A twitter friend of mine was trying to figure out how to put together his proposal for the International Studies Association’s Annual Meeting. The ISA has gotten into a nasty habit of having a really early deadline. So, folks are thinking about it today since the deadline is tomorrow. I have had a fair amount of experience on the other end, organizing the program for the Foreign Policy section of the APSA about a decade ago, doing the Ethnicity, Nationalism and Migration section of the ISA [ENMISA] a few years back, and then this masochism year of the Foreign Policy Analysis section of the ISA this past spring and the International Security section (with Idean Salehyan) of the APSA for the meeting in September. So, I have opinions (no surprise to anyone):
To be sure, my opinions are not universally shared so take what I say with a big grain of salt. With that caveat (I love saying caveat these days), here are my basic rules of conference proposals:
- If you can organize an entire panel, complete with chair and discussant, do so, as it will save the program organizer work. Plus the panel will be more coherent. Not all panel submissions are accepted but I am pretty sure the rate of success is higher than for lone paper submissions.
- If organizing a panel, have a mix of people–not all grad students from the same department. This actually gives you an excuse to network and meet new people. Identify who does work that is related to what you are doing, and invite them to the panel. Don’t be afraid to invite junior AND senior faculty from other places. Many will thank you for taking the lead, saving them from doing the work or risking a lone submission. Ask your adviser or friends for suggestions and even help in getting a discussant (usually cannot be and should not be a graduate student). The bigger the name, the more likely the panel will be accepted.* People like to get a big name to be chair but I never understand that–the chair just keeps the panel running on time (or not).
- If you are on an organized panel, do not also submit the paper individually. You can submit a different paper but do not do the same one twice–more work for everyone.
* Why? Because panel allocations for future years tend to be driven by attendance, and people tend to go to the panels with the bigger names. The bigger names are not always smarter but they tend to be more articulate, which makes for a better panel. Some folks are know to be excellent discussants, which are a rare commodity. They may or may not have big names.
- Whether you put together a panel or just submit a paper, you have to provide a description of the panel. Try to keep it short and clear. Some program organizers get hundreds of submissions (FPA gets around 500 papers and I forget how many panels). If you have an overly long abstract, it sends a signal that your paper might be very long (I have been a discussant for papers over fifty pages on a few occasions–not fun), and that your presentation may go long.
- So, keep it simple: what is the question, why is it important, what is your answer, how do you propose to test it (that might just be four sentences!).
- The paper is not going to be written until many months from now so you don’t have to go into great detail. If you look at articles in journals, notice the abstracts–150-200 words that explain what the paper is. That is the goal (again, this is for poli sci/international studies, I have no clue about history or sociology or econ or whatever else).
- Aim for a title that is clear about the topic but not incredibly boring.
- Some people get really into linking the paper to the grand theme of the conference. For APSA and ISA (I cannot say about other ones), you don’t have to match the big theme to get on the program. It can help but pay a bit more attention to the call for the papers that the particular section posts (if they do). Even then, it is better to have a coherent, interesting paper idea than one that is a mess because you tried to tie it to some broader theme that does not fit.
- Do make sure you send it to the right two sections (other associations may have one or three options), with the preferred section first. Do not just submit to one panel if you can avoid it.
That really is about it. Perhaps too late, but there is always another conference down the road. Good luck.
Steve, this is a great post I actually was looking forward to given my experience as program chair assistant for ISA 2013. I probably will extent this short reply to a longer post over at my blog.
I especially like that you highlight some of the most important points, clarity regarding title / abstract as well as choosing the right sections to submit your paper to. For the theme, the program chair(s) will receive probably three times as many submissions as the bigger sections (FPA, IO, IPE or ISSS).
But let me put three things into perspective.
First, organized panels don’t have a higher acceptance rate than individually submitted papers. I actually know that they don’t, at least for last year’s conference. The acceptance rate will never exactly match the submission rate for organized panels / individual papers, but it comes very close to that.
Second, I don’t think that big names sell as much as you imply, at least not the names alone. For those cases I know, big names were often rejected (but they tend to be more insistent in this regard!). My take in this would be: a) It might all depend on the program chair(s) / section program chair(s); b) big names might just know how to write a good abstract / title.
Third, panel allocations for future conferences are not based on attendance rates.
And one thing I wanted to add for now:
Everyone who is submitting a paper or panel proposal, please, double-check for typos and never, never, never submit anything written in all capitals. It’s just painful and / or very expensive to change all this by hand.
Writing abstracts for papers you haven’t written yet can be tough, but I’ve developed a formula (and worksheet!) to make it easier. The worksheet is at https://www.jayandleanne.com/lpowner/tchdocs/abstractws.pdf . In short, you write one sentence to fill each block, and if you can’t hand-write it in the space provided, you’re giving too much information. I have used this with students from the BA to PhD level, and it’s circulated in a number of departments in pol sci and other social science fields. So feel free to use, abuse, modify, distribute, etc., as desired.