WRITING PAPERS

AND GOING TO
CONFERENCES
Gita Subrahmanyam
Authoring a PhD and Developing
as a Researcher

OUTLINE OF WORKSHOP
Why go to conferences and seminars?
Hierarchy of conferences
Writing, structuring and proposing
papers
Delivering papers

WHY ARE YOU HERE TODAY?

As a table, talk about your experiences to
date
Have you been to a conference? As an
attendee or as a paper-giver?
Do you have a conference coming up that
you would like help with?
Why are you here today? What do you
hope to get out of todays workshop?

Transmitting
ideas is a key
step in getting
feedback and
upgrading
your
knowledge.

Credit:www.imageafter.com

WHY GO TO SEMINARS AND

CONFERENCES? 1. For staff
Create deadlines using short papers to
kick-start your publications
Meet collaborators, friends, age cohort
Plug into the wider profession and gain
an understanding of fashions, trends,
tribes, taboos, discourses - and where
the LSE sits
Collate oral wisdoms, gossip, tips
Book exhibitions, meet with publishers,
network at dinners, receptions, bars

WHY GO TO SEMINARS AND

CONFERENCES? 2. For PhDs
Key socializing venues networking
Spot potential examiners, meet key
academics and hear professional gossip
Gain valuable critiques of your work
determine what needs to be changed or
improved
Meet others in your peer group involved in
the same areas of research (future
collaboration potential here)
In USA: See how the job market works
(early stages) and enter it (later stages)

HIERARCHY OF CONFERENCES
Seminars in home institution - known
audience
Postgraduate conferences
External seminars, specialist groups in
your profession (wider audience)
UK national conference choice of panels
European-level international conferences
workshops, panels, specialist groups
US/global conferences huge attendance
but often tiny audiences at individual
panels real action in bars, book fairs,
receptions

THE ELEMENTS OF A GOOD

PAPER AND PROPOSAL

CONFERENCE PAPERS SHOULD BE

Short - between 6,000 and 7,000 words
Focus on one idea or argument, not on
multiple themes so do not try to
incorporate your entire PhD into a paper
Paper should be a good illustration of
your work (e.g., not on a topic peripheral
to your PhD or research expertise, in
order to fit within a panel theme)
Paper should be designed for publication
and meet publication standards in terms
of style of presentation and methods

FOCUS ON THE
NEED TO KNOW CRITERION
Normal (written) form is:
What do readers really need to
know?
Conference (presentation) form is:
What does the audience really need
to see on screen?
What do listeners really need to have
explained to them?

NEED TO KNOW
IMPLICATIONS 1
However literary your normal style, plan
the talk as a sequence of exhibits
Put all that you want to say/show on
screen, in a user-friendly manner
Practice timings for your talk
Aim for a fast, well-paced start do not
warm up the audience to your subject
Sell the paper dont be diffident

NEED TO KNOW
IMPLICATIONS 2
Organise your talk into 3 minute chunks,
planning for one display per chunk
Use PowerPoint (not Word) to compose
your displays and have OHP backups!
Text should be free-standing and readily
understandable without you speaking
(audience will deconstruct it like that)
Try to avoid a build-up of slides or too
many flying bullets delays exposition
and too controlling

NEED TO KNOW
IMPLICATIONS 3
Pick a font that is visible to someone in
the back row - like this one
Put equations and quantitative tables
into separate image screens, magnified
so that the smallest subscript is visible
Preferably use summary data tables,
rather than detailed ones
Pick the best feasible fonts for display

TIME LIMITS FOR PRESENTATIONS

Seminars ... 30 to 40 minutes
UK and most European conferences 20 minutes per paper, then questions;
normally 2 or 3 papers per panel
US and most international conferences 10 to 15 minutes per paper, followed by
questions; often 4 or 5 papers per panel
Workshops and intensive conferences
20-30 minutes per paper, followed by
one-hour discussion time

IMPLICATIONS FOR PROPOSALS

A conference proposal/abstract should
be an accurate and concise summary of
what the paper delivers
Check the Call for Papers carefully
What are the key themes of the
conference?
What kind of presentation will you do?
How long should the abstract be?
When is the deadline for submission?

IMPLICATIONS FOR PROPOSALS (2)

Need to know criterion should guide
abstract
What do organisers need to know to
assess whether to accept the paper and
where to place it in a panel?

Core argument/bottom-line findings

should form centre-piece of the abstract
Dont waste words on literature review
or methodology

HAVE A GO
Write a proposal/abstract for the
conference of your choice
Follow the Call for Papers guidelines in
the example you brought in, EXCEPT
stick to a maximum of 200 words
If you havent brought a Call for
Papers, then try using one of the spare
copies at the front of the room

A GOOD PROPOSAL/ABSTRACT
Sentence 1 a hook, indication of
motivation (for you and reader)
Sentences 2 3 formulation of research
problem/question
Sentences 3 4 outline of core finding
(maybe a sideways glance at method)
Sentences 5 6 - implications

GET SOME FEEDBACK

Pass your abstract to the person on
your left
Read the abstract you have in front of
you and think about what you might do
to improve it
Feed back to the person who handed
you their abstract, and get feedback on
your own abstract

WHAT CAN GO WRONG

ON THE DAY WITH AN
OTHERWISE GOOD SEMINAR
OR CONFERENCE PAPER

SCARY CONFERENCE VISION

- real life is more prosaic

BE PREPARED FOR A REALISTIC

AUDIENCE SIZE
Check the venue in advance for size and
features may indicate audience size
Conference slots respond to multiple factors,
including competition, timings etc
so dont regard small audiences,
dribbling in late, in an over-large room, as
unusual or depressing
Alternatively beware of an over-large
audience, cramped and uncomfortable in too
small a room

BE PREPARED FOR POSSIBLE

PRESENTATION PROBLEMS
Presentation facilities vary unpredictably you need to be adaptable
Take Powerpoint slides in two storage
formats (e.g. USB stick and CD).
Email slides to seminar hosts.
Take an OHP copy of slides
Print readable handout copies of slides
for a realistic audience (say 25)
Take 10-15 full paper copies, for zealots

THINGS TO AVOID, IDEALLY:

- BEING INVISIBLE by never standing up

- HAVE NO VISUALS AIDS unexciting
- READING THE PAPER WORD FOR WORD

http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/McD/Seminar.jpg

THINGS TO AVOID, contd.

USING BADLY CONSIDERED VISUALS

that are unreadable and do not project
well on an OHP (or in PowerPoint)

PLAN FOR POSSIBILITY THAT

YOU MAY BE ALLOCATED A
NOT-SO-IDEAL
ROOM AND THINK ABOUT
HOW TO ADJUST FOR IT

RANDOM UNIVERSITY ROOM

functional but depressing, no
daylight, blackboard!

Credit: http://www.finearts.uvic.ca/visualarts/facilities/images/seminar/seminar-1.jpg

SMALL ROOM HAZARDS no

OHP, no screen, table dominating
the space,.. + dogs!

CREDFIT: http://www.eastwood.asn.au/images/hall15_b.jpg

LARGE ROOM HAZARDS long thin

room, audience obstructs each others
view, no equipment for visual displays

Credit: http://www.brc.ubc.ca/vtour/images/cell/L3_seminar1.jpg

SUBTLE HAZARDS - half the audience

cant see the OHP, narrow tables, and
uncomfortable seating arrangment

http://www.ccc.ox.ac.uk/conference/images/semnarrm2.jpg

THINGS TO AIM FOR, IDEALLY

STAND UP, and use CLEAR, VARIED

SLIDES for best feasible delivery

Credit: http://www.ruwpa.st-and.ac.uk/workshop2002/seminar%2520room3.jpg

THINGS TO AIM FOR, contd

FOR LARGE AUDIENCES (just in case)

think of the view from the back row

http://www.sunyit.edu/news/academic/pictures/main.jpg

IDEAL SEMINAR ROOM central

display screen + OHP, wide tables,

space for moving around, daylight or
good lighting, smallish group

Credit: http://www.reidkerr.ac.uk/conference/images/ante2B.jpg

PRESENTING DATA

poorly

INDIVIDUAL AND BLOC INCENTIVES UNDER

WEIGHTED VOTING *

START
BADLY

Ive printed
my cover
page in tiny
font and
slapped it
on the OHP
slide

Patrick Dunleavy and Rolf Hoijer

LSE Public Policy Group,

London School of Economics and Political Science,
Houghton Street,
London, WC2A 2AE

Abstract: Pioneering work by Laver and Benoit (LB) argues that a drive by individual
legislators to maximize their per capita Shapley-Shubik power scores could explain the
evolution of party systems in legislatures. But LBs analysis exhibits several problems.
Theoretically their utility premises are incompletely specified and would lead to
systematically irrational and short-termist behaviour by members of vote blocs.
Methodologically LB focus on a complex ratio variable, whose patterning essentially depends
on another largely unanalysed variable, the power index scores of whole vote blocs. LB have
no framework for economically analysing variations in power index scores across very
numerous and diverse voting situations. Empirically LBs account radically mis-specifies the
factors conditioning blocs incentives or actors incentives. We show that: (i) they offer an
exaggerated picture of the scope for defection; and (ii) their emphasis on the importance of
dominant bloc status for the largest bloc is incorrect - dominance is often empirically trivial
in shaping bloc scores when there are more than five blocs. Instead, the factors that do
influence blocs scores are predictable, (if complex), patterns, which repeat in recognizable
ways across weighted voting situations, for any given threshold level. We demonstrate a
method for mapping these scores comprehensively and economically, and for analysing
influences on the scores precisely.

Paper to the panel on New Perspectives on Rights, Freedoms, and Powers at the European
Consortium of Political Research, Annual Workshops 2003, University of Edinburgh, 28
March 2 April 2003.

analysis, and his lonely faith in the value of other effective number indices, for which there
has been little or no take-up in the existing literature. By contrast we believe that the wider
effective number family has little to offer, and that continuing to use unmodified N 2 in

MAINTAIN
CONSISTENCY:
Some of
you may
not be able
to see the
subscripts
here too
well

particular in quantitative applications cannot be defended because of the defects set out
here.
In our view averaging N2 scores with the 1/V1 score creates a simple but useful
variant of the effective number index, Nb:

(3)

The data demands of equation (3) are no greater than for the N 2 index, and Nb and N2 are
highly correlated with each other. Yet this straightforward modification has useful effects.
Figure 6 shows the minimum and maximum fragmentation lines for Nb with between 2 and
8 parties, and also includes the 1/V1 line and the overall maximum fragmentation line for
Nb (with a 1 per cent floor for party sizes, as before). The averaging of N 2 and 1/V1
creates much less curved minimum fragmentation lines. And although there are still
transitions in their slopes around the anchor points, they are much less sharp than with N 2.
The maximum fragmentation lines for different relevant numbers of parties are also
considerably straightened out under Nb, without strongly visible curves close to their
terminal anchor points. The overall maximum fragmentation line for Nb is appreciably
lower than the 1/V12 line under N2. In fact the Nb maximum fragmentation line runs quite
close to but slightly above the N3 maximum line shown in Figure 1. For instance, with V1
at 60 per cent, the maximum Nb score is more than half a party less than with N2 ; and at
50 per cent support the Nb upper limit is 3 parties, instead of 4 for N2. Thus the Nb index
delivers many of the same benefits in terms of more realistically denominated scores as N 3,
but it avoids N3s severe kinks around anchor points (which is evident in Figure 4).
Table 2 shows how the N2, Nb and Molinar measures behave empirically across the

TABLES

complex,
difficult to
read, weak
heading/title,
unnecessary
abbreviations,
space wasted
between data
points

CHARTS

3D design,
small and thin,
weak heading,
no logic to
arrangement
of bars, labels
in a legend,
key details in
micro font

FIGURE 7.4: HOW HEALTH BOARDS COMPARE

8000 0

70000

60000

50000

40000

30 000

20000

1000 0
0
1

10

11

12

13

14

15

T rtm nt ra te s /po p

Key: The health boards are as follows: 1 Ayre & Clyde; 2 Ayrshire & Arran; 3 Border; 4 Dumfries &
Galloway; 5 Fife; 6 Forth Valley; 7 Grampian; 8 Greater Glasgow; 9 Highland; 10 Lanarkshire; 11 Lothian;
12 Orkney; 13 Shetland; 14 Tayside; 15 Western Isles.

Table 5: The extreme bloc sizes and per capita SS values in the triads, quinns and sevens
areas
i. Triads area

VERY
LARGE
TABLES

multiple
smudges of
micro font are
not ideal for
presenting full
regression
results to a
crowded room

Description
Bottom left cell
Bottom right cell

Blocs
All
4
8
14
20
24
26
4
8
14
20
24
26

Top right cell

V1
26
48
44
38
32
28
26
48
44
38
32
28
26

Bloc sizes
V2
V3
26
25
26

25

26
48
44
38
32
28
26

25
3
7
13
19
23
25

V1
1.28
0.69
0.76
0.88
1.0
1.2
1.28
0.69
0.76
0.88
1.0
1.2
1.28

Per capita SS scores

V2
V3
Dif
1.28
1.33
0.05
0.64
0.57
1.28
1.22
0.45
0.33
0.13
1.28
1.33
0.05
0.69 11.11
10.42
0.76
4.76
4.0
0.88
2.38
1.4
1.0
1.67
0.67
1.2
1.39
0.19
1.28
1.33
0.05

ii. Quinns area

Bloc sizes
Description
Bottom left cell
Bottom right cell

Blocs
All
6
8
14
20
6
8
14
20

Top cell

V1
17
31
29
23
17
24
23
20
17

Per capita SS scores

V2-V4
17

V5
17

17

17

17
24
23
20
17

17
3
5
11
17

V1
1.18
0.65
0.69
0.87
1.18
0.69
0.76
1.0
1.18

V2-V4
1.18

V5
1.18

1.18

1.18

1.18
0.69
0.76
1.0
1.18

1.18
6.67
4.0
1.82
1.18

Dif
0
0.53
0.49
0.45
0
5.98
3.24
0.18
0

iii. Sevens area

Description
Bottom left cell
Bottom right cell
Top cell

Blocs
All
6
8
14
6
8
14

V1
13
21
15
13
16
14
13

Bloc sizes
V2-V4 V5-V6
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
13
16
13
14
13
13
13

V7
13
13
13
13
9
11
13

V1
1.10
0.68
0.95
1.10
0.89
1.02
1.10

Per capita SS scores

V2-V4 V5-V6
V7
1.10
1.10
1.10
1.10
1.10
1.10
1.10
1.10
1.10
1.10
1.10
0.89
1.10
1.59
1.02
1.10
1.30
1.10
1.10
1.10

Dif.
0
0.42
0.15
0
0.70
0.28
0

PRESENTING DATA

properly

STRONG EXPOSITION proper

display, visible fonts, speaker visible

and using pointer for details

Credit: http://www.pi1.physik.uni-stuttgart.de/Soellerhaus2002/Bilder/Soellerhaus2002-12.jpg

Formula for effective number

of parties

Figure 7.2: How

Scotlands health
boards compared
in treating
cataracts, 1998-9
financial year

Notes:Treatment rates per

100,000 people
The range is 506, and the
midspread (dQ) is 55.
Source: National Audit
Office, 1999.

Figure 1: How Scottish health boards treat

cataracts, 1999-2000