With a word limit, write only what is necessary, avoiding wordiness. Use active voice and pay attention to excessive prepositional phrasing. Plan your abstract carefully before writing it. A good abstract will address the following questions: What is the historical question or problem? Contextualize your topic. It should be original. What is your evidence? State forthrightly that you are using primary source material. How does your paper fit into the historiography?
What's going on in the field of study and how does your paper contribute to it? Why does it matter? We know the topic is important to you, why should it be important to the abstract selection committee? You should be as specific as possible, avoiding overly broad or overreaching statements and claims. Say what you need to say and nothing more. Keep your audience in mind. How much background you give on a topic will depend on the conference.
Is the conference a general humanities conference, a general graduate student history conference, or something more specific like a s social revolutions conference?
Your pitch should be suited to the specificity of the conference: the more specific the topic, the less broad background you need to give and vice versa. Revise and edit your abstract to ensure that its final presentation is error free. The editing phase is also the best time to see your abstract as a whole and chip away at unnecessary words or phrases. The final draft should be linear and clear and it should read smoothly.
If you are tripping over something while reading, the abstract selection committee will as well. Ask another graduate student to read your abstract to ensure its clarity or attend a Graduate Student Writing Group meeting. Your language should be professional and your style should adhere to academic standards.
Contractions may be appealing because of the word limits, but they should be avoided. While one question, if really good, may be posed in your abstract, you should avoid writing more than one maybe two, if really really good. If you do pose a question or two, make sure that you either answer it or address why the question matters to your conference paper — unless you are posing an obvious rhetorical question, you should never just let a question hang there.
Too many questions takes up too much space and leaves less room for you to develop your argument, methods, evidence, historiography, etc. Often times, posing too many questions leaves the abstract committee wondering if you are going to address one or all in your paper and if you even know the answers to them.
Remember, you are not expected to have already written your conference paper, but you are expected to have done enough research that you are prepared to write about a specific topic that you can adequately cover in minutes. Prove that you have done so.
They will be reading a lot of abstracts and will not want to wade through the unnecessary language. Keep it simple. Sometimes this happens because students are not yet clear on their argument. Think about it some more and then write. Other times, students write carelessly and do not proofread. Make sure each sentence is unique and that it contributes to the flow of your abstract.
Today, I am going to present a paper titled ….. Maintain eye contact with the audience: As you begin your presentation, smile. Be calm, and breathe deep. This will help you relax and dissolve any awkwardness between you and the audience. Be mindful of your posture: stand straight and hold your head up. This will help you make eye contact with the audience and will also make your voice more audible. Do not read to the desk. Talk clearly, loudly, and energetically. Take advantage of pauses to look up at your audience, give your audience time to react to what you say, or to let what you said sink in, or to just let yourself breathe and be more composed.
Use transitions: Remember to use transitions when moving from one idea to another: transitions ensure a smooth flowing presentation. The first reason is…. If there are no questions, you can give a cue by pointing out a weakness of the paper. Ensure that the closing is natural: Ask if there are any questions, offer your contact information, and tell the audience that you would be open to receiving questions from them over email.
If there are questions, answer them. However, do not leave the room immediately. People might come to you with questions that strike them after you have concluded the presentation, or might want to talk to you one-on-one.
Browse through this SlideShare for a quick summary of the article:. Create a free account and access this bonus resource. Get Instant Access. You're looking to give wings to your academic career and publication journey. We like that! Why don't we give you complete access! One click sign-in with your social accounts. Sign up via email. Subscribe to Career Growth. Confirm that you would also like to sign up for free personalized email coaching for this stage. Presentation skills. Many people speak for 10 to 20 minutes at a conference.
If it takes two minutes to read one double-spaced page, this means your paper should be no more than five to 10 pages long. Always check with the conference to which you are submitting your work. They may have specific requirements for the format of the paper and abstract, including margin size, whether to use page numbers and other details. They may also have a page limit. Every conference paper is unique since the research it presents should be unique as well.
However, this basic process for how to write a conference paper will help you create a working draft. Before you begin writing the conference paper, make sure you know what you are hoping to communicate.
What is the key element of your research? What is your thesis statement? Everything else you write will need to support this purpose statement. The key to making your conference paper engaging is tailoring it to your audience. You need to know your audience well in order to do this. Ask yourself a few questions about them. Take a few minutes to jot down some notes about your audience.
Connecting your research to the concerns and needs of the audience will help keep them engaged. Generate the outline of your paper while you are preparing the oral presentation.
Making an outline at this point will do two important things. Within the first paragraph, tell the reader what you intend to share or prove. From the outline, begin writing your first draft. As you write, include a more detailed description of the actual work that was done.
These details are often minimized during an oral presentation but should be fully detailed in the actual paper reporting the results. Additionally, you need to support your claims with data in your conference paper. These supporting details will add strength to your argument and keep the reader engaged in the work.
The results portion of your paper will be much the same as the content of the oral presentation. Include the results of your research with enough detail to interest the audience and prove your point.
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