Conference Paper with Abstract and Presentation
Purpose
As a graduate student, you are encouraged to attend and present at conferences. Because many of you will be teaching various types of writing courses or workshops in your career, it will be to your advantage to participate in one of the many writing/pedagogy-related conferences. With your knowledge of rhetoric, you will be positioned to present well informed praxis oriented papers, or arguments about theory that informs practice that informs theory.
To prepare you for this professional experience, you will be asked to put together a package that entails...
- an abstract that you could use to respond to various calls for papers
- a conference length paper (eight pages, doubled spaced)
- a 10 minutes presentation with PowerPoint
- a handout that you will provide your audience
Going through the process of putting this package together will give you a sense of what it will be like to present at a professional conference and how your work can contribute to the field.
Instructions
The instructions provided below are rhetorical parameters; therefore use them to guide your composition of these document. Your proposal should address the following:
The Conference Paper
Think of this assignment as an abbreviated term paper. Choose a rhetoric related topic that you are invested in and develop it. Some ideas for choosing a topic include:
- issues with your own writing course pedagogy; this could also include tutoring
- a pedagogy that you want to develop
- practical applications of rhetorical theory (e.g., creative writing, professional writing)
- a rhetorical analysis of a text (e.g., instructional documentation, a performance, a speech, a novel, an image). This is not a literary analysis; you will have to explain the persuasive qualities of the chosen text.
- a theoretical discussion
Choose a text that you believe would be relevant to current discussions. You will be asked to develop a research plan for this paper in the Proposal assignment.
The Abstract
Most call for papers (or CFPs) will ask you to condense your Conference Paper into 250 word abstract. This short length obviously allows the conference reviewers to read through large quantities of proposed papers in a short time period. To write a good abstract, you will want to...
- state
the problem that you are addressing. Make sure this is a problem
that your audience will recognize and find relevant. Your problem could
also be a means of catching the reviewers' attention.
- state
your solution to the problem. You will want to justify this solution
by grounding your argument in the fields of rhetoric and writing studies.
In a sense, this becomes a really short literature review to
prove that you can connect the problem and your solution to current
discussions in the field. You may want to drop names to align yourself
with certain discussion, but also recognize that reviewers will judge
you based upon their own feelings towards these scholars' work.
- explain what you will do during the presentation. You will briefly walk the reviewer through the presentation and highlight how you will bring new information into the discussion (e.g., examples of pedagogical practices, samples of student work, guidelines for research)
The PowerPoint Presentation
PowerPoint slide shows are definitely not an ubiquitous method for presenting a paper. However, it is important to include this mode as part of your presentation repertoire so that when the situation calls for this strategy you can execute it successfully.
You will be given 10 minutes to present your twenty minute conference paper. Therefore, you will have to make some choices about what to keep and what to omit. Since you will only have ten minutes do your presentation, you will want to...
- cut your paper in half for the presentation; four pages is a ten minute presentation. Therefore, you will need to pick out the most important information (e.g., your argument, a few pieces of evidence, and a few suggestions)
- from this abridged paper create a presentation of 5-7 slides (about 90-120 seconds per slide)
- consider the tips that the instructor provides for developing and executing a good presentation, especially sticking to the time limit.
The Handout
Handouts are also not used by all presenters. However, a handout is a good way of providing useful knowledge that your audience can take away from your presentation. Handouts will often entail some, but not necessarily all, of the following:
- Your name and your paper title
- Your contact information
- Your abstract (if you place it here, you do not need to submit a separate abstract)
- Key points of your presentation (e.g., your argument, theoretical quotations, highlight from research findings, practical suggestions, diagrams or relevant images)
- References that you cited or that you consulted
Criteria
The Conference Paper package will be due after you present on March 1 , 2005.
In addition to the general evaluation criteria, the instructor will be looking for evidence of...
- a paper
that could be presented at a national professional conference; therefore,
the paper should
- contribute new arguments to the study of rhetoric by being relevant, well-supported, and "original"
- provide information that some audiences may not understand
- demonstrate an understanding of both rhetorical theory and the subject matter being discussed
- demonstrate
an appropriate
use of conventions, including MLA or APA citation formatting
- a presentation
that
- presents a clear position and supports it
- is well organized and easy to follow
- stays within the time limit
- supports
your ethos as a professional in the field (i.e., complies to the
tips for designing and presenting an effective presentation)
- a handout and abstract that comply to guidelines provided above
last.updated 01.11.05