What exactly does it mean to 'present a paper'?
March 8, 2010 7:53 AM Subscribe
What exactly does it mean to 'present a paper'? I've been given what sounds like a great opportunity - and I don't want screw it up.
A friend of mine recently e-mailed me with a chance to 'present a paper' on a subject near and dear to my heart - tourism. It's a long, boring story. As a traveler and person who's been up and down Korea more times than most Koreans I know, I have more than a few ideas on how tourism can be improved. The paper would be presented at a conference on tourism here in Korea a few months from now. It has to be related to tourism in some way, but making the link shouldn't be a problem.
The hitch is that I'm not an academic sort. While I did just fine in my undergraduate classes (Dean's List the whole way through, thank you very much), I fear academia without some connection to the real world would bore me to tears. While I doubt graduate school is in my immediate future, making positive connections and networking is - which may lead to something bigger and better down the road.
At the risk of making the question too general, I'll ask - what exactly is involved when one presents a paper? What's the procedure? If you've presented a paper, what did you do that knocked the socks off your listeners?
A friend of mine recently e-mailed me with a chance to 'present a paper' on a subject near and dear to my heart - tourism. It's a long, boring story. As a traveler and person who's been up and down Korea more times than most Koreans I know, I have more than a few ideas on how tourism can be improved. The paper would be presented at a conference on tourism here in Korea a few months from now. It has to be related to tourism in some way, but making the link shouldn't be a problem.
The hitch is that I'm not an academic sort. While I did just fine in my undergraduate classes (Dean's List the whole way through, thank you very much), I fear academia without some connection to the real world would bore me to tears. While I doubt graduate school is in my immediate future, making positive connections and networking is - which may lead to something bigger and better down the road.
At the risk of making the question too general, I'll ask - what exactly is involved when one presents a paper? What's the procedure? If you've presented a paper, what did you do that knocked the socks off your listeners?
In my line of work whenever someone presents a paper that means basically distilling your findings into a power point presentation. I would ask your friend directly for some clarification and get some of the requisite details like how much time you've been allotted to speak etc.
posted by pwally at 8:04 AM on March 8, 2010
posted by pwally at 8:04 AM on March 8, 2010
In my field - computer science - presenting a paper involves first writing a paper (there will be strict limits on page numbers and formatting) and then giving a talk based upon the contents of that paper in a conference setting.
Talks usually last between 20 and 30 minutes and are accompanied by PowerPoint (or some similar presentation software) shows. They may incorporate video and/or audio if that is appropriate. They may incorporate hands-on exercises for the audience, but this is more common in some sub-disciplines than others.
You should be able to find out more about the event - you'll want to know
- How many attendees will there be?
- Is is single track or multi-track (i.e. are there lots of sessions going on at the same time?). If it is multi-track, how many tracks are there, and how many people can you expect in your session?
- What's the audience? Expert or generalist?
- Do you have to provide an actual paper? Or just an abstract? Or do they just want you to give a talk?
- What projection/software facilities are available and supported? (Video? Audio? Can you bring your own laptop or are you forced to use their computer?)
- Will you have to pay conference fees? Will they pay you? Will they cover your travel costs?
posted by handee at 8:04 AM on March 8, 2010
Talks usually last between 20 and 30 minutes and are accompanied by PowerPoint (or some similar presentation software) shows. They may incorporate video and/or audio if that is appropriate. They may incorporate hands-on exercises for the audience, but this is more common in some sub-disciplines than others.
You should be able to find out more about the event - you'll want to know
- How many attendees will there be?
- Is is single track or multi-track (i.e. are there lots of sessions going on at the same time?). If it is multi-track, how many tracks are there, and how many people can you expect in your session?
- What's the audience? Expert or generalist?
- Do you have to provide an actual paper? Or just an abstract? Or do they just want you to give a talk?
- What projection/software facilities are available and supported? (Video? Audio? Can you bring your own laptop or are you forced to use their computer?)
- Will you have to pay conference fees? Will they pay you? Will they cover your travel costs?
posted by handee at 8:04 AM on March 8, 2010
And, er, yeah
- How long do they want you to present for?
posted by handee at 8:05 AM on March 8, 2010
- How long do they want you to present for?
posted by handee at 8:05 AM on March 8, 2010
Regarding (1), who's sponsoring the conference? Is there an academic association or associations doing so? Looking at that would tell a knowledgeable observer what norms might be applicable. A "conference on tourism" sponsored by a literature association would be very different from one sponsored by an association of sociologists would be very different from one sponsored by an MBA mill would be very different from one sponsored by a policy school would be very different from one sponsored by an association of psychologists.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:06 AM on March 8, 2010
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:06 AM on March 8, 2010
Response by poster: More info - It's called the 2010 Chungnam International Tourism Conference, and it's put together by the Korea Academic Society of Tourism Management. They're expecting about 600 people, and fees / travel expenses / honorarium would be paid, although that's most of what I know at this point. I guess I was looking at more general concerns than those specifically related to a given field - but I could have realized that academia is more specific than I'd like to think about...
To be blunt, my goal by presenting a paper would be to hobnob with other people in the field, present myself as a brilliant mind, and find a kickass job in the process. I'll settle for the first one, though I'd love to be invited back if the shindig is cool and all. As you might guess I'm a bit... irreverent.
Writing isn't a problem, and neither is coming up with an interesting subject. Since it sounds like presentation is key, what have you done to make your presentation come alive? Personal anecdotes or stories are highly welcome :)
posted by chrisinseoul at 8:14 AM on March 8, 2010
To be blunt, my goal by presenting a paper would be to hobnob with other people in the field, present myself as a brilliant mind, and find a kickass job in the process. I'll settle for the first one, though I'd love to be invited back if the shindig is cool and all. As you might guess I'm a bit... irreverent.
Writing isn't a problem, and neither is coming up with an interesting subject. Since it sounds like presentation is key, what have you done to make your presentation come alive? Personal anecdotes or stories are highly welcome :)
posted by chrisinseoul at 8:14 AM on March 8, 2010
I guess I was looking at more general concerns than those specifically related to a given field
NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO.
They may be expecting you to make what amounts to a short powerpoint presentation, and giving a prepared speech would make you look like an idiot. Or they may be expecting you to give a prepared speech, and making a short powerpoint presentation would make you look like an idiot.
Nobody who has answered yet has the slightest idea what people are expecting from you.
What I have done to make my presentation come alive is have weird, surprising findings, at which point everyone pays attention more or less irrespective of how I present those weird, surprising findings. What does that tell you about your conference? Not a damn thing. What does someone else's anecdote from some other field tell you about your conference? Also not a damn thing.
You need to talk to your friend about the expectations. Unless someone with specific information about the field in Korea shows up, all that you will get here is misinformation that will be worse than useless to you.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:22 AM on March 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO.
They may be expecting you to make what amounts to a short powerpoint presentation, and giving a prepared speech would make you look like an idiot. Or they may be expecting you to give a prepared speech, and making a short powerpoint presentation would make you look like an idiot.
Nobody who has answered yet has the slightest idea what people are expecting from you.
What I have done to make my presentation come alive is have weird, surprising findings, at which point everyone pays attention more or less irrespective of how I present those weird, surprising findings. What does that tell you about your conference? Not a damn thing. What does someone else's anecdote from some other field tell you about your conference? Also not a damn thing.
You need to talk to your friend about the expectations. Unless someone with specific information about the field in Korea shows up, all that you will get here is misinformation that will be worse than useless to you.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:22 AM on March 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
In my field, it would be odd to be asked to present a paper, if you have not already written a paper, submitted it to the conference committee (in time for some specific date) and had it selected.
Normally at that point you are told what the format is of the conference and what you should prepare. If not, the committee would no doubt be helpful to anyone who emailed them to ask.
Are you certain that your friend isn't suggesting that you submit a paper for consideration? If that's the case, I'd stop worrying about presentation and start worrying about paper writing.
posted by emilyw at 8:32 AM on March 8, 2010
Normally at that point you are told what the format is of the conference and what you should prepare. If not, the committee would no doubt be helpful to anyone who emailed them to ask.
Are you certain that your friend isn't suggesting that you submit a paper for consideration? If that's the case, I'd stop worrying about presentation and start worrying about paper writing.
posted by emilyw at 8:32 AM on March 8, 2010
Response by poster: @ROU_Xenophobe: I will ask the more specific questions about expectations. In most fields, even some general tips / advice might be helpful where specific knowledge is absent. If that's not the case here then so be it - but I'd like to think there's SOMETHING out there that might be helpful...?
posted by chrisinseoul at 8:36 AM on March 8, 2010
posted by chrisinseoul at 8:36 AM on March 8, 2010
Since you aren't an academic, my guess is that you have been invited as an industry speaker. The conference website should have guidelines for the various paper types, which may include a specific format for industry speakers.
What happens first is that you write and submit a paper that fits these guidelines (page length, layout, etc). As an invited speaker you may not be put through peer review, as you would if you had selected the conference to submit a paper out of your own interest.
If you want to present yourself as a brilliant mind you will need to review the existing literature on the topic of your choice, and be sure to make clear what is novel about your paper. What have you written about that hasn't been written about before? It doesn't necessarily have to be a new invention, it could (for example) be a well-known technique that hasn't been applied enough in your field, and you could be explaining why you're the first to apply it (or apply it in this particular way) and why everyone else in your field should follow your lead.
Look at papers published in last year's proceedings and the years before to get an idea of style.
Make sure that you have data or a citation to back up every statement of fact you make.
Once you receive notification that your paper has been accepted, you'll receive author's guidelines for camera-ready papers, and also comments from the reviewers. Make sure that you pay attention to every point raised by the reviewers, and when you submit your camera-ready paper, make sure you explain in your covering email exactly how you have addressed them. If there are any you didn't address, then okay, but you need to state why (e.g. I agree that there needs to be one more table showing Dataset X, but I wasn't able to add it without going over the page limit and I don't think any other material can be cut to make room for it).
Then when it comes to presentation time, you'll get to the part that you're familiar with: it's just a presentation, based on your camera-ready paper. About one slide per minute, and rehearse the timing so that you don't exceed your allotted timeslot including 5mins at the end for answering questions.
As you go up to present your paper, don't just start jabbering straight away. Instead, breathe, then look at your audience taking in every one of them, and select one audience member at the back of the room to focus on.
Do voice and articulation exercises for a few days beforehand, and the morning of.
If you have an iPhone, you can use NightStand to keep an eye on the time as you talk.
posted by tel3path at 8:37 AM on March 8, 2010
What happens first is that you write and submit a paper that fits these guidelines (page length, layout, etc). As an invited speaker you may not be put through peer review, as you would if you had selected the conference to submit a paper out of your own interest.
If you want to present yourself as a brilliant mind you will need to review the existing literature on the topic of your choice, and be sure to make clear what is novel about your paper. What have you written about that hasn't been written about before? It doesn't necessarily have to be a new invention, it could (for example) be a well-known technique that hasn't been applied enough in your field, and you could be explaining why you're the first to apply it (or apply it in this particular way) and why everyone else in your field should follow your lead.
Look at papers published in last year's proceedings and the years before to get an idea of style.
Make sure that you have data or a citation to back up every statement of fact you make.
Once you receive notification that your paper has been accepted, you'll receive author's guidelines for camera-ready papers, and also comments from the reviewers. Make sure that you pay attention to every point raised by the reviewers, and when you submit your camera-ready paper, make sure you explain in your covering email exactly how you have addressed them. If there are any you didn't address, then okay, but you need to state why (e.g. I agree that there needs to be one more table showing Dataset X, but I wasn't able to add it without going over the page limit and I don't think any other material can be cut to make room for it).
Then when it comes to presentation time, you'll get to the part that you're familiar with: it's just a presentation, based on your camera-ready paper. About one slide per minute, and rehearse the timing so that you don't exceed your allotted timeslot including 5mins at the end for answering questions.
As you go up to present your paper, don't just start jabbering straight away. Instead, breathe, then look at your audience taking in every one of them, and select one audience member at the back of the room to focus on.
Do voice and articulation exercises for a few days beforehand, and the morning of.
If you have an iPhone, you can use NightStand to keep an eye on the time as you talk.
posted by tel3path at 8:37 AM on March 8, 2010
Given that there's no easy straight answer to your question, I don't think it will make you look bad if you just ask your friend what is expected of you if you agree to present.
posted by Diplodocus at 8:43 AM on March 8, 2010
posted by Diplodocus at 8:43 AM on March 8, 2010
If that's not the case here then so be it - but I'd like to think there's SOMETHING out there that might be helpful...?
I am telling you that even within my own discipline, norms vary so strongly from one subfield to another that I could not give helpful advice to people in many other subfields.
Case in point, tel3path's advice and statements of what happens would be completely over the top wrong for my discipline. In political science in the US, almost no conferences are peer-reviewed. In political science, proceedings aren't published. In political science, there is no need for camera-ready anything. Even within political science, how you would go about presenting a paper once you were at the conference so you didn't look like an idiot varies wildly.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:55 AM on March 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
I am telling you that even within my own discipline, norms vary so strongly from one subfield to another that I could not give helpful advice to people in many other subfields.
Case in point, tel3path's advice and statements of what happens would be completely over the top wrong for my discipline. In political science in the US, almost no conferences are peer-reviewed. In political science, proceedings aren't published. In political science, there is no need for camera-ready anything. Even within political science, how you would go about presenting a paper once you were at the conference so you didn't look like an idiot varies wildly.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:55 AM on March 8, 2010 [1 favorite]
ROU_Xenophobe is right. There is far too much variation, even within disciplines, for us to be helpful. You should ask your friend what is expected of you. It is not a strange question.
Alternatively, you could look online for calls for papers and conference programs in international tourism to see generally what might be expected of you. A 2008 international tourism conference in Turkey has a website; is this related to the conference you've been asked to participate in, perhaps?
posted by k8lin at 9:32 AM on March 8, 2010
Alternatively, you could look online for calls for papers and conference programs in international tourism to see generally what might be expected of you. A 2008 international tourism conference in Turkey has a website; is this related to the conference you've been asked to participate in, perhaps?
posted by k8lin at 9:32 AM on March 8, 2010
Yes, honestly, this varies so broadly across different fields. Once you know the format and length expected, we might be more able to give useful advice.
As mentioned above, format can vary from powerpoint presentation, verbatim reading of a preapproved paper, blackboard talk (unlikely but how should we know?), short explanation/summary of your work, being one of a 'panel', etc. Your friend knows, or should know, or at least knows whom to ask. We can only guess and this isn't something you should guess on. It might be normal to pass something out to your audience, or it might be completely and totally weird. Ask and find out about all of these things.
It might also be good to figure out how many people you can expect in your audience (are there concurrent sessions? do most people attend most talks?), and to figure out if you should expect questions from them or not. Also should you expect academics, industry folk, or what? While you're asking it might be worth figuring out something about dress code for speakers. Perhaps you're expected to have business cards with contact info during the conference; perhaps that would be taken as way too ostentatious.
Without knowing any of these details, the only advice I can give is to speak clearly and slowly. "Slowly" is especially true if you have a notable accent in the language you'll be presenting in. Do not try to present too much material for the time alloted. Find a way to highlight the important points (this is of course heavily format-dependent!). Practice beforehand, hopefully in front of a few people. Get plenty of rest, stay well hydrated, and pay attention to the time so you don't run over. If you have visual aids (anything from posters to powerpoint to writing on a chalkboard) find a way to test beforehand that they are clearly visible to everyone. Wear clothes appropriate to the dress code, but be sure you will be comfortable in them--layers are nice since the temperature in conference rooms can be pretty badly controlled.
posted by nat at 9:57 AM on March 8, 2010
As mentioned above, format can vary from powerpoint presentation, verbatim reading of a preapproved paper, blackboard talk (unlikely but how should we know?), short explanation/summary of your work, being one of a 'panel', etc. Your friend knows, or should know, or at least knows whom to ask. We can only guess and this isn't something you should guess on. It might be normal to pass something out to your audience, or it might be completely and totally weird. Ask and find out about all of these things.
It might also be good to figure out how many people you can expect in your audience (are there concurrent sessions? do most people attend most talks?), and to figure out if you should expect questions from them or not. Also should you expect academics, industry folk, or what? While you're asking it might be worth figuring out something about dress code for speakers. Perhaps you're expected to have business cards with contact info during the conference; perhaps that would be taken as way too ostentatious.
Without knowing any of these details, the only advice I can give is to speak clearly and slowly. "Slowly" is especially true if you have a notable accent in the language you'll be presenting in. Do not try to present too much material for the time alloted. Find a way to highlight the important points (this is of course heavily format-dependent!). Practice beforehand, hopefully in front of a few people. Get plenty of rest, stay well hydrated, and pay attention to the time so you don't run over. If you have visual aids (anything from posters to powerpoint to writing on a chalkboard) find a way to test beforehand that they are clearly visible to everyone. Wear clothes appropriate to the dress code, but be sure you will be comfortable in them--layers are nice since the temperature in conference rooms can be pretty badly controlled.
posted by nat at 9:57 AM on March 8, 2010
ROU is very correct when he says that expectations vary widely across disciplines -- and between academic and non-academic settings. After all, a convention is just a conference for industry/fandom. This particular conference may have a given style.
However, you would not be invited as an academic speaker. I assume that you are not posing as an academic, but have a chance to give a talk/paper on your experiences as a tourist. In which case, it's like you're not a historian, but a veteran of WW2 talking about his experiences at a historical conference. All the expectations are thrown out the window -- you don't have academic colleagues you have to impress with your absorbtion of their professional norms.
I actually have been to mixed academic/non-academic conference recently, and I noticed that all the presentors used their own style. Some read their paper verbatim (the historians); some spoke based on detailed notes/speaking scripts to outline the points of a paper (the landscape archeologist), and others gave looser power-point based presentations as would be expected in business or government (the archivist and the reserve manager). All fit wll toggether, especially as the conference was meant to be a cross-disciplinary and cross-sector conference (uniting academics and public servants, presenting for an audience of the general public).
If I were you, I would talk to my friend about just exactly WHAT is expected from YOU at this particular conference, not what would be expected from other academic or industry presentors.
If your friend can't give you very specific guidelines, then you should just do what would present your information/argument in the most effective way. I would actually go and watch the TED talk presentations as examples of radically different people presenting information to a mixed audience, often very effectively.
From my own experience, I have noticed that most people respond better to a natural speech/presentation than to a formal full-text paper delivered orally -- listening to formal written papers is a skill in itself, and delivering them well is an even more difficult skill to master (and one which, sadly, many academics have not mastered). Notably, they are very rare outside of academics and have been even dropped by many disciplines within academis -- and, after all, you are not an academic.
If you improv/speak on your feet well, you may find that you only need loose notes to remind you of your points. My husband can present impressive papers based on a few scribbled pages of key words. If you don't improv well, then you can do what I do: write a speaking script. It's a verbatim text of what you want to say, but written like a speech or a play, with concious effort to use the sentence structure and language of spokenEnglish Korean, rarher than formal or written. Or something in-between. Whatever method you chose, learn to stage-read -- that is, to read while looking at your audience most of the time. You read flicking your eyes between your text and your audience, like an actor doing a staged reading (performing a play while reading from the script) or a librarian reading a kid's book. Even if you have to pause, it's better to be looking at your audience and making eye contact than it is to be reading fluently but with your head buried in the text. (Oh, why aren't theatre classes on staged readings mandatory in grad school?)
Visual aids - like slides - do aid most talks, especially talks about concrete things (like tourist locations). That said, there is an art to using visual aids. Images are very evocative -- I went to a fascinating talk on the Ferenghi valley in central Asia which was much enhanced by simple landscape photographs of what the place looked like. Diagrams can sometimes make a point much better than words can, or reinforce your verbal point. Use text on your slides sparingly -- some people like to reinforce their main points by repeating them on a slide, but if you do this for every point, many people will stop listening to you and just read your slides. Important names, quotes and/or numbers are good things to put on slides, because they are harder for people to take notes on from just verbal information. But if the names/quotes/numbers are not very important, don't put them on the slide or people will think that they are more important than they are. Think about using your visual aids to clarify, punctuate and illustrate your points -- not neccessarily to convey them.
on preview: yes, SPEAK SLOWLY. (I had to work on that, especially being a motor-mouthed Canadian presenting to drawling Brits.) Plan your paper to take 5 minutes LESS to read/present than the time allotted if the paper is 30 minutes or less; 10 minutes less for a 45-60 minute presentation.
Last, but not least -- the true key to an interesting conference paper is the same as the key to an interesting speech or presentation anywhere else in the world: something interesting to say. As a non-academic, you probably will not be presenting the results of a formal study or experiment. I mean, do you have a specific methodology or data analysis to present? If your paper is based on your own experiences, I would imagine that it would be primarily argumentative -- that is, just like the classic non-academic essay (think Orwell), it's primary purpose is in presenting an argument, backed by some examples. (I'm not saying that the other types of papers don't have arguments, just that they also have other stuff like methods, results, etc, to present). Work this out before you do anything else -- what is it that you want to take this opportunity to say? What do you have to illustrate your argument? And why should all these people listen to what you think about this specific topic?
posted by jb at 11:17 AM on March 8, 2010 [3 favorites]
However, you would not be invited as an academic speaker. I assume that you are not posing as an academic, but have a chance to give a talk/paper on your experiences as a tourist. In which case, it's like you're not a historian, but a veteran of WW2 talking about his experiences at a historical conference. All the expectations are thrown out the window -- you don't have academic colleagues you have to impress with your absorbtion of their professional norms.
I actually have been to mixed academic/non-academic conference recently, and I noticed that all the presentors used their own style. Some read their paper verbatim (the historians); some spoke based on detailed notes/speaking scripts to outline the points of a paper (the landscape archeologist), and others gave looser power-point based presentations as would be expected in business or government (the archivist and the reserve manager). All fit wll toggether, especially as the conference was meant to be a cross-disciplinary and cross-sector conference (uniting academics and public servants, presenting for an audience of the general public).
If I were you, I would talk to my friend about just exactly WHAT is expected from YOU at this particular conference, not what would be expected from other academic or industry presentors.
If your friend can't give you very specific guidelines, then you should just do what would present your information/argument in the most effective way. I would actually go and watch the TED talk presentations as examples of radically different people presenting information to a mixed audience, often very effectively.
From my own experience, I have noticed that most people respond better to a natural speech/presentation than to a formal full-text paper delivered orally -- listening to formal written papers is a skill in itself, and delivering them well is an even more difficult skill to master (and one which, sadly, many academics have not mastered). Notably, they are very rare outside of academics and have been even dropped by many disciplines within academis -- and, after all, you are not an academic.
If you improv/speak on your feet well, you may find that you only need loose notes to remind you of your points. My husband can present impressive papers based on a few scribbled pages of key words. If you don't improv well, then you can do what I do: write a speaking script. It's a verbatim text of what you want to say, but written like a speech or a play, with concious effort to use the sentence structure and language of spoken
Visual aids - like slides - do aid most talks, especially talks about concrete things (like tourist locations). That said, there is an art to using visual aids. Images are very evocative -- I went to a fascinating talk on the Ferenghi valley in central Asia which was much enhanced by simple landscape photographs of what the place looked like. Diagrams can sometimes make a point much better than words can, or reinforce your verbal point. Use text on your slides sparingly -- some people like to reinforce their main points by repeating them on a slide, but if you do this for every point, many people will stop listening to you and just read your slides. Important names, quotes and/or numbers are good things to put on slides, because they are harder for people to take notes on from just verbal information. But if the names/quotes/numbers are not very important, don't put them on the slide or people will think that they are more important than they are. Think about using your visual aids to clarify, punctuate and illustrate your points -- not neccessarily to convey them.
on preview: yes, SPEAK SLOWLY. (I had to work on that, especially being a motor-mouthed Canadian presenting to drawling Brits.) Plan your paper to take 5 minutes LESS to read/present than the time allotted if the paper is 30 minutes or less; 10 minutes less for a 45-60 minute presentation.
Last, but not least -- the true key to an interesting conference paper is the same as the key to an interesting speech or presentation anywhere else in the world: something interesting to say. As a non-academic, you probably will not be presenting the results of a formal study or experiment. I mean, do you have a specific methodology or data analysis to present? If your paper is based on your own experiences, I would imagine that it would be primarily argumentative -- that is, just like the classic non-academic essay (think Orwell), it's primary purpose is in presenting an argument, backed by some examples. (I'm not saying that the other types of papers don't have arguments, just that they also have other stuff like methods, results, etc, to present). Work this out before you do anything else -- what is it that you want to take this opportunity to say? What do you have to illustrate your argument? And why should all these people listen to what you think about this specific topic?
posted by jb at 11:17 AM on March 8, 2010 [3 favorites]
As for what really knocks my socks off when watching other people present -- I am always most impressed by the speakers who actively connect with the audience by making eye contact, and who spoke clearly, simply and with passion about their topic.
posted by jb at 11:22 AM on March 8, 2010
posted by jb at 11:22 AM on March 8, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
(1) You need to tell us what the conference is, so people who are familiar with the Korean academic community can make a good guess as to the field and subfield (this will almost certainly not be "tourism.")
(2) Everyone who isn't familiar with that subfield of that field as it is understood within the Korean academic community needs to not answer.
Within my own subfield(s), to present a paper would mean "take five to ten minutes to summarize the basic findings, the methods, and why someone might give a crap, more or less extemporaneously with a couple of visual aids." In other subfields of my discipline, to present a paper would be much closer to "write a somewhat shorter version of the paper and read that verbatim." So even if you were in my field, I wouldn't have the slightest damn idea what "presenting a paper" would mean to you.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:03 AM on March 8, 2010