For the most recent draft of this tutorial, please refer to the Google Document. TL; DR: Conference abstracts are a challenge, and one that almost any scholar can meet. Based on my extensive experience presenting at and organizing panels at a number of regional and national conferences on numerous topics, I wanted to share some of the lessons I’ve learned in how to put together a conference abstract. I outline the steps below, but here are the major points:
- Find your conference by knowing where you want to present, what you want to present, and what goal you have at this stage in your professional career.
- Cast a wide net–getting onto the panel you want is a numbers game, so the more panels for which you apply, the more likely you will get on at least one panel per year.
- Write your abstract as you would write a lesson plan: you must summarize an argument that is significant but within 15 minutes.
- Don’t let the CFP dictate your topic: the panel that is meant for you is one that has a wide enough range that will fit your topic.
- Adhere to the following template–the conference abstract has four major parts. (1) Identify your topic, (2) identify the author or authors you will discuss, (3) relate your presentation to the larger critical debate (name major scholars whose theories you definitely understand), and (4) state what is significant about your argument.
- If the CFP doesn’t prohibit attaching your CV, do so–make it relate to the panel’s topic, and let yourself stand out in it.
I have been fortunate to have extensive experience presenting at numerous conferences at a variety of levels in my studies–undergraduate to graduate to doctoral–at quite a number of regions throughout the United States, on a range of topics, and in a range of methodologies. My first conference presentation as a graduate student was at the Modern Language Association, the national conference for studies of literature and language; by January 2015, I will have given my fifth presentation at the MLA. In addition to standing behind the podium, I also have worked behind the scenes: I have led my own conference sessions, writing and re-writing calls for papers, choosing panelists, and working alongside co-organizers and co-chairs. All of this work led to my administrative work for the MLA’s regional division, the Northeast Modern Language Association, where as marketing coordinator I see the qualities that session panels have to gain approval by the organization, to attract well-written abstracts, and to develop into panels that speak to the concerns of both researchers and teachers in many topics and methodologies.
Based on my successes as presenter and organizer, I want to share some advice for how to draft an abstract in response to a conference CFP. I have broken down the process into a number of stages–how to pick your topic, whether you should write an abstract from scratch or develop one from a previous seminar paper, where to learn about local conferences and major ones in your field, how to make your abstract attractive to session organizers while sticking to your own approach and interests, and finally how to follow-up with organizers following rejection or, I hope, acceptance.
This document will be a work in progress—with updates made more frequently at Google Documents. To motivate updates, I depend on feedback from you readers. Based on your experiences at academic conferences, which qualities have made for successful abstracts? Which presentations came out the best? Which conferences were most satisfying?
Leave a comment at my WordPress, or feel free to email or tweet at me.
Writing Your Abstract for Conferences in Literature, Languages, and the Humanities by Derek McGrath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at https://dereksmcgrath.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/writing-your-abstract-for-conferences-in-the-literatures-languages-and-humanities/. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/17PoUcy5TcUNUSfNTz4SxCiDfaGyO38LTZpAAotc43OM/edit. (more…)