The Philosophers' Cocoon

4 responses to “APA papers-in-progress workshops?”

1. Bill V.

   September 10, 2025

   In one way, the answer here is don’t sweat it, because even regular conference presentations count for almost nothing in job applications and in tenure cases (at most universities).
   Given this, the relative ranking of venues doesn’t really matter and isn’t something you need to worry about. [FWIW, IMO, the ranking goes something like this: refereed full paper (APA is top of this pile, then specialist conferences, then generalist), refereed abstract at a specialist conference, refereed abstract at a national generalist conference, anything else, graduate conferences.]
   Conference presentations can demonstrate a research trajectory for a very junior person, or back up a claim to have an AOC, or perhaps be a slight factor in distinguishing two otherwise equal files. But that’s about it. Conferences are good for networking, getting your work critiqued to improve it for publication, practicing speaking about your work to smart strangers, and perhaps for reputation building, so it is still worthwhile to do some.
   For c.v. purposes, avoiding misrepresenting what the thing is and clarity are all that matters. In a “Conference Presentations” section (which is NOT a sub-section under “Publications”), one could write:
   (refereed paper) “[title],” APA Papers in Progress Workshop on [topic], [Division] APA, [city, year].

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2. The Real SLAC Prof

   September 11, 2025

   This sounds like a great opportunity to get feedback on one’s work-in-progress! But feedback and networking are the ways conferences and other talks “count.” They do not, in my experience, count for getting a job, tenure, or promotion. I mean a colloquia at a tiptop department might add to the “splash value” of one’s file and count in an indirect way, but I can’t imagine any conference presentation would make a material difference. If it were me, I’d list the work-in-progress presentation under the “talks” section of my CV.
   It is routine to distinguish between invited and refereed talks on philosophy CVs, but I have never bothered to do this, and I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong by failing to explicitly mark this distinction nor have I ever heard criticism. I don’t recall seeing a CV that distinguished between a talk based on a “refereed paper” and one based on an abstract, but I probably haven’t looked too closely because talks simply don’t, in my experience, matter for building one’s CV for a landing a job or tenure.
   I’ve chaired multiple searches and tenure cases over the years, and the only time I can recall talks coming up was in reference to an ABD or recent grad who had no talks at all. But even then, while it was raised as a potential concern by a committee member, it didn’t actually carry much weight one way or the other with respect to the overall assessment of the file.

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3. Zero

   September 11, 2025

   I think such things as participating in an APA essay workshop counts for 0. To list it on your cv might make you look either terribly naive or under-accomplished. What such a workshop is is an opportunity. It will be worthwhile for some participants and not so for others. So go and do it if you think it will help you with your writing. But do not go if the chief reason for going is to have something on your cv. I am late career. I have a colleague who has spent his time chasing bobbles … things to list on his cv. He is quite successful at it, I would say (on paper he looks pretty good). But his work is still not cited very much (he is the least cited in our department). And he is a crabby shallow colleague who cannot find happiness.

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4. Trevor Hedberg

   September 12, 2025

   I would not list this in the “Conference Presentations” part of the CV, but I would list it somewhere. One option would be to list it as some other type of presentation. But you could also list it under a broader, nebulous heading like “professional development.” I have attended many workshops related to professional development (though they were often related to teaching), and I don’t think it would look that unusual to list this kind of workshop in that category.
   But I will echo what folks have already said as well: it’s not going to make a big difference to your marketability either way, and you shouldn’t misrepresent what your workshop participation actually is.

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