Conference Presentations
Scholar-to-Scholar Presentations. Scholar-to-Scholar presentations are very similar to poster sessions. While some scholar-to-scholar presenters will still utilize a traditional poster, others have gone beyond the traditional poster to include audio and video presentations. The purpose of the Scholar-to-Scholar sessions is to provide poster presenters with an opportunity to discuss their poster with top-notch scholars in the field of communication. In essence, a Scholar-to-Scholar presentation functions like a poster session, but top scholars whose research relates to the research being presented during the scholar-to-scholar sessions are invited to interact with the individuals presenting. Scholar-to-Scholar presentations provide a great way for you get feedback about your research study from some of the top minds in the field of communication.
Round Table Discussions. Round table discussions are generally not panels at conferences or conventions where new research is presented. Instead, round table discussions consist of a group of scholars who discuss issues related to research or academia. On the research side, often these panels could be designed to discuss a specific scholar’s research or tackle the state of a specific area of study. On the academia side, round table discussions are designed to either discuss innovative teaching techniques (using technology in the classroom, handling student misbehavior, etc.) or to address issues of interest to people in higher education (getting your first job in higher education, how to publish, etc.).
Panel Paper Presentations. In contrast to round table discussions, panel paper presentations will contain a series of new research papers that address a specific topic. These are considered panel paper presentations because they are actually submitted to a conference or convention as a whole concept. In essence, one individual (referred to as the chair) organizes the panel, which focuses on a specific area of research (speed dating, narrative in contemporary politics, crisis communication after Hurricane Katrina, etc.). The chair will then seek out individuals who will write manuscripts based on the topic of the panel. Quite often when these panels get submitted for consideration at a conference or convention, the submitters will include a general idea of the panel and paper abstracts. Most of the time, the papers on panel paper presentations are not actually written at the time the panel idea is submitted, so the manuscripts are not actually peer-reviewed before the conference or convention.
Thematic Panel Presentations. Thematic panel presentations are a special type of panel presentation and can fall into either the round table discussion or paper panel presentation categories. What makes thematic panel presentations different is that the panel is designed to examine the conference or convention’s theme. Every conference or convention tends to have a theme that is designed to tie the event together with a specific agenda. Here are the themes from the National Communication Association’s convention dating back to 2000: 2000-The Engaged Discipline, 2001-Radical(izing) Roots, 2002-Communication in Action, 2003-Reaching Out/Reaching In, 2004-Moving Forward/Looking Back, 2005-The Health of the Discipline, 2006-Creating Sites for Connection and Action, 2007-Communicating World Views: Faith-Intellect-Ethics, and 2008-unCONVENTIONal. As you can see, each year has a different theme that could lead itself to different types of thematic programming at the convention.
Competitive Paper Presentations. The last type of conference or convention presentation is called the competitive paper presentation. These papers are considered competitive because the papers themselves are reviewed by scholars who do not know who the author is when evaluating the manuscript. This review process tends to occur six to ten months before the conference or convention. The competitive papers rely on a process called blind or peer review. The idea of peer review is to have scholars knowledgeable in a subject area evaluate a manuscript on the manuscript’s merits and not the notoriety of the author(s). Typically, paper reviewers will be given a stack of manuscripts that have been submitted to a conference or convention. The papers themselves have been de-identified so that the papers have no indication of who the author(s) is or where the author(s) go to school or currently work. Every paper that is evaluated is evaluated by multiple paper reviewers (generally three) who then rank the papers in order of best to worst. Most conferences and conventions receive more papers than can be possibly presented in the time frame of the conference or convention. The author(s) of the papers that are ranked highly will ultimately be asked to present their papers at the conference or convention. If a paper is ranked among the top three or four, they may end up on a panel of top papers, which is seen as a real honor. The rest of the papers accepted will be placed on panels that contain three or four related manuscripts.
Most conferences and conventions will try to place new research on rather broad thematic panels, so that there is some level of continuity between the different presenters. For example, maybe you’ll find a paper on journalism, reality television, and gender displays on Grey’s Anatomy on a panel titled “Reality and Fiction in the Media.” In this case, the conference planners probably had to group papers from different communication sub-fields and saw how the different papers could be linked together. However, often you will end up on a panel where you feel like your paper really doesn’t make sense in conjunction with the other papers – this happens.
Your average paper presentation at a conference or convention is anywhere from 10-20 minutes depending on how many papers are on a panel and the total amount of time set aside for the panel (typically 1 to 1.5 hours). Frequently, panels will be assigned two additional people besides the paper presenters: chair and respondent. The chair’s job is to introduce the authors and the papers and keep the panel moving. The chair may also provide the presenters time signals to let them know when their allotted amount of time to present is running out. The respondent is an individual who is asked to read all of the manuscripts on a panel prior to the conference or convention. At the conclusion of the paper presentations, the respondent will then provide feedback that could come in the form of negative feedback or providing thoughts on where a study could go in the future. While respondents may offer negative feedback, never take the feedback as criticism of you as a writer, but rather see the negative feedback as an attempt to help you clean up your manuscript for possible publication. In the event that you are asked to present your paper at a conference or convention, we have some very helpful hints for you:
1) DO NOT read us your paper. OK, we are communication scholars who have all taken public speaking. However, many people who present will actually read their manuscript in a fairly monotone fashion. Instead, we recommend making an outline of notes that you can use to deliver your presentation in an extemporaneous fashion – just like you learned to do in public speaking.
2) Make sure you know how much time you will have to present, and then make sure that your presentation can be made in the allotted time frame.
3) When discussing your literature review, give only the absolutely necessary highlights. People are more interested in your new research than they are on what is already out there.
4) Do not rely on having technology for your presentation. Increasingly, people want to use PowerPoint or other presentation software systems during a paper presentation. Unfortunately, the cost of such technology is often prohibitive for conferences and conventions. Even if you want to bring in your own lap top and projector, you should check with a conference or convention organizer to make sure that this is ok. Many conferences and conventions are held in locations that have strict rules about the use of technology (e.g., conference centers, hotels, etc.). Some conference and convention locations will allow individuals to bring in outside technology with no extra charge to the conference or convention. Conversely, some conference and convention locations will actually charge the conference or convention an electricity use fee for any technology used.
5) Always have a backup plan if you intend to use some kind of technology during your presentation. There’s an old presenter’s rule that states that if your technology can breakdown while presenting, it will. For this reason, you should always have a backup plan. One easy backup plan is to have a handout you can give your audience members. If the technology you wanted to use doesn’t lend itself to a handout, you should think about how you can present without the technology in case something does go wrong. It’s always better to have thought out a worst case scenario before it happens than to figure it out as the worst case scenario is occurring.
6) Decide whether to stand, or not to stand. One of the hardest questions some presenters have to make is whether or not they should stand during their presentations. There is no standard rule for this issue. On some panels, everyone stands while presenting; whereas, other panels no one stands while presenting. From a basic public speaking perspective, standing is generally going to lead to a stronger connection with one’s audience. However, ultimately you need to do what’s most comfortable for you as a presenter.
Here are a range of possible conferences for you to consider:
Potential Conferences and Conventions for Communication Researchers
Regional
Central States Communication Association
Eastern Communication Association
Midwest Popular Culture
Southern States Communication Association
Western Communication Association
National
Academy of Management
American Association of Public Opinion Research
American Forensics Association
American Public Health Association
American Society for the History of Rhetoric
Association for Business Communication
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
Broadcast Education Association
Kenneth Burke Society
Media Ecology Association
Medical Communicators Conference
National Communication Association (United States)
National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media
Popular Culture Association
Public Relations Society of America
Rhetoric Society of America
Religious Communication Association
International
American Communication Association
Association for the Rhetoric of Science and Technology
Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
International Association of Business Communicators
International Association for Conflict Management
International Association for Media and Communication Research
International Association for Intercultural Communication
International Conference on Gender Studies
International Conference on Information Technology and Multimedia
International Conference on Intercultural Studies
International Conference on Media and Religion
International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities
International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry
International Communication Association
International Listening Association
International Reality Television Conference
International Speech Communication Association
International Society for Humor Studies
International Society of Political Psychology
Language and Social Psychology
Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research
Pacific & Asian Communication Association (PACA) Conference
Public Address Conference
Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Society for Risk Assessment
World Association for Public Opinion Research
World Communication Association
Topical Conferences
Conference on Language, Communication and Cognition
Creating Second Lives: Reading and Writing Virtual Communities
Interdisciplinary Conference on Fetishism
Medicine in New Media
Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil
New Media and Global Diaspora
Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender
Poetics of Conflict and Reconciliation
Representing Islam: Comparative Perspectives
Rhetorical Citizenship and Public Deliberation
The Golden Age of Television Fiction: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Television Series
The Imagination of Poetry and Storytelling in the HIV/AIDS Pandemic
Women, Media, and Aging