Writing Conference Abstracts

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Abstract, Conference abstracts

Claire Aitchison

For many researchers, presenting at a conference is the vehicle for the first ‘public’ display of their work. Whether you are supporting others with their conference abstract, or a student making your first draft – this post outlines key features for a successful abstract. Most of us are familiar with the abstracts of scholarly papers, however, while similar to the abstract that accompanies a journal paper, conference abstracts have some unique features.

Reviewing can help, if you want to learn how to publish

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Conference abstracts, mentoring, Scholarly reviewing, Writing for publication, writing pedagogies, writing skills development

by Claire Aitchison

Further to my earlier discussions on publishing during the doctorate, I’d like to talk about reviewing as a stepping stone pedagogy for learning to write for publication. Volunteering to review seems like a way to give oneself more work – true, but doing scholarly peer review can help develop publication skills, know-how, confidence and competence.

Anyone who has received reviewer feedback on their manuscript submissions is likely to have wondered about the reviewing process – and perhaps wondered about the value of doing some reviewing themselves. At an intuitive level, it’s seductive to imagine that doing reviewing would give us some insider knowledge that might benefit our writing and publication skills. Luckily, there’s some research that points to the value of reviewing .

What’s to be gained from doing peer review?

• Improve your writing. Critically focusing on someone else’s writing can sharpen your awareness of your own writing foibles, idiosyncrasies and strengths.
• Develop self-editing skills. Taking a critical eye to other people’s writing helps you develop self-editing skills when you apply the same reviewing and editing processes to your own work.
• Up-to-date knowledge. As a reviewer you get access to the latest research, trends and debates in your field months, even years, ahead of publication.
• Publication know-how. There is no doubt that knowing the system from the inside, as a reviewer, provides valuable insights. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. If you are aware of what a reader reviewer is expected to do, what they might look for, and how they might make judgements about manuscripts, you are more likely to be able to avoid such pitfalls yourself. If you are using scholarly peer review as a strategy for learning, then seek out those journals that circulate the comments of each of the manuscript reviewers. I have certainly found this practice illuminating – I love to see how others have reviewed the same article. It can be confirming to see other reviewers identify the same issues, and informative when they attend to quite different aspects in the paper.

How to build competencies for scholarly reviewing

As an editor of a scholarly academic journal, and as an academic author, I have come across inept reviewers whose critiques have been unacceptable. While many people learn by trial and error, my own view (particularly informed through my role as an editor) is that it’s preferable to develop some key skills and competencies before taking on peer reviewing for scholarly journals.

Here are some suggestions for building towards becoming a good reviewer.

• Begin small. If you’ve been to a particular conference a couple of times, and especially if you have presented a paper at that conference, then volunteering to review conference abstracts can be a great way to learn the ropes. Most conference organizers are dead keen to find reviewers for the hundreds of conference abstracts they receive. Reviewing abstracts for conferences is generally a well-supported and manageable task whereby the reviewer is asked to judge a submitted abstract against criteria such as relevance to the conference theme, theoretical or methodological soundness, interest level and so on.

• Begin local. One of the best ways to build reviewer skills is to join a writing group where members review each other’s work regularly. Writing group peer reviewing enables participants to hone skills for identifying strengths and weaknesses in a manuscript and for articulating those judgements in respectful ways. Furthermore, in a writing group, members can learn from doing reviewing (as regularly as fortnightly) AND can compare and discuss their feedback against that of other group members.
• Mentoring. Supervisors and more experienced colleagues can be fantastic allies for learning reviewing practices. Having someone to talk over reviewing experiences, especially difficulties and challenges, can be invaluable. Obviously, high levels of trust and sensitivity need to be observed to maintain the levels of confidentiality required of blind reviewing.

Reviewing so often happens in a vacuum, in secret, and in isolation because of the requirements of blind review. But the very secretive and occluded nature of peer review is exactly what accounts for some of its biggest failings – not the least of which is the limited opportunities to find out about, discuss, debate and practise scholarly review.

I hope some of the issues raised here provide at least some avenues for us to begin to debunk the unnecessary mystery that shrouds the practices of scholarly review – and, importantly, help us build good reviewing practices.

It’s Conference Season –or What was I thinking of when I submitted this abstract??

Tags

Conference abstracts, Conferences, Writing motivation

By Claire Aitchison

By and large, I love conferences. I love the reward of being away from work (the further the better!) and the legitimacy of sitting around all day being entertained by, and engaged in, ideas. It’s great to find out what’s going on, what’re the hot topics, and who is doing what.  And even though it can be terrifying, it’s great to have a go at putting out your ideas.

But you don’t often get to a conference without presenting, which means that you’ve previously had to have written the conference abstract and had it reviewed and accepted.  When I run workshops on writing conference abstracts, we talk about successful abstracts engaging in the conversations of the field; making a contribution – for example, by extending or critiquing that conversation; the importance of addressing the conference theme and so on. I refer to the rhetorical moves that occur in much scientific abstract writing (eg see Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2009)  and in the social sciences (eg see Thompson and Kamler, 2013 and Belcher 2009), and we critique and discuss abstracts.  We don’t often talk about the conditions in which abstracts are written.

Oh! What was I thinking when I submitted that abstract back in April?!!

When I was a doctoral student I (mostly) scrupulously prepared for conferences; my abstracts were well considered and thoroughly based in what I’d been doing. I would spend many weeks reading, writing my conference paper and constructing the PowerPoints. I wrote scripts to go with the PowerPoint presentation, recording what I would say against each slide. I timed my presentation, and rehearsed and rehearsed.  In those days, the conference really was the focus of my attention. I was well prepared and it usually went OK (well, … apart from the pounding heart, sweaty palms and speedy delivery!!).

These days, it’s not uncommon for me to throw together an abstract imagining that in four or six month’s time, I will have found the time to do it justice. These days, I put up my hand to attend conferences as a way of forcing myself to do some new serious reading, thinking and research. I no longer have the luxury I had as a PhD student to put the conference at the centre of attention. And, these days, I’m a bit more forgiving when I attend a less-than-perfect presentation. I know how it can happen. For example, this year, for the first time, I had a conference abstract sent back to me. A Conference Abstract rejection!!! Shock, horror! I admit, I was taken aback, but, when I looked at it afresh, it did fall short. What can I say? I dashed it off, late at night, hours before it was due; and it read like it!

At the recent and wonderful AARE – APERA 2012 Conference  the exceptional quality of submissions for the annual Doctoral Award was attributed in part to the highly focussed, concentrated nature of doctoral study.  I, for one, have never again had the satisfaction of the intense research gaze afforded by doctoral research candidature. Perhaps this is a poor indictment on contemporary academic lives?  Or a note to celebrate the joy of doctoral research candidature? Any thoughts?