (occasionally: poster presenters contribute to a separate volume than talk presenters). Usually papers are solicited after the conference, but sometimes the deadline is before the conference (and then there will be clear emails and reminders about that). The proceedings are sometimes handled by the same people every year and sometimes by a rotating team, again depending on the organization of the particular conference in question. The page length and formatting guidelines can also vary. Some conferences and smaller workshops don't have proceedings at all. So, basically, with the information you've given, anything is possible. If the conference you're attending usually has a proceedings, googling for something like "Proceedings of the 2015 Conference on Underwater Basketweaving" should bring up some relevant results, or maybe it's safer to search for earlier years because some proceedings take a long time to come out. Or, the easiest would be to ask someone more experienced or email the organizers about it.

[sofiefatale]

The ambiguity's actually very helpful to know, so thank you!

[sofiefatale]

Annnd just as a follow up in case anybody ever searches this topic—and because the organizers responded back so quickly—this particular conference does NOT require an accompanying paper, just the presentation. Good to know!