Let's Present at a Conference Part II
In "Let's Present at a Conference Part I," I talked about finding professional conferences to present at and connecting to faculty mentors. Now let's focus on the "what" of presenting.
By Norrell Edwards — January 6, 2023
In "Let's Present at a Conference Part I," I talked about finding professional conferences to present at and connecting to faculty mentors. Now let's focus on the "what" of presenting. Usually, you can give either a paper presentation or create a poster. Humanities conferences tend to do paper presentations which can often include power points. Sciences often have poster presentations where you create a posterboard; you stand in front of your poster and explain it to anyone who comes by. As a literary scholar, all my experience emerges from panel presentations, so we'll dig into those. What is a panel presentation?
A panel presentation is when a group of 3-5 people gives a presentation on a connected theme or idea. You may have been to some panels in high school or at your current undergraduate institution. Schools will often have alum panels where the speakers respond to the same questions. Conference panels have speakers who have prepared remarks on a certain idea or theme that guides the panel. The panel's focus may vary, depending on the panelist and the organizer's vision.
Let's say you are determined to give a paper presentation at a conference. How do you decide what to present? You can go about deciding what to present in two ways. You can find the conference, then write the paper, or you can write the paper, then find the conference. Your institution may also have an undergraduate research day or other opportunities to present. Let's focus on presenting outside of your school.
So, you could find your conference first and submit an abstract to it. This could be a professional conference that accepts undergraduate papers or even a graduate student conference that accepts undergraduate papers. (Return to Part I for help finding conferences) An abstract is a summary of the paper highlighting your main argument or research findings and key theorists/theories/ or intellectual lines of thinking that you engage with for this paper. If your abstract is accepted, you now have to write the paper you promised in the abstract. Dependent on your field, this can range in difficulty.
In an ideal situation, you'll already have a paper and then find a conference to submit it. You start with a paper or some research that came out of a class you did well in or from an extra research project you did. For example, I wrote an undergraduate paper comparing Frederick Douglass and Franz Fanon's anthologies on race. It started as a five-page paper for my Black Experience Literature course. Later, it became the foundation for my writing sample for my doctoral applications. This paper helped me win a sizeable cash prize from my English department for graduate study. In its final formation, this paper was accepted to an International Humanities Conference in HawaHawai'ily in my graduate school career. In four years, I got a lot of good mileage from that one paper.
While starting out with an existing paper is ideal, sometimes that does not always work. I have both written papers after having an abstract accepted to a conference and submitted abstracts to conferences for already written papers. The reality is—conferences often have a different theme every year. It might turn out that your paper on James Baldwin would have been a perfect fit for the Northeast Modern Language Association's MLA conference last year on Baldwin's legacy, but this year the conference theme is indigeneity, Chicano Studies, and the work of Gloria Anzaldua. What should you do? You can look for conferences happening this year that would be a fit for that fantastic paper you already have on Baldwin. What are the other fields besides literary studies where this paper might be welcomed? Maybe a Baldwin Society or an African American Studies conference could be the right match.
If you've determined that you want to try presenting at NEMLA this year, don't be afraid to give it a go. Let someone else tell you no, your abstract/paper/idea isn't it. Could you shift some of your paper on Baldwin to incorporate Chicano studies or indigeneity? Could you remix or do something new but relevant to the panels? Your ability to write this new paper can depend on whether your field is quantitative or qualitative and what kind of data and research is at the center of your anticipated research.
Of course, if you're presenting under the guidance of faculty, they will help ensure that you have or create a paper that makes sense for the conference. Even if you're presenting with a professor, try asking that professor about applying to a certain conference. They can help you vet whether it's a good idea or not. Again, rejection is part of the learning process. The more you try and learn from your experiences, the better. With this information, I hope you'll about applying to a conference this year!
Norrell Edwards
Norrell Edwards is a scholar, educator, and communications consultant for non-profit organizations. Her employment experience and research interests place her work at the nexus of global Black identity, cultural memory, and social justice. Norrell graduated with a BA in English Literature from Hunter’s College followed by a PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park in 20th and 21st Century Black Diaspora Literature.
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