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Protocols for attending conferences?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'm finding myself confused about what the protocols surrounding going to conferences are. Who can attend conferences? Under what circumstances should you submit to a conference? Should you ever write an abstract to submit and then write the paper later? Are there different types of conferences?

Great questions! I think it could be good to crowdsource answers to these and other potential questions about conferences. For example, is it okay to submit a paper to a conference if you're unsure whether you'll be able to attend if accepted? Here, it's worth noting many of us work under significant uncertainty about funding. At some universities, you can only apply for conference funding after you receive an acceptance notice–which means that you may be able to afford that conference that costs $1,000+ to attend, but then again you may not. I imagine some would say that you should only apply to conferences you are confident you can attend. But in that case people in the above situation would be pressed to apply to few (if any) conferences, which would be a real problem (conferences are invaluable in all kinds of ways).

Anyway, here's what I propose: readers should feel free to answer the OP's questions and propose and discuss questions of their own in the comments section below. Here are a few of my quick answers:

  1. Who can attend conferences?: This depends on the conference. Some conferences are open to the public, and some are for attendees only (e.g. paper presenters, session chairs, and commentators). So, if there's any doubt, I think the thing to do here is to look at the conference webpage and/or ask the organizers. In any case, anyone can submit a paper to a conference, and oftentimes conferences put out calls for commentators. 
  2. Under what circumstances can one submit to a conference?: Generally speaking, anytime you have a paper or abstract that satisfies the application requirements. In my years presenting at conferences, I've seen everyone from advanced undergraduates to MA students, PhD students, and independent scholars present at professional conferences. Personally, rare cases aside, I'm not sure that I would advice advanced undergraduates to present at professional conferences, as I've seen a few cases where the presenter seemed clearly overwhelmed–but then again, everything is a learning experience and I'm generally not one to dissuade people from taking a few chances here and there that can be good (if challenging) learning experiences.
  3. Should you ever submit an abstract and write the paper later?: Absolutely, as long as you have reasonable confidence that you can successfully complete the paper. I've done this many times. Sometimes, if the abstract doesn't get accepted, I never write the paper. But, in cases where I have gotten acceptance, I've never had trouble writing something up. And indeed, I've found that doing this can be a real boon to one's research. My second book, for example, basically came about this way: I submitted an abstract to an empirical ethics conference in Beirut, it was accepted, I presented the paper, got a good audience reaction, and turned it into a book manuscript. I personally love applying for abstract-submission conferences for this reason: they can often lead to new ideas one might have never developed otherwise!
  4. Are there different types of conferences?: Yes, there are many different types:
    1. Generalist conferences: like APA meetings, where specialists of all different types present.
    2. Specialist conferences: where all the papers are in a given area (ethics, metaphysics, etc.).
    3. Themed conferences: which are even narrower, focusing on a specific issue in a specialized area.
    4. Workshops: which typically have more of a roundtable format, where some group of (say) 5-10 scholars present their work to each other (and any observers who drop in) in the same room over the course of the conference. 
    5. Pre-read conferences: where papers are sent out to attendees ahead of time (which is often the case at workshops).
    6. Undergraduate and Graduate conferences: which are just what they sound like!

Anyway, these are just a few of my own quick answers. Feel free to provide answers of you own. And again, if you have questions of your own about conferences to add to the OP's, please feel free to present and discuss them them in the comments section below!

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9 responses to “Protocols for attending conferences?”

  1. Bryce

    To second and expand on Marcus’s answer to #3:
    You don’t even need to write an entire paper to give a conference presentation. In fact, I would suggest that you don’t, because presentations where people read a paper word-for-word are AWFUL, even if you are interested in the topic.
    Instead, think of a conference as a way to test out an idea without even needing to write 5,000 words about it. It could be a new argument, a new approach to a problem, a new problem, or whatever. But you’ve got an idea and you are going to test it out with your peers. You tell them what prompted the idea, what the idea is, what its implications are, and what possible problems you see with it. Then you let them tell you what they think, and hopefully you get some good feedback.
    But for the love of your audience do not just read a paper. Your presentation will go better, and you will have a more invested audience, if you explain things more conversationally and informally.

    Reply
  2. Postdoc

    Strong second on Bryce’s comment. There’s a special circle of hell reserved for people who read papers. Their punishment is to listen to each other for all eternity.

    Reply
  3. Daniel Weltman

    I don’t mind when people read papers. I think people should try to give presentations that are as engaging as one can reasonably make them, given other constraints (staying within the time limit, remembering to mention important points, phrasing technical details carefully so that small wording mistakes do not screw things up, etc.) and some people’s presentation styles are such that this is more difficult if they are reading papers. So, that is one reason to try to avoid reading a paper.
    But if someone can engagingly read a paper, I think there’s nothing wrong with that. Or, if one cannot give a talk which satisfies many other important desiderata without sacrificing how engaging they are, then I think it can be worth having a less engaging talk.
    For what it’s worth, I had never read a paper before until I went to a conference with a 20 minute presentation time limit, which I felt I could not reliably hit without either practicing a lot (not something I really wanted to spend the time on) or reading a paper. So I read a paper, and I don’t think it was the worst thing in the world. With online talks I’ve found it almost impossible to not read papers, so mostly I’ve been reading papers, and again I don’t think the results have been exceedingly excoriable, although I guess you’d have to ask the listeners. I can report that I’ve heard many papers read both before and during quarantine (i.e. at traditional conferences and online conferences) and I’ve found them engaging or not in about the same proportions as I’ve found non-reading presentations to be engaging or not.
    I also think the norms in various sub-disciplines vary a bit. My impression is that historians read a lot more than many other kinds of philosophers. So if one is a historian one might not worry as much about the anti-reading sentiment.
    One final thing to keep in mind is that some people have presentation anxiety or other associated anxieties, especially perhaps some of the people inclined to be asking about the norms of conferences, and for some of these people, reading a paper can help alleviate that. I don’t like the idea of heaping more stress and anxiety on people by telling them that one of the few things which alleviates their anxiety is terrible and ought never to be done, both because I think it’s false and because I think exacerbating anxiety doesn’t really help. Perhaps at best the suggestion should be something like “do your best to try to get your presentation to a place where you can do it without reading a paper, but if you can’t get there, reading a paper is an acceptable mode of presentation.”

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  4. Polaris Koi

    During my PhD studies I’ve given presentations every which way – written the paper, not written the paper, written just a handout, etc. and my experience is that the ideal way to go is to indeed write the paper, at least a rough draft, but never read directly from it. I think having written it down makes it easier to give a presentation that’s cohesive and well worked out. It has the added bonus that you can actually give the paper to colleagues who show interest, and they may give you further feedback that you can use to your advantage. This probably does not hold for people who are highly skilled in giving oral presentations — as for me, I tend to get a bit flustered and worry about whether I misformulate something technical if I don’t have everything written down. ( I keep my paper near me when presenting and read technical parts that require precision directly from it to keep my nerves from getting the better of me.) But absolutely, do not just stand there and stare at your paper, but use any presentation skills you have (or training in such that you can access — including youtube etc. guides on how to give an academic presentation) to your advantage.

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  5. Philosopher in a history field

    Strong second on everything Daniel Weltman says. Another consideration with respect to reading a paper vs. not is whether someone is presenting comments on one’s paper. When there’s a commentary following, this may be a good reason to read one’s paper, as, if one presents without reading the paper, one might be likely to accidentally add material in response to the comments, which is of course not at all fair to the commentator.
    On a more personal note, I am in a history of philosophy subfield. When I present at these conferences, I almost always read the paper (or, at the very least, I present generally and then read key technical parts). Occasionally I’ll present at a more generalist conference, or a conference in a contemporary subfield, on which occasions I tend not to read the paper, because my aims and the audience’s expectations are different.
    I always read the paper when I was a student presenting at conferences. Only more recently have I been confident enough to present in other forms.
    In any case, I think most of the complaints about people reading papers are in reference to papers which were written just like a journal article (and these are certainly not written in a way that is easy for an audience to understand when read aloud). Or else the complaints are about presentation style itself (like the person staring at the pages the entire time, using a monotone voice, etc), which could easily also be a problem if one presents from notes instead.

    Reply
  6. Mark

    I usually read the paper and found it helpful to format the “script” in a presentation-friendly way. For example, 16 pt. font, double-spaced, hard-return at the end of every sentence, hard-return for pauses, indicate (different types of) emphases with italics, underlining, and/or CAPS, etc. Dragging your finger down the page as you go lets you make eye-contact with the audience without then having to search to find where you left off. You’ll process the last few words of a sentence faster than you will say them, so you can make eye contact as you end each sentence. While “off-script” may be ideal, my impression is that this method yields presentations that are totally fine (and tremendously less stressful).

    Reply
  7. I don’t recommend reading papers!

    I work in a department that is largely (about 75%) historians of philosophy, and one of our criteria for selecting colloquium speakers is whether we are fairly confident that this person will not read their paper to us.
    So, just a data point. I sympathize with the anxiety thing and tell my grad students that they should work up to not reading and that it’s ok to read at first. But… I do think that most people get a lot more out of non-read talks than someone just reading their paper–of course there are exceptions in every direction here! And I think there is a reasonable expectation that job talks will not be read (that’s not to say that someone can’t get hired who reads a paper!), etc. and so while grad students might be anxious about this stuff, it’s also something they should probably work on overcoming early.

    Reply
  8. one more

    I think people should have a paper ready before they present at a conference – hence, before they submit to a conference, even if only an abstract is asked for. I have been to too many conference presentations where the speaker had no handle on the topic, because they had not written the paper. I even know of a case where someone has a great powerpoint presentation, but they cannot publish it. They can’t because the written version is a messy piece of ###. They have fooled themselves into thinking they have a paper because they can talk about the topic in a conference setting. But the argument in the paper version is confusing, and it is easy to see in a paper (but less so in a presentation).

    Reply
  9. Michel

    I’ve given more than 40 presentations. I don’t read. And, to make sure I get the timing right (since it’s usually ~20 minutes), I practice giving the talk.
    It works just fine for commentaries, as long as you hit the main notes in the paper. If you notice that something in the commentary hinges on something specific you say, you just make sure that you say that thing in the presentation.
    My experience is that people vastly over-estimate their reading and writing-for-reading skills, as well as their off-the-cuff presentation skills. Also: their ability to get the timing right. So many read papers miss their timing entirely (likely because the presenter didn’t practice reading the paper aloud).
    On the whole, I prefer presentations that aren’t read, because it’s usually easier for me to follow them. But that’s just a preference. I’ve seen plenty of great read papers, and tons of poorly presented papers. You can do whatever you prefer, although I think you should strive to do whatever that is well.

    Reply

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