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Step-by-Step Guide Mark R. Freiermuth

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Academic Conference
Presentations
A Step-by-Step Guide
Mark R. Freiermuth
Academic Conference Presentations
Mark R. Freiermuth
Academic Conference
Presentations
A Step-by-Step Guide
Mark R. Freiermuth
Gunma Prefectural Women’s University
Tamamura-machi, Gunma, Japan
ISBN 978-3-031-21123-2 ISBN 978-3-031-21124-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
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Timely spoken words are like apples of gold presented on a silver tray. I
dedicate this to my wife whose words always encourage me and to my mother
who always prays for me. I also wish to thank all of my students whose
kindness and smiles have recharged me again and again across the many
years. I also tip my hat to my colleagues, both past and present, who have
helped me along the path of my own academic journey. Last, but certainly
not least, I want to express my sincere gratitude to my student Nanase
Iwahori (AKA: V7*△); because of her inherent sense for artistic balance
and beauty, the sketches throughout this book give life to the words on
the pages.
Contents
1 Next Up On Stage… 1
2 Conferences: Choose Wisely Grasshopper 11
3 Getting Started: The Precise Abstract 21
4 After the Excitement Fades: Preparing for the Presentation 41
5 Tea for Two or More: The Group Presentation 99
6 Conferences: Live and In-Person107
7 Ghosts in the Machine: The Virtual Presentation119
8 The Seven Deadly Sins: What Not to Do!129
9 The Top Five151
Index157
vii
CHAPTER 1
Next Up On Stage…
Abstract In this chapter, I discuss the rationale for writing this book,
making the claim that academic presentations are in fact performances,
which means the would-be presenter needs to take the proper steps to be
ready to perform. This foundational idea is based upon my own experi-
ences working with international students’ academic presentations
by pointing to four fundamental recurring problems: language abilities,
willingness to accept criticism, verifiable understanding of the content
being presented and problems of delivery. Because the chapter fortifies
this notion by way of a narrative explanation of a poor performance given
by a keynote speaker, which failed primarily because of the delivery, read-
ers will begin to see the value of taking the proper steps to prepare their
own presentations.
Keywords Presentation • Performance • Process
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
Mark R. Freiermuth, Academic Conference Presentations,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_1
2 MARK R. FREIERMUTH
1 NEXT UP ON STAGE… 3
It is more than a fair a question to ask, “Why write a book about some-
thing as common as giving a conference presentation?” Actually, until
recently, I would have not considered doing it myself. After all, hasn’t this
all been done before? Besides, who needs a book like this? Giving good
presentations is just a matter of practice … right?
If someone had approached me many years back, I would have candidly
said that good presentations are synonymous with good content and a
little practice. I no longer hold this view. Of course, practice (a lot being
preferred over a little) and content are important—the latter being man-
datory—but relying solely on these two elements is a recipe for delivering
something that will likely be considered by your audience as being unim-
portant and completely forgettable.
It should be noted here that I did use the word performance intention-
ally, because for me the giving of conference presentation is probably the
closest I will ever come to being an onstage performer. Now, this notion
may anger some research purists, so I do say this with a bit of trepidation,
but there are parallels between presenting your work and performing that
cannot be denied. The presenter finds himself or herself on stage in front
of an audience. The spotlight is focused on only one person in the room.
Beyond the spoken word, whatever the presenter does onstage will be mag-
nified and scrutinized by the audience. A good presentation has a begin-
ning, a climactic high point and an end. And everyone applauds (this is the
aim anyway) the effort at the end. Perhaps, it is much closer to a standup
comedy routine than we would care to admit. Think about it; a presenter
must establish a rapport with the audience and keep them interested and
maybe even on their toes—similar to a standup comedian. Although this is
true, there are some obvious differences, such as having a much more cor-
dial and respectful relationship with the audience (although heckling has
been known to occur on rare occasion), and even though a bit of levity is
appreciated now and then, there is usually a more serious side as well.
International Students and the ITA

But let me circle back to the why of writing this book for a moment. I
think the first seeds were planted during my graduate school days in the
English Department at Oklahoma State University. An integral part of the
PhD program in applied linguistics included teaching international gradu-
ate students in an English for academic purposes setting. As the end of
each semester drew to a close, the international students in the course
were asked to give a presentation based upon their research. Teachers of

the course had to evaluate the students’ presentations. Frankly speaking,
the students as a rule were very poor presenters at the outset. We found
that we had to analyze virtually every aspect of their presentations.
Interestingly, localized language problems tended to be the least of these
students’ problems.
As a consequence of seeing consistently recurrent troubles, we devel-
oped a matrix as an analytical tool. This helped us to see what kinds of
problems tended to plague these aspiring researchers. When we, as the
‘judges,’ had turned our attention toward the stage where their presenta-
tions were unfolding, these tools helped us to identify more easily the prob-
lems students were having. Some of the more prominent trouble spots
were documented for the purposes of making a video so as to demonstrate
to future presenters the types of problems international students typically
encounter. One of our international lecturers performed the five-minute
video presentation highlighting as many of the common mistakes we could
think of. He then performed the same five-minute talk sans the mistakes.
Both of the presentations were videotaped (yes, recorded on VHS tape—
it’s all we had in those days). What I did in my class was to show the poor
presentation to students and ask them to rate the video. They were gener-
ally very good at spotting others’ errors, especially paralinguistic errors. I
then showed them the improved model, and we followed this with discus-
sion. I think this video was important in this sense: It allowed the students
to see that despite any perceived or actual English language production
problems, they could still be successful, and perhaps, even more impor-
tantly, language problems were a relatively minor consideration when
compared to the other types of problems highlighted in the videos.
A second influence for writing this little book can also be traced back to
my days as a PhD student. One of my unwritten rules in the PhD program
was to take every opportunity I could to develop various skills. Hence,
when asked if I would consider being a rater for the International Teaching
Assistant (ITA) test, which took place a couple of times each semester, I
gladly said, “Yes!” The ITA test was developed to screen international
graduate students who wanted to earn some money by teaching under-
graduate classes in their field of specialty in classrooms filled with American
students. The test required students to simulate a five-minute lecture
about any topic related to their major. These students generally came from
majors falling outside the humanities. Student success was dependent pri-
marily upon four elements.
The first trouble spot (but not insurmountable) involved their language
abilities. If a student was not capable of producing comprehensible lan-
guage due to elements such as intonation, pronunciation, grammar or
other non-native-like features, the student was going to fail the ITA
regardless of any effort. These kinds of students in particular were in store
for some tough sledding. With that said, to be honest, they were in the
minority, and such problems could be addressed in various classes that had
been developed for them with the express goal of teaching them appropri-
ate compensation strategies. The learned strategies offered in these classes
proved to be quite effective at helping students to manage their language
difficulties. And, although the strategies required the learner’s attention
on a second-by-second basis, the good news is that this could actually be
achieved with some practice over time! Nearly every student who failed
simply because of language comprehensibility problems but who subse-
quently worked hard on their specific linguistic issues managed to pass the
ITA test within one semester of failing it (in fact, I cannot recall even one
hopeless case). That is good news for those non-native speakers of English
who are simultaneously worried about their oral production of sounds but
who still want to present their research in English or any other second
language.
The second, and truly a much bigger problem, was whether or not the
presenting students had the ability to accept advice or whether or not they
had access to reasonable and appropriate advice prior to the ITA test.
Departments that housed faculty members who had great concern for the
well-being of their international graduate students would bend over back-
wards to help the students prepare for the ITAs. Those students who lis-
tened to their advisors’ critiques and heeded the advice from their
professors were wildly more successful than their counterparts who went
off in their own direction, ignoring the advice being offered to them, and
for those poor souls who received no advice from their professors, their
presentations often consisted of a bunch of directionless disparate factoids
that would make your head spin. Sadly, these latter two groups inevitably
failed the test, even though if they had applied the right knowledge, they
would have likely passed rather easily.
The third problem was whether or not the students actually understood
the content of what they were presenting. “Impossible!” you may say.
“How could anyone give a presentation about something they know
nothing about?” To be frank, I was astounded myself to witness students
flounder on questions submitted by idiots such as myself who know very
little about subjects like quantum physics (I was a Physics 101 dropout
after all) or chemistry. The key was actually questioning students. Many of
the international graduate students who came to our program had become
quite accustomed at memorizing ‘stuff’ by the time they arrived at our
doorstep. A five-minute presentation was truly a snap for them—just
gather a few notes together, maybe talk to one of their peers who was suc-
cessful in the previous round of ITA tests and start memorizing. However,
no matter how confidently delivered, a memorized talk obviously doesn’t
necessarily constitute an understanding of the content of the words filling
the air. Students who failed when questioned were generally unable to
even couch a reasonable response. A convincing but outright falsehood
would have been fine for me and my colleagues, since it would have been
presumptuous as uninformed judges to rate the veracity of a statement in
an unfamiliar field of study—the benefit would naturally have been cred-
ited to the side of the presenter. In other words, it’s not that the student
presenter, let’s say of a physics presentation, provided answers that any
good physicist worth his or her salt would have considered “whoppers”
(lies) of monumental proportions. It is that the presenter gave such non-
sensical responses that even we, the laymen judges, with no in-depth
knowledge of the subject matter, could easily determine that the answers
were miles off target. Memorized information, it turns out, is no substitu-
tion for actual knowledge. (I am often asked to act as a judge at various
speech contests given in English by non-native speakers. I still find it sur-
prising how often very simple questions about a speech’s content will
instantly transform a student into an onstage zombie—staring out into
space and unable to produce even a mildly comprehensible answer.)
The final problem that students struggled with during their ITA pre-
sentations concerned their manner of delivery. This was primarily related
to the speed of delivery but also included elements such as mannerisms.
Rather than toss the former into the category of language problems, I
choose here to separate it because in many instances, these students could
be understood quite easily in one situation—say discussing issues with
their advisors—while being incomprehensible once they stepped up to the
podium. The other reason I choose to isolate this issue is because these
kinds of problems can be overcome rather easily when compared to prob-
lems such as extended or shortened intonation units or distracting and
unnatural pitch attribution to English words or phrases. Elements such as
mannerisms could be addressed and conquered with relative ease. In some
cases a mere mention of these elements was enough to permanently alter
the student’s style, possibly for a lifetime.
Once a graduate student had successfully passed the ITA, it was not an
indicator that they would be good teaching assistant, but it did indicate
that they could, at least potentially, present their ideas in a well-thought
out manner. For our sakes, they had put on a good enough performance
to pass the test. Whether they could pull off that act on a day-to-day basis
was completely up to them.
A True Story
The other major reason for writing this book is that I have now witnessed
so many poor presentations at conferences that I can barely keep from
shrieking out, so rather than shriek, I decided to write instead. Let me
explain further. I recently attended a major conference, and as is the cus-
tom of most participants, I attended the opening plenary session. It was
given by a well-known local mucky-muck, and although he was not a
native speaker of English, he was quite an accomplished academic scholar
and had, for all intents and purposes, mastered every aspect of the English
language. He possessed eloquence, impeccable manners, and his voice
resonated with a deep friendly tone. The audience was almost restless with
anticipation (really!). I am guessing that there were at least 1000 folks
who had settled in to hear the presentation.
His presentation started with a pleasant and somewhat amusing anec-
dote, but before very long, I found myself getting fidgety in my hardback
folding chair. In fact, I mentally scolded myself and tried harder to tune in
to the topic being bandied about by the speaker. I couldn’t tune in and so
soon, tuned out. I suddenly found myself looking at the lights, the room
arrangement and the gargantuan auditorium DOORS! (I’m not sure why,
but auditoriums always have either gargantuan doors or doors with those
push-bars that make such a loud noise that everyone in the entire audito-
rium can hear the sound if you try to leave.) “Could I slip out? I could just
leave since I was near the back; after all, I did have to use the restroom,
albeit being the mildest of urges. ‘No,’ I should stick it out. Undoubtedly,
the problem was mine … maybe a bit of undigested beef or an under-
cooked potato playing tricks with my mind.”
I furrowed my brow and tried again to tune in. He said he wanted to
show something on an overhead. “Ah, it is a good thing I didn’t bail out
because now the heart of the matter is finally going to be unveiled for us,”
I thought to myself (although I confess my surprise at the mention of an
overhead). I clicked my conference sponsor-included pen and grabbed my
conference sponsor-provided notepad. He slipped something onto the

overhead projector. What was it? It was actually an overhead transparency
or at least had been one at some point in history. (Some of you may have
to ask your elders what an overhead transparency is because I am next to
certain that you have never laid eyes on one in your life.) It looked as if it
had once been a photocopy of a photocopy, which was then photocopied
onto an overhead Mylar transparency slide—either that or it had been
rescued at the last moment when the researcher’s office had caught fire,
and he escaped the building with the transparency still smoldering. As I
could see the overhead projector off to my left, I could also see the bad
condition of the transparency, which resembled one of those blackened
burnt potato chips that you occasionally encounter at the bottom of the
bag. In other words, unless my glasses had fogged over suddenly, it was
barely transparent; it was dark, crookedly situated on the page, wrinkled
and I actually couldn’t even read one word that had been typed upon it
(by a typewriter—a machine that was once used to put words on paper or
in this case plastic). The text that didn’t disappear into the blackness along
the edges was so tiny it might as well have been Sanskrit. As it turned out,
he didn’t seem to be running down the list of things on the overhead
anyway, so it seemed completely irrelevant to his ramblings. I looked
around again. Now my back was getting very sore. … “Ah, so it was my
back that was actually causing the problem; I couldn’t concentrate because
of my lower back pain.” I adjusted myself to find a better position; how-
ever, even as I tried repositioning myself, so I could get more comfortable
in my chair, I soon found myself looking around the auditorium once again.
I actually stretched myself up in my chair to see if I could catch any old
friends or colleagues in the crowd. What suddenly struck me was that I
wasn’t the only one who was fidgety and looking around. There were
plenty of participants mimicking my very actions. If it had only been one
or two, I would have thought that they were mocking me or sending me
a message to behave more properly. Could it actually be that this famous
speaker, whose shoes I wasn’t worthy to spit-shine, was really blowing it?
It couldn’t be … or could it?
I decided that to keep my sanity, I would have to abandon ship. After
escaping the room and clearing my head, I found myself at a nearby café
and began to relax. Upon grabbing a bite to eat, I found myself pondering
the plenary talk once again. Was I just an impatient soul and the opening
address was actually fantastic? While I was munching on my sandwich,
another conference-goer (identified of course by the conference bag she
was toting) asked to sit down next to me as it was fairly crowded in the
café. We greeted each other, and although extremely tempting, I decided
not to ruin my newfound acquaintance’s breakfast by complaining.
Besides, for all I knew she might have just finished up a major research
project with the fellow, and I would end up with egg on my face (literally).
She was the one who said something akin to, “Could you believe that
presentation?” I opened my mouth but froze; slack-jawed, knowing that
she could spin what had just transpired in one of two diametrically opposed
directions. Perhaps she would say, “I heard angels in chorus when he was
speaking. I’m going to buy his book and get his autograph.” Instead,
much to my relief, she expounded with a deep sigh, “That was one of the
worst keynotes I’ve heard.” “Ah-ha! Vindication!” It hadn’t just been me.
Others thought so too—probably many others. And they didn’t think it
was a little bad but that it was very, very bad indeed! Needless to say, we
had much to discuss, and we proceeded to point out all of the shortcom-
ings we had just witnessed in gory detail.
My intention here is not to sound snobbish in even the slightest of
manners. If I were naturally eloquent and could walk to the front of the
room and dazzle my audiences with a mesmerizing rhetorical style and a
dynamic presence replete with sparkling eyes and a flashy smile, I think
then I would be fair game to be labeled a snob. … I have NEVER BEEN
or CAN NEVER BE such a presenter! In fact, I’ve learned some of the
lessons in this book the hard way—taking a solid punch to the gut.
Nevertheless, these lessons don’t have to be learned in such a manner. If
one has the ability to make oneself understood, anyone can give a good
presentation. Nobody expects Nobel Prize winning presentations, but
audiences do expect good presentations based upon some reasonable
enduring principles, which is a combination of content, extensive proper
planning and practice.
In Brief
Being ready to give your best performance is critical for the optimal pre-
sentation, but it requires more than good content and a nice smile. If you
are truly hoping to enjoy your 20 minutes of ‘fame’ while you are onstage,
you will need to take steps that require your attention even months before
the presentation is actually on the horizon. When I gave my first ‘big deal’
presentation, I sought out much advice and it helped me, but I also had to
learn a lot of things on my own. Some of what follows, you may already
know—I am taking a very practical and basic approach after all—but I

hope there are also sections or bits of advice in this decidedly brief guide
that you will find helpful. As such, I will try to cover what I think are the
most important things to consider, taking readers from the initial spark
when you say to yourself, “I think I should give a presentation on this
topic,” all the way forward to your actual onstage performance.
Much of what I hope to offer readers comes from my own experiences
at conferences and encounters with both undergraduate and graduate stu-
dents, who I strongly push to present their research to others because I
know that a great conference experience can be exhilarating and extremely
rewarding. Besides my own experiences, I have also incorporated some of
my students’ experiences and, moreover, their many, many questions—
some of which have been repeated so frequently that they are the basis for
particular sections in this book. In consideration of students as would-be
presenters or even teachers who haven’t had opportunities to present, I
would mention that some come to the table with a wealth of knowledge
and a tacit understanding of what presenting at a conference must be like,
but others really do come to the table with their eyes wide open—not
knowing what to expect at any stage, so I will try to look at the whole
process from as many angles as possible. It is my hope that this guide
might actually provide you with some useful suggestions along the way.
My goal is simple. I want to give you enough information provided in a
way that is easy to swallow. I want you to be able to give your best perfor-
mance on game-day (presentation day)—which should be the culmination
of the many steps that need to be taken in advance of that moment. This
is a journey—we hope with a happy ending…let the journey begin!
CHAPTER 2
Conferences: Choose Wisely Grasshopper
Abstract In this chapter, I discuss what would-be presenters should con-

sider when contemplating conference choice. Some good sources of infor-
mation regarding which conferences might be considered are scholars or
peers, who may know about particular conferences, and also websites—
especially websites organized by trusted organizations connected to one’s
specialty. The chapter emphasizes the importance of investigating each
conference thoroughly to ensure that the quality of the conference meets
one’s expectations. For example, would-be presenters should proceed cau-
tiously if the keynote speakers’ research interests do not align with the
conference’s stated aims or if they find that the conference has either mul-
tiple iterations within the same year or is scheduled to be simultaneously
held at the same venue as other conferences with completely different aims.
Keywords Conference selection • Proposal • Abstracts • Keynote

speakers

Switzerland AG 2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_2
Before talking about conferences in general, I would like to take a big step
backwards to the point of selecting the conference that is right for you.
Conferences may be huge or relatively small; however, the size of the con-
ference is not at all a good predictor of the quality of the conference, so
great care should be taken when choosing where to submit your proposal.
Actually, almost all of my favorite conferences have been relatively small
2 CONFERENCES: CHOOSE WISELY GRASSHOPPER 13
compared to the mega-conferences (over 2000 participants). I find them

to be much more intimate, giving you a better a chance to meet other
presenters and attendees, which has the added benefit of opening the door
for discussions with them on a much more personal level. Nevertheless, I
have also presented at quite a few mega-conferences. They do carry per-
haps a bit more weight on your CV, so they can also act as a nice feather
in your cap. You will likely still be able to find some comrades at such
conferences. By attending presentations that have similar content to your
own, you will probably get the chance to strike up a conversation or two
with the presenters. Who knows? You might just find a like-minded col-
league who you really want to work with in the future.
With so many options to choose from, the logical question is, “How
should I choose the right conference?” When I first started presenting
many moons ago, all of the conferences available to me were at least rela-
tively good from the standpoint of specialty-related content. However,
with the advent of widespread internet connectivity that is certainly no
longer the case. I will tell you of my own ‘bad’ experience. Quite a few
years back, I wanted to attend a conference with my grad students, so I
searched and searched and finally found a conference that was right up
everyone’s alley, and it wasn’t too far away so everyone who wanted to
attend could attend. The timing was also good. The conference fee was
quite a bit higher than I would have liked, but as my grad students were
all part-time students with full-time jobs, I floated the idea to them. They
jumped at the chance, and we all submitted our proposals.
Our proposals were all accepted within a couple of days … this was the
first warning sign that made me a bit uncomfortable. The deadline for
abstracts was still a couple of weeks away, but all of our proposals had been
accepted within two days. Nevertheless, I paid the online fee and told the
students that I had, and they followed suit. For most conferences, abstract
submissions will have a deadline date, which normally occurs months prior
to the actual event. (Some of the mega-conferences have deadlines that
occur close to a year before the actual conference dates). Once the dead-
line date has passed, abstracts are judged and then either accepted or
rejected. Even with smaller conferences with shorter turnaround times,
one would expect the review process to take at least two to three weeks.
The speed at which our abstracts were accepted indicated that they might
not have been judged very seriously if at all. This turned out to be correct.
The second warning sign was that the conference was being held in one
country but the charge to our credit cards was made from a bank in
another country. Although this is not unusual, I couldn’t see any
connection between the organization taking the money and the confer-
ence. It was then that I started to fret a bit, and I decided to check out the
conference website a bit more seriously. I then discovered what should
have been another red flag had I been more careful from the start. The
conference keynote speakers were not experts in language studies or lin-
guistics; they were simply called educators and experts. Further investiga-
tion revealed that they were the keynote speakers at many other conferences
as well—like two conferences per month! I assume that they traveled from
city to city presenting the same meaningless talks. It was then that I dis-
covered what should have been a third and very ominous warning sign
had I been more attentive, namely, that the conference bearing its very
enticing name would be convened again and again throughout the year—
skipping from one place to another—always with the exact same title (only
the iteration of the conference was different, e.g., the 42nd Conference
became the 43rd Conference one or two weeks later). I concluded from
my search that there was a group of individuals (I hesitate to call them
scholars) who would rotate as keynote speakers with each new location. As
we all had decided to go to the conference anyway (and believe me when
I say there was no way to get our money back), we discovered the fourth
red flag. The large conference venue was home to not only language
teachers and linguists; there were other disciplines there as well. We quickly
realized that there were presentations from a wide variety of academic
disciplines. In fact, we discovered that the one conference venue was actu-
ally housing four different conferences all being held simultaneously. Each
different conference had its own banner showing the dates of the confer-
ence, all within a couple of meters of the other conference banners!
Presenters who had joined a particular conference, would stand next to
their conference’s banner to get their picture taken while just a couple of
meters to the left or right, another group of presenters who were attend-
ing a different conference were getting their pictures taken. It was a sur-
real scene to be sure. Just like a salad-bar—you could choose whatever
conference you liked. As if to cement this point home, the organizers had
only one registration desk, and the presenters needed to inform the staff
concerning which conference they were attending. (I also note here that
the staff vanished each day after lunch.) In addition, the keynote presenta-
tions were joint sessions for all four of the different conferences being
housed under the same roof. To say the least, the plenary presentations
were crazy bad with speakers lifelessly droning on in speeches chock full of
empty platitudes on various topics—none of which were the least bit inter-
esting or thought-provoking to me or my students.
Fortunately, we had a good time (not so much at the conference but

outside of it) and met a very nice young researcher in a different discipline
who we all enjoyed getting to know. We all went out to dinner and had
ourselves a very nice time. Personally, I was so relieved that my students had
a good time in spite of my hasty decision. Nevertheless, this bittersweet
experience compels me to encourage you to thoroughly investigate each
conference you hope to attend so that you don’t fall into the same kind of
trap. A good place to start is to take a look at the keynote speakers. If they
have a background in your field and are well-published, the conference is
probably fine. If it smells a bit fishy, believe what your nose is trying to tell
you and dig a bit deeper. It is likely that the conference is just trying to make
money, and you will be less-than-satisfied customers with the experience.
Finding the Best Fit

There are several ways to go about ‘finding’ a conference. Perhaps the
easiest way is to simply ask some experienced scholars for their advice.
Although, as a PhD student, I didn’t actually ask my supervisor for her
advice prior to my submitting an abstract to one of the more prestigious
conferences in applied linguistics, I was aware of what conferences she
considered to be important and that knowledge weighed very heavily on
my decision. She was quite pleased to learn that I had submitted a pro-
posal to a very well-respected conference and even more pleased to find
out that my abstract had been accepted.
Another way to discover what conferences are possibilities is by con-
ducting an online search. This provides the most choices with the least
amount of initial effort. I just did a search using the term ‘linguistics con-
ferences’ and got ‘about 3,600,000 results.’ Of course, most of the rele-
vant results were found on the first few pages. Probably the best hit on the
first page was the one linking to the Linguist List, but there were a few that
appeared before the Linguist List as well. When conducting a web search,
you may recognize well-known organizations connected to your area of
research, which may also include information about various conferences.
Pursue those avenues. If you aren’t sure, ask someone who knows. Better
safe than sorry!
As you can tell from my tale of trouble, not all conferences are created
equal. Just as there are low-quality journals, there are also more than a few
low-quality conferences. Don’t be fooled by slick websites and wonderful
sounding conference titles. Dig deeper! I previously mentioned that a
trusted organization—the Linguist List—appeared in my search. I am

confident that if I see a conference listed there, it will be a high-quality
affair. Nevertheless, my quick search produced 13 other hits on the first
page. From my experience, ten of these sites take one to conference web-
sites providing links for super-low-quality conferences, and one more of
these sites includes links for both good and poor conferences together.
Luckily, a poor conference can be identified by applying a few simple
rules. First, identify the keynote speakers and the organizers (if possible).
Who are they? Have you heard their names in your field? If you are not
sure, search their names online to uncover the types of research they are
associated with. (Remember, there may be a local celebrity or a govern-
ment official invited to give a brief talk as well, so you might need to
investigate more than one of the keynote speakers.) In most cases, a repu-
table conference’s website will provide enough pertinent information
about the keynote presenters as well as providing information about who
is organizing the event. Neither the speakers nor the organizers need to be
famous, but they should be connected to your field of research in some
way. Once you find these things out, it will become much easier to decide.
Second, look at the conference title and then check the frequency of
conferences with the same name. If the conference occurs more than once
per year, this should be a red flag. Good conferences are usually held as
annual events at most and some conferences might not even be held every
year. This is due to the amount of planning time it takes to prepare a
proper conference. I have been involved in organizing a very small confer-
ence, and the amount of work it took to make it successful was consider-
able—much more than ever I imagined! It takes a team of individuals
willing to sacrifice a great deal of their time to make it a pleasant experi-
ence for the presenters and attendees. As I mentioned, many of the low-
quality conferences have very nice websites, so they look legitimate. To
them, this is simply a business venture, and their job is to sell you on their
conference. If you have registered and paid their fees but problems sud-
denly arise that won’t allow you to attend, you can kiss your conference
fee goodbye!
Third, check the conference venue and the dates listed for the confer-
ence. The venue is usually a very nice place; however, some conference
organizers often play the dirty little trick that caught me by surprise; they
schedule more than one conference at the same time aimed at different
groups, so you might encounter two, three, four, even five or more differ-
ent conferences all housed in the same facility. The registration is at the
same place; the plenary speakers are the same for every group, and all
attendees get the same exact schedule, conference bag and whatever good-
ies they are offering. By searching the dates and the name of venue hous-
ing the event, you can generally find out whether or not the venue is
hosting multiple conference conventions simultaneously. Of course, at
very large conference centers or hotels, they may indeed be hosting more
than one conference with overlapping dates, so check the keynote speakers
as well as the conference pages themselves. You should be able to assess
the conference in question more accurately by following this path.
One more similar trick that profit-making organizations employ is to
change the name of a conference slightly as they move from place to place.
In this way, they can conceal the fact that although the conference name is
a bit different at one location, it will be managed in identical fashion to the
previous iterations. I like to call these conferences DINOs—different in
name only. For example, a conference in one city might be entitled: The
48th Paris Conference on Applied Linguistics, Literature, Social Sciences
and the Humanities. However, when they move down the road to a differ-
ent city, the name and consequently the conference number will also
change to something perhaps like this: The 63rd Madrid Conference on
Literature, Linguistics, the Humanities and Society. The two conferences
will be, for all intents and purposes, identical. You can see that the confer-
ence title examples seem to include as many related fields as possible,
which should inform you that these conferences are not that concerned
about specific fields of enquiry; by making the call for papers so wide, they
hope to lure a wider swath of customers to their events.
Another thing to be wary of are unsolicited conference invitations.
These usually arrive as email messages flooding you with praise about how
wonderful you are, and, “Wouldn’t you just love to be a speaker at our
conference?” If you have a good email spam detector, these will inevitably
appear there. In many cases, you will find that the conference being pro-
moted has no relation to your field of interest. I have been invited on
several occasions to be a keynote speaker or a featured speaker at confer-
ences with disciplines ranging from engineering to biological sciences. Of
course, these are scams. Read the email message, and if it sounds fishy, it
probably is. In most cases, you will be able to make an informed decision
simply by reading the text in the message. On the other hand, if the con-
ference does seem to line up with your interests, investigate further, keep-
ing in mind the many red flags we have been discussing here. It is possible
it is legitimate, but the odds are much better that it is nothing more than
a profit-motivated organization trying to get your money for a lousy con-

ference, at best, and at worst, it may be an attempt to try to coax you into
becoming one of the ‘keynote experts’ promoting their traveling show.
The final telltale sign of a poor conference is the cost. Poorer-quality
conferences, surprisingly, are usually much more expensive. After all, such
conferences are aimed at making a profit. I don’t mean to make fun of
such operations, but in many ways, it is similar to a traveling circus. They
make their money from the conference goers, pack up their things and
move on to the next city with very little variation in the operation. Their
aim is the bottom-line, so success to them means being ‘in the black’ after
the conference has finished.
In Brief
Choosing the right conference can make your conference experience as a
presenter extremely enjoyable. It is a chance to meet others who are inter-
ested in research with connections to your own. I have made wonderful
collegial relationships through the sharing of my ideas with like-minded
researchers. Some of these encounters have culminated in joint research
ventures. How did it happen? It starts by being in the right place and pre-
senting to the right people, but do your homework. That might mean
asking others or doing thorough online searches to make sure you are
starting off in the right direction. If you do choose your conference wisely,
it is not an exaggeration to say that presenting at the conference can be
one of the most rewarding experiences you will experience in your aca-
demic life. Once presenting gets in your blood, you will look forward to
the next conference adventure. Taking the selection process seriously will
aid you in making the right choice.
If you are having trouble finding conferences in your specific field of
research, one online place I would recommend that you check is CONAL
(which stands for ‘Conference Alerts’). The CONAL site provides confer-
ence information on a wide range of academic fields (https://conferen-
cealerts.com/index). An oft overlooked benefit of CONAL is that once
you have ‘clicked’ on a potential conference link, you can check to see if
the organizers are simply cranking out conferences by clicking on another
link (presently in ‘blue’ hypertext) labeled ‘View all events from this orga-
nizer,’ which is situated just below the conference synopsis. If the organi-
zation has been scheduling many conferences throughout the year,
proceed with caution, and don’t be fooled by an organization touting
various conferences all with slightly different names. There is a very high
likelihood that they will all be managed in the same exact way. In addition,
CONAL allows one to check to see if there are other conferences running
at the same place and time by simply scrolling down the page a bit further.
There, you can see a list of other conferences with identical dates that are
taking place at the same venue. If there are many conferences in the same
place, this should be a big red flag with flashing lights and sirens, telling
you to avoid that conference. With that said, remember that CONAL
simply acts as a platform aimed at gathering conference information (the
same is true of ‘10times.com,’ which can be checked as well). It does not
‘weed out’ poorer conferences, but it does provide additional information
that other sites do not include. In the end, you are responsible for finding
out if the conference is a ‘good’ one or a ‘bad’ one. If you know of a con-
ference site that is dedicated to your field of study—an example in my field
would be The Linguist List—the organizers are more likely to promote
conferences that are solid.
There is one more thing I wish to reiterate. One of the most satisfying
parts of attending a conference is meeting up with others. After you have
established good relationships with other colleagues, meeting them at a
conference venue is great fun. If you haven’t yet established a network of
colleagues, I highly recommend trying to present with others from your
own circle of influence—whether that be other researchers, classmates or
even your supervisor. Whenever I have the chance to attend a conference
with my students or meet up with a colleague at a conference, I relish the
opportunity. Presenting at good conferences represents one of the most
satisfying academic exercises I can think of, but sharing the experiences
with others makes it all the more rewarding.
CHAPTER 3
Getting Started: The Precise Abstract
Abstract In this chapter, I discuss the writing and submitting of the con-
ference abstract. As most abstract submissions are done online and then
distributed to reviewers, one should pay careful attention to the proce-
dures specified on the submission website. Also, the chapter emphasizes
that an imperative for success is that an abstract be free from spelling and
grammatical errors. In addition, whether the abstract is based upon
research or classroom activities, abstracts should follow a rhetorical pat-
tern; examples are provided in this chapter; however, different specialties
may have different rhetorical styles, so it is critical to know the pattern that
suits one’s specialty. As many conferences also require a short description,
a pattern for such descriptions is also included in this chapter.
Keywords Abstract • Proposal • Research • Classroom research •

Reviewers • Short description

Switzerland AG 2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_3
Most of us don’t get invited to give talks … at least not for the first confer-
ence we plan to attend. That means if we want to present our work, we
need to send a brief synopsis of our research to the conference organizers,
which is subsequently reviewed either internally or externally for possible
acceptance at the conference in question. But let’s backtrack a little bit
before discussing how to put together a good abstract (sometimes referred
to as a proposal). There is a rather large step that generally precedes the
abstract, which is especially important if you are an inexperienced pre-
senter. You should complete all or at least some of your research project
before even thinking about putting your abstract together. That doesn’t
mean that the conference expects you to have completed your research
project at the time of submission. In fact, many conferences welcome
abstracts that discuss incomplete research projects or even research that
3 GETTING STARTED: THE PRECISE ABSTRACT 23
has yet to be started. However, those who can produce their abstracts like
magicians from thin air are either quite experienced scholars who have a
very good idea of how their research will unfold or high risk-takers who
end up in trouble at the end of the day. My suggestion to the inexperi-
enced presenter is to finish your project before you write up your abstract,
or at least complete enough of it so that you have a clear idea of the find-
ings you wish to report. This helps you to avoid the worries that come
along with research complications that you might encounter but could
not foresee. Jumping the gun may result in your abstract being far differ-
ent from what you actually really discovered. After you gain some experi-
ence as a researcher and find your niche, you can then decide whether or
not you will need to complete a project prior to constructing an abstract
for the conference you hope to attend. If it is any solace, to this day, I
prefer to complete my research prior to writing up my abstract for a con-
ference that I hope to attend. This is largely because the data I am gather-
ing and assessing may take me in directions that are still interesting but
which lead to findings that are far different from my original inklings.
Personally, I would rather present the research findings I have obtained as
accurately as possible rather than having to twist my findings to match a
premature abstract that got many things wrong.
Abstracts
When it does come time to submit an abstract, in the vast majority of
cases, all documents will be submitted online via a conference website.
Occasionally, conference organizers will ask to have the abstract submitted
by email, but this is becoming increasingly rare. (During the early years, I
routinely had to send hardcopies of abstracts using snail mail!!! Be grateful
for the interconnectivity we now enjoy.)
Once received by the host organization, the abstracts are normally dis-
tributed by the conference organizers to reviewers, and those review com-
mittee members eventually respond to the submitted proposal with their
verdict, which generally is the determining factor (for most of us) con-
cerning whether or not we can present. The majority of conferences do
have some sort of reviewing or vetting process. How the review process
works is based upon criteria that the conference organizers have set up in
advance of the conference announcement (for the more reputable confer-
ences anyway) and unfortunately, how desperate the conference organiz-
ers have become in their goal of recouping some of the cash shelled out to
organize such a monstrosity—and, to be sure, well-organized conferences

that expect more than a handful of attendees are certainly monstrosities.
Of course, the primary consideration of having your abstract accepted
revolves around the content of your presentation idea. “What do you want
people to know about what you have done?” or in some cases, “What are
you in the process of doing?” Even so, despite your submitting of an
abstract brimming with excellent content, if the conference has high
enough standards, content alone will likely not be enough to win you a
spot in the conference lineup. As a frequent conference reviewer, I have
read countless conference proposals where the potential presenter had
included very interesting content in the abstract but had also botched some
very basic principles, booting the abstract from the ‘accept’ group into the
‘reject’ group. If most reviewers are like me, I would bet that they are look-
ing for ways to eliminate abstracts rather than ways for keeping them, espe-
cially when spots in the conference lineup are limited. Putting any kind of
doubt in a reviewer’s mind will give that reviewer a justifiable reason to axe
your proposal. Good content alone usually won’t save a bad abstract.
The Submission Procedure

These days, the basic procedure for submitting an abstract goes something
like this: The potential presenter produces an abstract and submits it
(anonymously most of the time) to a designated person from among the
organizing committee or by way of an online platform website. It is then
forwarded to the reviewers, who in turn give their opinions on the worthi-
ness and soundness of the idea proposed. The potential presenter is then
sent the verdict of this review process and hope is either fanned into flames
or burned up in them.
As the majority of academic conferences rely on website submissions, it
is normally quite easy to see the status of your abstract by logging into the
conference website. This usually requires a mere click of a mouse button.
It can be more troublesome in a number of ways as well, but some of these
problems are really ‘non-issues’ if a little care is taken. All I wish to say in
regard to these normalized procedures is that you ought to check and
double-check to insure that you have not missed anything. I confess that
I recently missed a tiny icon button in the lower right-hand corner of the
conference registration webpage. One click of the button would have
completed the registration, so although I had paid, I actually had not
completed my registration. Because I had missed the button, my accepted
abstract did not appear on the schedule! Fortunately, for me, the organiz-
ers let me know that they had indeed received my payment but that I
needed to complete my registration, which is when I discovered my error.
All ended well, and the organizers quickly added the presentation to the
schedule, but I chided myself for not attending properly to making sure all
of my ‘i’s’ were dotted and my ‘t’s’ were crossed. That is just to say, be
careful at every step along the way and that certainly includes the steps
that need to be taken during the abstract submission.
There are other types of troubles that you should be aware of as well.
One problem that cannot easily be overcome is technical trouble. Despite
the fact that the academic world is now completely reliant upon computer
technology, glitches and problems occur every day. Your internet connec-
tion might be problematic. If you find that you are constantly having
problems with internet connections, perhaps it is better to resort to using
a different computer at a different location. You may also wish to check
your internet settings to allow the conference website all privileges (pop-
up windows allowed, Java scripts allowed, acceleration turned off, etc.), or
you might simply try a different browser. (I cannot tell you the number of
times that I have found success simply by switching browsers!) Some
online submission pages have an automatic confirmation web page that is
immediately launched once it has been received by the server being used
by the conference. Sometimes these confirmation sites offer the potential
presenter one last chance to look the abstract over before it is submitted as
the finalized abstract. This is a very nice feature because it usually takes the
information that the potential presenter has put in the dialogue box on the
submission page and displays it in a format that is much more easily read.
One is normally given the opportunity to edit the proposal either by using
the ‘back’ button or clicking on an ‘edit’ button.
Unfortunately, not all online conference submissions have automatic
confirmation functions. In some cases, an email is sent as a confirmation,
and in other cases there is no confirmation. If an email confirmation is
sent, I suggest printing it out or saving it on your computer in a desig-
nated file and saving it in a specially created email folder. If you’re like me,
trying to go back in time to find an unassigned email is akin to looking for
the proverbial needle in a haystack. Personally, I like to take one additional
step; besides saving it in a designated file created in my email application,
I also save the confirmation in a file on my computer and even in a physical
file as well—the old manila folder type with the words “X Conference”
written on the tab or in bold letters across the face. I then put this folder
in a place where I know that I will look at it on occasion. (Sure my desk is

a mess, but I know if I dig through the teetering stacks, I’ll eventually find
it, and even if I don’t, I have it saved in MS Word … somewhere on my
computer.)
Abstracts can become casualties if one is not careful, but this is the
exception rather than the rule. It is probably better to work up your abstract
in word processing software rather than banging it out on your keyboard
directly in the dialogue box on the conference submission website. In this
way, you can check your work and frequently save the abstract. Also, you
can use the spellchecker to avoid silly and oftentimes deadly spelling errors
(and anyone is capable of making a spelling error—native speakers included).
When you are satisfied with the document, copy the text and paste it into
the dialogue box. Make a quick check to be sure that you have pasted the
entire document into the dialogue box, and then you will be off and run-
ning. One final reason that I suggest writing your abstract in word process-
ing software rather than in a dialogue box on the conference webpage is
that if your internet connection drops while you are online, you will lose
your work. You may believe that your internet connection is always stable;
however, despite the quality of the connection at your end, sometimes the
problems occur at the other end, completely out of your control.
If you are a non-native speaker of the language of the conference, I
implore you to have a native speaker read your proposal—not just any
native speaker you might happen to see walking down the street or some
guy who you met at the beach or the backpacker who works over at the
barista but someone you have confidence in that understands a bit about
academics. If you can find someone who has knowledge in your field of
study, this would be the best scenario. Make sure you bring this person
up-to-speed regarding important information related to your abstract and
what kind of conference it is. I have frequently helped my own students
clarify their intentions, and at times have even suggested that they choose
a different conference theme (if it is divided into themes) based upon the
information they have provided to me. Once your abstract has been thor-
oughly checked, you can submit it to the conference website with far more
confidence.
As was mentioned previously, there is a belief by some non-native
speakers that their proposal will be judged solely on its content. This
might be true on rare occasion; if the reviewers are non-native speakers as
well (which can happen), they may be a bit more sympathetic (but they
have also been known to be even harsher). In all honesty, when I am a
conference reviewer, I tend to reject abstracts with even a few grammatical

problems. Am I a mean guy? Well, my reasoning for rejecting the proposal
has very little to do with this. My logic usually goes something like this:
Because there are very basic errors, this abstract wasn’t looked at by a
native speaker or wasn’t edited carefully, so it was in all likelihood thrown
together in haste, which means the presentation will likely be thrown
together in haste as well resulting in a haphazard affair that will be less
than satisfactory for audience members who happen to stumble into the
presentation room unaware. Perhaps this is a bit unfair, but as a judge, I
have to apply some standards, and one of these standards is whether or not
the abstract is grammatically sound.
Writing the Abstract—Follow a Pattern

There are some people who are extremely gifted at writing abstracts for
conferences and manage to put together masterpiece after masterpiece
based solely on their intuitions without following any guidelines. If you’re
like me, your intuitions only kick in once the abstract has already been
written. What that means in practical terms is that abstract should be writ-
ten following a tried and true pattern. But what is the best pattern (you
may ask)? Well, there isn’t one … there are many, but there is one pattern
that I prefer over all others, which may work for a number of disciplines.
(If you doubt your discipline follows the pattern suggested here, ask a
trusted scholar to advise you of a more genre-specific rhetorical pattern
that fits with your area of research.)
Besides knowing a pattern, another good source of information is
scholars, colleagues or friends who may have presented at your dream
conference or a similar type of conference in the past. Ask the person if you
can have a look at one of the successful abstracts that he or she had sub-
mitted in the past. You will probably be able to recognize a clear pattern
that the person used for their abstract, and then, you can simply follow
suit. Chances are that the standard that was used for previous conferences
will be continued. Take caution, however, if that person proceeds to push
a chair over to his or her bookshelf and while standing on tiptoes, pulls a
dusty file from the top shelf and hands it down to you, saying, “The paper
may be yellowing, and there are a couple of typos, but it is a pretty good
abstract.” There is a chance that standards might have changed since that
person last presented at the conference you are hoping to attend and
present at.
Before jumping into the one pattern, I would like to mention that some
conferences have guidelines for writing abstracts. Make sure that you
check the conference website carefully because if a pattern is suggested or
there are guidelines pointing to what reviewers are looking for, of course,
these things need to be considered above and beyond any suggestions that
are offered here. I would be remiss not to mention that even when a spe-
cific type of abstract is suggested or required by the conference organizers,
having an awareness of the general pattern will almost always be beneficial
when producing the variation as requested by the conference organizers.
One Pattern
The pattern that I usually use when I haven’t any guidelines (which is the
rule rather than the exception) is the following:
1. Why is this topic interesting or important? Is there a significant

problem that can be identified?
2. What does previous research say about this topic that might be
important? Is there seminal research related to this topic (the audi-
ence will likely know this so be careful not to exclude such research)?
Can the research be tied to my topic?
3. What discovery am I intending to make using my own research?
How does my topic hope to add to the discussion? How does my
topic hope to change prevailing opinions about this topic? How is
my topic different from prevailing opinions?
4. What is my purpose or research question? (Keep this part short
and sweet.)
5. How was my study conducted? Who participated? How many par-
ticipated? What was done? What equipment was used?
6. What was achieved?
7. WHY WAS THIS IMPORTANT? This will hopefully be one of your
concluding comments. (Did you notice that this question seemed a
bit ‘louder’ than the others?)
8. What are you going to do on presentation day?
By answering each of the eight questions—in the order presented here—

you can complete your abstract. The question you may ask is, “Why do
you use this pattern?” The simple answer is that I started using this pattern
years ago, and I have been consistently successful using it, so I have con-
tinued to use it, and it continues to work, so I keep using it!
Here is an actual example of a successful abstract that I used for a recent

conference:
In the language learning classroom, students’ willingness to communicate is

a prerequisite for successful interaction. However, there are many factors
that can dissuade students from actively communicating using the target
language (MacIntyre, 1994; 1995). This is especially the case in face-to-face
conversation where status and communicative skills are put at risk through
active engagement with peers.
When used in the language learning classroom, computer-mediated com-

munication (CMC) has the ability to minimize the effects of certain factors
that can impede effective communication (Freiermuth, 2001). Nevertheless,
it is not clear whether or not CMC enhances interlocutors’ willingness to
communicate. In this study, we looked at language learners who communi-
cated with peers via synchronous online chat, and compared their experi-
ences and their discourse choices to those who were engaged in face-to-face
spoken interaction. The study involved 36 female Japanese university stu-
dents who were placed in small groups of four students each and given tasks
to solve (using English) either in a networked computer classroom using
online chat or in a face-to-face setting using spoken interaction. In a follow-
up session, participants switched the mode of communication used to solve
a provided prompt, which effectively counterbalanced the design of the
study. After communicating with peers by way of both online chat and face-
to-face conversation, students filled out posttest questionnaires highlighting
their experiences.
The posttest survey revealed that students engaged in online chat had a
more fruitful experience and were more willing to communicate. Seventeen
students rated their experiences favorably while chatting online compared to
only 8 students who rated face-to-face conversation favorably.
Additionally, a descriptive analysis of the texts produced by students under

both conditions, along with student comments, bolstered these experiential
data. Our analysis revealed that the online environment engendered
participation because communication was able to take place without the
pressures associated with face-to-face settings. Furthermore, power imbal-
ances stemming from group hierarchies were minimized during online chat-
ting. This encouraged shy and hesitant students to become fully engaged in
the discourse discussion of ideas. Also, students who used online chat were
less likely to use Japanese as a means to address the issues raised by the pro-
vided prompts. We suggest here that in the face-to-face settings it was dif-
ficult for the students not to rely on their native language, especially when
they lacked confidence in their English language abilities. Finally, online
chat fostered real discussion of the issues. Discussion can only be considered
discussion when certain elements are present such as open-ended questions
and instances of agreement or disagreement. Such discussion elements were
used more frequently by students engaged in online chatting than those
who were engaged in face-to-face conversation. In summation, our results
indicate that online chat empowers students to use the target language,
which in turn increases their motivation and subsequently their willingness
to communicate in the second language.
In this presentation, then, we hope to identify and discuss some of the key
differences between online chatting and face-to-face conversation and
explain how such differences affect participants’ willingness to communi-
cate. We will look at students’ comments concerning their experiences, as
well as provide the audience with some descriptive examples of student
interaction.
Now, you might say, “That is a bit long, don’t you think?” To which, I
would respond that you’ve asked the wrong question. The question
should be what is the length requirement specified on the conference web-
site or brochure? If the word limit is 250 words, then you should shoot for
250 words. It is considered very bad form to exceed the word limit and in
many cases, your abstract will be automatically rejected for not adhering to
the specified word limit or the website form will simply reject it from being
submitted.
If we shouldn’t go over the limit, what would be considered ‘acceptably
close’ to the word limit? Of course there is no hard and fast rule, but as for
my own abstracts, if I am not within 10% of the word limit, I will try to
add something. As for the abstract shown here, the word limit happened
to be 550 words (a rather huge abstract requirement but useful for pur-
poses of explanation), but if my first attempt only produced 400 words, I
would not have felt comfortable. On the flip-side, if I submitted an abstract
of 551 words, I would be worried because I had exceeded the word
limit. The best range for me in this case would be between 500 and 550
words. If my abstract managed to fall somewhere within that range, I
would feel pretty much safe. As turns out, the abstract shown here consists
of 519 words—a long abstract to be sure but perfect for this conference.
You might be tempted to protest, saying that content is far more impor-
tant than being a bit too short on the number of words. I would agree,
but it is also that case that if you have something important to say, it
should not be difficult to approach the word limit. In fact, it will probably
be much more difficult to figure out ways to cut things out that you want
to include. If you are going to talk for 20 minutes (a kind of standard
length for presentations), you certainly should be able to write a complete
abstract and that means hovering near the word limit asked for. To bolster
this point, I will mention my last experience as a conference reviewer. As
reviewers, one of the five categories we had to judge was ‘abstract length.’
If an abstract failed to reach a certain number of words or if the number
exceeded the word limit (250 words), the maximum score we could give
the abstract was ‘1’ out of a total of ‘5.’ You would think that most poten-
tial presenters would follow the requirements carefully. After all, the con-
ference website emphasized that one of the keys to writing a successful
abstract included paying close attention to the word count. Of the dozens
of abstracts I reviewed, more than half were too short and so received the
instant penalty, and a few others were over the limit. Some of these
abstracts seemed very interesting, but by failing at a very basic level, these
potential presenters had put their opportunity to present at grave risk. I
have no doubt that many of these abstract writers were sorely disappointed
in not being able to present their research at the conference.
Once you’ve satisfactorily written the abstract, examined it for errors
and made any last minute adjustments, you should make sure that your
abstract hasn’t shrunk too much or that you’ve accidentally exceeded the
word limit via the last minute editing. Checking the word limit one last
time should be the final step before submitting. I’m always surprised by
the number of words I have added during the final tweaking process, usu-
ally resulting in my exceeding the word limit, which then necessitates
additional slicing and dicing to cut the abstract back down to size. This
cyclical process may seem somewhat time-consuming, but it is better to
make sure you have not exceeded the word limit possibly resulting in an
instantaneous rejection.
Now that we have discussed word limit, we can return to the aforemen-
tioned sample abstract to see how it addresses the patterned questions I’ve
previously posed.
1. Why is this topic interesting or important? Is there a significant

problem that can be identified?
In the language learning classroom, students’ willingness to com-
municate is a prerequisite for successful interaction.
The point of importance and a problem are both implied, but clearly
students’ willingness to communicate is an important factor for classrooms
where students are learning to use English as a second language and if
there is a lack of willingness to communicate, successful interaction cannot
be achieved.
2. What does the research say about this topic that might be impor-
tant? Does this relate to my topic?
However, there are many factors that can dissuade students from
actively communicating using the target language (MacIntyre,
1994; 1995). This is especially the case in face-to-face conversation
where status and communicative skills are put at risk through active
engagement with peers.
In this case, we use findings by MacIntyre (absolutely seminal research

in ‘second language willingness to communicate’ circles), which appar-
ently explain that there are factors that can impede students from partici-
pating. The second sentence from the preceding sample text clarifies the
first while narrowing the focus. We are not interested in any kind of com-
munication, but in face-to-face conversation. And, although the proposal
will eventually turn to the topic of online chatting, this is a real hint that
dependence on conversation alone might have some drawbacks in a class-
room. It is also the case, that face-to-face conversation will be compared
to online chatting making the introduction of conversation very related to
my intended topic of online chatting. This small chunk represents your
best attempt at a literature review so choose carefully.
3. What discovery am I intending to make using my own research?

How does my topic hope to add to the discussion? How does my
topic hope to change prevailing opinions about this topic? How is
my topic different from prevailing opinions?
When used in the language learning classroom, computer-medi-
ated communication (CMC) has the ability to minimize the effects
of certain factors that can impede effective communication
(Freiermuth, 2001). Nevertheless, it is not clear whether or not
CMC enhances interlocutors’ willingness to communicate.
Of course, in regard to point 3’s questions, it is unlikely that you will

be able to answer the full slate of queries, but you should be able to answer
at least one of the questions posed. In this abstract, I answer the question
of discovery. I hope to discover whether or not CMC (computer-mediated
communication) enhances willingness to communicate. It could be said
that this is the purpose, but it is not exactly what was researched, so the
sentence following these clarifies the purpose.
4. What is my purpose or research question? (Keep this part short

and sweet.)
In this study, we looked at language learners who communicated
with peers via synchronous online chat, and compared their experi-
ences and their discourse choices to those who were engaged in
face-to-face spoken interaction.
This is the real purpose. The sentence preceding this one gave a strong
clue that the purpose was going to be something related to computer-
mediated communication, and sure enough, the purpose talks about my
study, which looked at synchronous online chat and compared it to face-
to-face conversation, Again, I want to emphasize that you need to keep
this part brief. One sentence is usually more than enough. If you have
more than one purpose or many research questions, try to focus on the
overriding purpose or the primary research question. It is perfectly fine to
very blunt by writing something akin to “The purpose of this study is…”
or “In light of this, we ask the following question…” or “Our objective
here is…”.
Also, you might notice that I provided a means as to how we went
about addressing the issue. We compared their “discourse choices” (ana-
lyzed their output) and their “experiences” (posttest questionnaire) as a
means to compare students’ conversations and online chat production. It
is not mandatory to provide this information here, but I feel that this often
helps to clarify matters up front rather than waiting till later to explain
things, but be very, very brief!!
5. How was my study conducted? Who participated? How many par-

ticipated? What was done? What equipment was used?
The study involved 36 female Japanese university students who
were placed in small groups of four students each and given tasks to
solve (using English) either in a networked computer classroom
using online chat or in a face-to-face setting using spoken interac-
tion. In a follow-up session, participants switched the mode of com-
munication used to solve a provided prompt, which effectively

counterbalanced the design of the study. After communicating with
peers by way of both online chat and face-to-face conversation, stu-
dents filled out posttest questionnaires highlighting their experiences.
As some of you have already surmised, this section could be referred as

the materials and method. The explanation of this part might need to be
very short depending on how many words are allowed in the abstract. This
is one area where you can explain in more detail if you have a larger word
limit and you can eliminate detail if you have a smaller word limit.
6. What was achieved?

The posttest survey revealed that students engaged in online chat
had a more fruitful experience and were more willing to communi-
cate. Seventeen students rated their experiences favorably while
chatting online compared to only 8 students who rated face-to-face
conversation favorably. Additionally, a descriptive analysis of the
texts produced by students under both conditions, along with stu-
dent comments, bolstered these experiential data.
This part is basically your results, which are often difficult to extract
from the next question.
7. WHY WAS THIS IMPORTANT? This will hopefully be one of your

concluding comments.
Our analysis revealed that the online environment engendered
participation because communication was able to take place without
the pressures associated with face-to-face settings. Furthermore,
power imbalances stemming from group hierarchies were mini-
mized during online chatting. This encouraged shy and hesitant stu-
dents to become fully engaged in the discourse discussion of ideas.
Also, students who used online chat were less likely to use Japanese
as a means to address the issues raised by the provided prompts. We
suggest here that in the face-to-face settings it was difficult for the
students not to rely on their native language, especially when they
lacked confidence in their English language abilities. Finally, online
chat fostered real discussion of the issues. Discussion can only be
considered discussion when certain elements are present such as
open-ended questions and instances of agreement or disagreement.
Such discussion elements were used more frequently by students

engaged in online chatting than those who were engaged in face-to-
face conversation. In summation, our results indicate that online
chat empowers students to use the target language, which in turn
increases their motivation and subsequently their willingness to
communicate in the second language.
As you can see, this section basically explains what your study’s findings
actually mean. These are in fact the conclusions, which frequently include
your suggestions. You might note that this section not only addresses the
purpose (which is mandatory), but it also addresses other issues that are
certainly related to the purpose.
As you can also see, this section is the longest, but in many cases, you
won’t have the luxury of explaining in such great detail. Sometimes this
section might only comprise a single sentence to keep word limits down.
Nevertheless, I consider this to be the most important information in the
abstract (and the presentation for that matter). It answers the question:
“Why is this study important?” Some folks have trouble with this part. If
you find yourself struggling on this point, ask yourself what were you try-
ing to accomplish by doing this study? (If it is classroom research, the
question might be, “What did the students learn because of the applica-
tion of your classroom activities and WHY?”)
What can be said here is that the abstract up to this point is basically the
roadmap as to where you plan to take the audience. If your abstract is
accepted, besides being a roadmap, it also becomes a contract. Your pro-
posal is the promise to the organizers and your audience that you will talk
about what you have said that you are going to talk about—at least for
questions 1 through 7. The answer to Question 8 addresses how you
intend to conduct yourself on the day of the presentation. Let’s look at
that question.

In this presentation, then, we hope to identify and discuss some
of the key differences between online chatting and face-to-face con-
versation and explain how such differences affect participants’ will-
ingness to communicate. We will look at students’ comments
concerning their experiences, as well as provide the audience with
some descriptive examples of student interaction.
In this case, we are planning on ‘identifying’ and ‘discussing’ differ-

ences, and then ‘explaining’ the effect. We will also ‘look’ at comments
and ‘provide’ examples. I focus on the verbs because these are the actions
intended for game-day that I am committing myself to in the abstract.
This section is expendable if you are very hard-pressed because of the
word limit. Nevertheless, I really try to hard include this section if at all
possible because it informs reviewers that you already have a clear idea in
your mind as to how you plan to go about conducting your presenta-
tion—this can only help your chances of acceptance.
Classroom Research
You may be scratching your head here and saying, “Hmmm, that’s all well
and good, but I want to talk about something I did in my classroom,
which has nothing to do with what you are talking about!” Well, I am
going to have to humbly disagree with you. Each question that is asked
above can be also applied to classroom research or for excellent classroom
lessons that you want to talk about. If you have a clear plan and answer the
questions above, your classroom research ceases to be just an idea that the
audience might want to try and becomes a ‘lesson’ in best classroom prac-
tices, which is supported by what you found out about it. Nevertheless,
let’s alter the questions so that they might be a little easier to swallow.
1. Why is this teaching idea interesting or important? Can you identify

a problem you hope to address?
2. What does the research say about this practice or about any short-
fall? How does this relate to my teaching idea?
3. How was I trying to help my students? In what areas were my stu-
dents deficient or in need?
4. What is my purpose by introducing this teaching idea? What was I
trying to do? (Keep this part short and sweet.)
5. Who are my students? What materials are needed? How did I go
about using this teaching idea (step-by-step explanation)?
6. What was achieved by the students? What was hoped to be gained
by teaching the students in this manner?
7. WHY WAS THIS IMPORTANT TO STUDENTS? OR HOW
DID YOU GET THIS INFORMATION FROM THEM? This will
hopefully be one of your concluding comments.
In other words, adhering to these procedures should work just fine for
classroom research. I have also presented on classroom research, and I
think that these questions can be easily applied when writing up the
abstract. More importantly, by following a pattern such as this, classroom
researchers can hopefully avoid a pitfall that many have fallen prey to,
namely, the submitting of an extended description of their classroom
activity resulting in reviewers asking questions like, “What was the reason
he uses this in his class again? I just don’t get it.”
Here is a sample abstract of classroom-based research that was accepted
at a conference on tourism. It might be a bit tricky, but see if you can
answer each of the questions posed by the pattern using this 300-word
(exactly) abstract.
“Can you make the turn on Bravo?” An airport simulation in an English

for Travel and Tourism classroom
When teaching EFL students about the travel industry, one of the primary
problems is students’ lack of knowledge of specialized vocabulary. However,
this represents only part of the problem for EFL learners who often demon-
strate only superficial knowledge about the concepts that are associated with
the specialized vocabulary (Freiermuth, 2007). As Chanock, Horton,
Reedman and Stephenson duly note (2012, p. 4) “…most of what students
need to understand is more complex and importantly variable from disci-
pline to discipline.” This notion certainly applies to many EFL learners in
universities studying English for travel and tourism, which in our case is
simply a popular course but can be an integral component of a dedi-
cated major.
In our classroom-based research, 22 female Japanese university students

were learning about ground control at the airport but were having difficulty
understanding the basic functions of air traffic control, tower control and
ground control. To address this problem, students were provided with vari-
ous definitions of important terminology. They then listened to a short
audio recording of an actual ground controller in action to get a sense of
what ground controllers do, and finally, but most importantly, students
experienced the landing and taking-off of planes from a mock airport set-up
in the classroom. Specifically, students were asked to play the role of either
an airplane or a controller (ground or tower). By experiencing the actual
movement in the classroom, it was hoped that students could gain a deeper
understanding of what controlling traffic at the airport was really like as well
as strengthening their English language knowledge. Students were given a
short debriefing so they could share their experiences with us.
In this presentation, then, we will provide the actual audio used, give a more
detailed explanation of how the classroom was set-up and also share stu-
dents’ impressions.
I have no doubts that you were able to answer all eight questions simply
by reading the questions and looking for the answers in the abstract.
The Short Description for the Conference Program

In many cases, the conference will also require that you write a brief
description of the presentation, which will be included in the conference
program if your paper is accepted. This usually has something like a
50-word limit (or even tinier), so you need to focus on the crux of the
matter. Here is one possible description to complement the first abstract,
which was discussed earlier in this chapter.
This study compared Japanese English language learners’ willingness to

communicate using online chat and spoken conversation. It was discovered
that certain pressure-raising factors present in face-to-face settings are
reduced when students chat online. Because students were more willing to
communicate, they consequently produced more language when chat-
ting online.
I generally find it troublesome to keep to the word limits imposed by con-

ference organizers concerning abstract lengths, but for program descrip-
tions, I find it even more difficult! I usually play around with the texts so
that I can squeeze every main point into a description. This generally
involves addressing three main questions.
1. What were you trying to do?

2. What happened?
3. What was the reason for the outcome and why was it beneficial?
From my sample description, you can see that sentence number one
answers, Question 1; sentence number two answers Question 2, and sen-
tence number three answers Question 3. Nevertheless, I played around
with the text for quite a long time (more than an hour I would guess!) to
get the word amount to the acceptable level without exceeding the pro-
posed limit of 50 words. The sample description after much trial and error
ended up being 48 words—under the limit but within 10% of the limit. (I
apply the same formula to both descriptions and abstracts!) If you are a
non-native speaker of the language being used at the conference, it is just
as important to write a good short description. If you have even the slight-
est doubt, ask a native speaker to read it. (Don’t rely on translation soft-
ware that will simply take semantic information and spew out a
grammatically sound description. It will end up being error-prone more
often than not.)
In Brief
It goes without saying that the abstract is critical. It is the key that opens
the conference door. If you try to open the door with the wrong key or a
bent key, the door will remained closed, and you will be left standing out
in the rain (to complete the metaphor). Getting to the conference requires
proper planning and execution, so if you are new to the conference ‘game,’
why not try employing one of the two patterns I have suggested? Make
sure you submit a ‘clean’ document online that adheres to the word lim-
its—not too long, and equally important, not too short. Also, if your
native language is different from the conference language, make sure that
a native speaking scholar has a chance to take a look at both your abstract
and your description because mistakes on this part can short-circuit your
journey.
Even when you attend to all of these things, your abstract may still be
rejected. It happens to almost everyone!! Nonetheless, by taking your
time and submitting a well-designed abstract, your chances increase dra-
matically. I wish you well in writing up your abstract!!!
CHAPTER 4
After the Excitement Fades: Preparing

for the Presentation
Abstract In this chapter, I discuss some steps would-be presenters can

take to prepare for their presentation. The chapter starts by discussing
conference proceedings and whether or not it is a good idea to prepare a
manuscript and submit it to the proceedings. It also discusses poster pre-
sentations and what fledgling poster presenters should consider when
making a conference poster. The chapter then discusses making the pre-
sentation slides, and tying them to one’s successful abstract. A sample
PowerPoint presentation is included as a guide for newbie presenters as
well as how the slides can be used to prepare for practicing the presenta-
tion. The last section discusses practicing the presentation and offers prac-
tical tips to properly hone the presentation.
Keywords Proceedings • Poster presentation • Presentation slides •

Abstract • Handout • Practicing

Switzerland AG 2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21124-9_4
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
well as abroad minimise the pretensions of the Cadets because they
are unaware of the existence, or rather of the nature, of the middle
class in Russia. This is not surprising, because the middle class,
besides having been denied all access to political life, has produced
no startlingly great men in the branches of production which obtain
popular fame. The great Russian writers and artists came nearly all
from the aristocracy or from the peasantry. Men who have
contributed much to modern science have abounded in the middle
class, but the fame of such men is rarely popular. But now the work
which the Cadets have so far accomplished politically is a work which
needs not a few great men, but a compact mass of men who are
agreed.
To go back to the French Revolution. It is striking to read
sentences such as the following, describing the opening of the States-
General: “Dès le 2 mai tous les députés furent présentés au roi; le 4,
ils se rendirent en procession solennelle à l’église de Saint-Louis....
L’étiquette avait assigné aux députés du Tiers un modeste vêtement
noir; ils furent couverts d’applaudissements. Les habits brodés de la
noblesse passèrent au milieu du silence.... Le 5 mai s’ouvrirent les
États.... Le roi était sur son trône, entouré des princes du sang; sur
les degrés se tenait la cour. Le reste de la salle était occupé par les
trois ordres ... le roi exprima, en quelques nobles paroles, ses vœux
pour le bonheur de la nation, convia les États à travailler, en les
engageant à remédier aux maux, sans se laisser entraîner au désir
exagéré d’innovations, qui s’est emparé des esprits.” The powers
which were conferred upon the States-General were similar, both as
regards their extent and their limitations, to those of the Duma, and
the spirit in which they were given then was just the same as that in
which they have been given here. The members of the States-General
cheered the King. And the silence with which the members of the
Duma met the Emperor recalls the phrase of the Bishop of Chartres
to the National Assembly, after the taking of the Bastille, “Le silence
du peuple est la leçon des rois.” Unhappily the lesson is not generally
learnt.
The Duma worked hard last week to finish the debate on the reply
to the Speech from the Throne. The third reading was passed at three
o’clock in the morning last Friday. It must be noted that the majority
of the Duma seem to have made a grievous mistake in refusing to
add a clause to their address deprecating the murder of policemen by
anarchists; only five members of the Right supported this clause.
Later on Friday morning the President of the Chamber asked for an
audience of the Emperor, and it was thought that no time would be
lost in letting him present the address, since all Russia was waiting
breathless for the event. Friday passed, Saturday also, and Sunday,
and conflicting rumours as to the reception of the President by the
Emperor were continually spreading in the city.
Late on Sunday night it became known that the Emperor had
refused to receive the President and his deputation, and it was
ordained that the address should be presented through official
channels. The news was not believed at first. The blunder seemed too
great. Somebody had prophesied to me on Sunday that such a course
would be adopted, as a joke, never dreaming that it would really be
the case. On Monday morning it was announced in the newspapers,
and when I arrived at the Duma, I found that the place was in a state
of agitation. “The Government is defying us,” was the general
expression. An official remarked that the farce was over; that the
Duma would proceed to make a fool of itself by some explosion of
violence, and discredit itself for ever. This did not occur. A short
meeting of the party was held in one of the Committee rooms, and
Professor Milioukov, in an eloquent speech, pointed out the extreme
folly of any policy of violence, and his party agreed with him
unanimously. This lasted about three-quarters of an hour. Then the
debate opened; the President announced the intimation he had
received as regards his audience. M. Aladin made a speech in which
he gave expression to the general resentment at the way in which the
Duma had been treated. Professor Kovolievski analysed the
situation, and illustrated it with parallels from the procedure of other
countries, and then the House went on to the business of the day
with unruffled serenity.
Considering the intense bitterness of feeling created by the action
of the Emperor, the behaviour of the Duma was miraculous in its
good sense and moderation. But the fact that this action was received
quietly does not wipe out its effect as an irreparable blunder. The
peasants were more incensed than all, even the most conservative of
the peasants. One of them said to me: “The Emperor would not
receive our delegates,” in a tone of deep resentment, and this evening
the telegrams tell us that the feeling created in the provinces where
the news has arrived is alarmingly bitter. It is a melancholy fact that
if a course is fatal it will probably be taken. I have begun to think that
the higher authorities here are destined to take no single step which
is not fatal. When one reads the history of France, one understands
people making the mistakes they made, as they had not the glaring
example of the past before them; but it is hard to imagine how people
who have read the history of France can persist in making the very
same mistakes over again. Probably the Government relies—and
perhaps rightly—on the troops when the inevitable struggle comes. I
asked a peasant member of the Duma yesterday what he thought
about that; he said that he had talked with many soldiers, and that
they would refuse to fight if it was to be against the Duma. The
peasant may be mistaken; he may be cherishing an illusion. But what
is undeniable is the fact that the existence of the Duma entirely
changes the situation of the Army in the event of a great rising.
Because the soldiers now know that, if the Duma falls, the struggle of
the peasants for land and liberty is lost, and the cause of peasants is
their cause, because they are peasants. In 1789 Paris was full of
troops for the purpose of keeping order. Paris was like an armed
camp. Eleven soldiers of the Guard were arrested in July for their
opinions. The National Assembly demanded the dispersal of the
troops, “dont la présence irritait les esprits,” and Mirabeau,
commenting on the line of conduct adopted by the advisers of the
King, put the following question: “Ont-ils observé par quel funeste
enchainement de circonstances les esprits les plus sages sont jetés
hors des limites de la modération, et par quelle impulsion terrible un
peuple enivré se précipite vers des excès, dont la première idée l’eût
fait frémir?”
May 24th.
I was talking to-night with a very cultivated Russian officer whom

I had known in Manchuria, who was a great admirer of Rudyard
Kipling. He said the “Jungle Book” was one of his favourite books.
He said he thought there was a certain kind of Jingoism to which he
considered it weak on Rudyard Kipling’s part to stoop. He did not
mean the patriotism which inspired his work in the sense of praise of
England; but the passages which were directed against other
countries, such as France or Russia. He cited the story “The Man that
Was.” He said he knew a true story of an Englishman made prisoner
in the Crimean War. This Englishman had been very ill during his
captivity and was taken care of by a Russian family. When peace was
declared he returned to England. Two years afterwards he died, and
his mother had been so touched by the way in which he had been
looked after by the Russians with whom he had lived and by the way
he had always spoken of them, that she sent them a ring which had
belonged to him and a lock of his hair. He gave me the names. He
said he always wished to write and tell Kipling about this.
CHAPTER XIX
THE DEADLOCK
St. Petersburg, May 27th.
Events here are succeeding one another with such rapidity that by
the time what one has written reaches England it is already out of
date. Yesterday was the most important day there has been up to the
present in the history of the Russian Parliament. We had been more
or less prepared by the Press for the contents of the Address of the
Prime Minister to the Duma; nevertheless, its uncompromising
character, once it was revealed in black and white, was of the nature
of a shock, even to the pessimistic. There are certain things in which
one prefers not to believe until one sees them. The strangers’ seats in
the Duma were crowded yesterday, some time before the
proceedings began at 2 p.m. The Ministers’ bench was occupied.
There was a feeling of suspense and repressed excitement in the air.
While the Prime Minister was reading his declaration the silence was
breathless. One felt that a year ago the declaration would have
seemed an excellent one for an autocratic Government to have made.
But now, as the expression of the views of a Constitutional Ministry,
it was like a slap in the face. One wondered, if these were the views of
the Government, why it had taken the trouble to convene a
Parliament. Ever since I have been here I have always derived one
and the same impression from Government and Conservative circles:
that they do not seem to reflect that it follows, if you convene a
Parliament, that the result must be Parliamentary government. Their
ideal seems to be Parliamentary institutions and autocratic
Government. So far, all attempts that have been made in the history
of the world to reconcile these two irreconcilable things have met
with failure. In no wise discouraged by the example of the past, the
Russian Government has made a further attempt in this direction. It
is to be feared that it will be grievously disappointed, judging from
the reception with which the Ministerial declaration was met
yesterday afternoon.
M. Nabokov spoke first. He spoke clearly and calmly, without
rhetoric or emphasis, and gave expression to the universal feeling of
bitter disappointment. He was listened to in silence until he reached
the question of amnesty, and then, when he said that the House
considered this question to be one between itself and the Crown, and
did not admit the interference or mediation of any third party with
regard to it, the pent-up excitement of the House found release in
tumultuous and prolonged applause. Likewise when he said that the
House regarded the declaration of the Ministry as a direct challenge
of defiance, and that they accepted the challenge, he could not
continue for some time owing to the applause and the cheering. It
was admitted on all sides that M. Nabokov’s speech was dignified
and masterly, and expressed what everybody felt. He was followed by
M. Rodichev, who indulged in elaborate and effective rhetoric. Too
elaborate and too rhetorical, some people said; psychologically,
however, I think it was wise to let M. Rodichev’s tempestuous
rhetoric follow immediately after M. Nabokov’s cool decisiveness;
because when a body of people finds itself in a tumultuous frame of
mind, the tumult must find expression. M. Rodichev’s speech reads
exceedingly well; and judging by its result it was successful. M.
Anikin spoke for the peasants, and M. Aladin gave vent to the
feelings of the more violent members of the House. As an orator, he
made a grave mistake in pitching his key too high; he began at the
top of the pitch, so that when he wished to make a crescendo he
overstepped the limit, and the whole house cried out “Enough!
Enough!” After some moments of disorder he was allowed to finish
his speech. The general impression was that he had gone too far. He
would be twenty times as effective as an orator if he would curb his
passion. The Novoe Vremya remarks to-day that it is said that M.
Aladin’s oratory is considered to be English in style. M. Aladin has
spent eight years in England.
The most successful speech of the day, judging from its reception,
was that of Professor Kovolievski, who pointed out that for the
Government to speak of the impossibility of expropriation was an
insult to the Emperor Alexander II., who had carried out the biggest
act of expropriation the world had ever seen. His speech was at the
same time extremely sensible and passionately eloquent. He said,
like Mirabeau of yore, that the Duma would not go until it was
turned out by force, and that in reminding the House that an act of
amnesty was the prerogative of the Crown, the Ministry were, as a
constitutional body, offending the Monarch by giving the impression
that should no amnesty be given it was the Emperor’s will, and that
therefore not they, but the Emperor should insist on their
resignation. The House adjourned at 7.30, after having passed their
momentous vote of censure.
The situation is, therefore, now an impossible one. Matters have
come to a complete deadlock. The Emperor has promised by his
Manifesto of October 17th, and has ratified his promise in his Speech
from the Throne, that no laws shall be passed without the consent of
the Duma. The Government has made a declaration that it will take
legislation into its own hands, and the Duma has replied by
demanding its immediate resignation. Therefore, the Government
will pass none of the Duma’s laws, and the Duma will have nothing
to do with the laws proposed by the Government. What can be the
way out of this situation? The Government does not believe that the
Duma is representative of Russia. The Duma believes that it is
representative. The Government, I suppose, relies on the troops.
They say the troops can be depended on for another two years.
St. Petersburg, May 28th.
The following is the translation of a speech made by a peasant

deputy named Losev in the Duma on Saturday last. It was the speech
which was certainly the most appreciated by the peasants:—
“Until to-day I was moved by a feeling of deep joy. I thought that
the moment had come when the resurrection day of our tired-out
country would dawn. I thought that the voice of our distressful
country would sound throughout the land, and would reach the ears
of our Monarch. He had said in his graciousness that it was
necessary to learn the needs of the country. I have the good fortune
to be a representative of the people. Until to-day my heart felt joy.
Now, I thought, we shall do without that hour of ruin which
threatens the whole country; now, I thought, has come the happy
time when the worn-out and suffering eyes of the peasant shall smile
through his tears, the time which shall see the bettering of his
country and of his life, when he shall no longer fear the threats of a
Police Government, when he shall no longer live in poverty and
famine. But now I will say that my joy was not of long duration. To-
day it disappeared. To-day from this tribune I heard the terrible
words pronounced by the Prime Minister. In clear and brief words he
said that the solution of the land question proposed by the Duma was
altogether out of the question. What did the Prime Minister
pronounce to be out of the question? The contentment of the
starving country? It is that Ministry in whose hands we are like dumb
animals. And that offended me deeply, and I think that not I alone,
but the whole country, was offended.
“I was glad when I heard the answer to the speech of our Sovereign
the Emperor from the Throne about the resurrection of the country.
But I repeat that my joy lasted only until to-day. To-day, my dears, I
again look upon our distressful country. She is once more threatened
by a menacing cloud of gold uniforms. We see that a whole
population, a hundred millions strong, lies under the yoke of a few
individuals and can do nothing. Many express their sympathy for us
on paper, but nobody can help us. They tell us that the fulfilment of
our demands is impossible. I again put myself in the company of the
poor peasantry, who, it is true, possess great strength. One can liken
the peasantry to Samson, who possessed exceeding strength. By
cunning they discovered what was the secret of his strength, and
bereft him of it. They took us, too, by cunning, and by cunning they
blinded us. I once more repeat therefore that it is a duty not to play
tricks with a people a hundred million strong. When Samson felt the
power of all the mockery of the Philistines he then said: ‘Lead me; let
me uphold the columns which support the building,’ and, taking hold
of one pillar with his right hand and one with his left, he said:
‘Perish, my soul, together with the Philistines!’ Who forced him to do
this? If wicked Dalila had not blinded him, and had his strength not
been impaired, he would not have wished to do this. They made a
laughingstock of him, and he said: ‘Perish, my soul, together with the
Philistines!’ And then what? Those who played with him perished
beneath the crashing building.
“All the labouring peasantry is in even such a critical situation.
They treat it like a toy; but, my friends, I cannot guarantee that the
unhappy Samson will support it. He will say: ‘Perish, my soul, with
the Philistines!’”
The Composition of the Duma
June 20th.
There are in the Duma thirty-five so-called “Moderates,” a

hundred and seventy-six Cadets, eighty-one belonging to no party
(mostly peasants, with one or two independent gentlemen), about a
hundred and twenty belonging to the Extreme Left, who now call
themselves the Labour Party. Besides these there are the
Autonomists, consisting of twenty-six Poles, six Lithuanians, four
Esthonians, four Letts, two Ukraine, and ten Musalmans. If we look
into these parties we see that the most prominent members of the
Moderates are Count Heyden, a Constitutional Monarchist, who
corresponds more or less to an English Whig, and has all his life
played a prominent part in the Liberal movement, and especially in
the Zemstvo meetings last year, and M. A. Stachovitch, also a
Constitutional Monarchist, a member of the noblesse and a
prominent Zemstvoist and champion of the Liberal movement.
Besides these two there are prominent men such as Prince
Volkonsky, also a Constitutional Monarchist.
When people ask whether these men are capable of managing
State affairs, the question seems to me to be rather this: Are they less
or more capable of managing affairs than a man like M. Durnovo?
One of the most prominent members of the October Party is M. D.
Schipov, who was not elected to the Duma—a Zemstvoist of great
capacity.
Now let us look at the Cadets. The practical leader of the party is
Professor Milioukov, the President of the Union of Unions—the
founder of the party which he still directs. The Government excluded
him from the elections. But although he is not in the Duma, he is a
man of first-class ability, practical and moderate; he possesses a
complete grasp of the political situation. His colleague, M. Hessen, a
lawyer of great ability, was also excluded from the elections.
In the Duma itself we have M. C. A. Muromtseff: Educated at
Moscow and Göttingen, a professor of law, he was obliged to
abandon his professorship in 1864 and take to private practice. He is
now the President of the Duma, and there is not a dissentient voice
in Russia, from the Court downwards, as to the superlative manner
in which he fulfils his functions. He combines suave urbanity with
rigid firmness, and has at present a complete hold over the Duma. M.
I. Petrunkevitch: “The father of the Zemstvo,” a strong
Constitutionalist; one of the best speakers in Duma, in my opinion
the best, and master of dry sarcasm. He corresponds to an English
Liberal member of the House of Commons. M. F. F. Kokoshkin: A
privatdocent of Moscow University, a Constitutional expert. His
speeches are well composed and reasoned. M. V. D. Nabokov: Son of
an ex-Minister of Justice; an expert in criminal law. He was
dismissed from being Kammerjunker for his opinions. He is an
excellent Parliamentary tactician and a good, clear speaker. M. F. I.
Rodichev: A barrister, of Iver; one of the most prominent
Zemstvoists; he presented to the Emperor the famous address of the
Zemstva at the beginning of the reign asking for reforms, and
received in answer the command to put away these senseless dreams.
He was forbidden to live in St. Petersburg for two years. A rhetorical
speaker, rather like a rocket, sometimes bursting into stars, at others
falling flat like a stick. M. L. Petrajitski: Professor of the Philosophy
of Law. A lawyer and a writer. He speaks the soundest common
sense; the temptation to listen to him can be resisted easily. M.
Hertzenstein: A Russianised Jew. Privatdocent of Moscow
University; took his degree in law; and was employed in the Moscow
Agrarian Bank. An expert on financial and agrarian questions. M.N.
Kareev: A prominent historian. M. Vinaver: An authority on civil law.
M. N. N. Lvov: Educated in Switzerland, and took his degree in
jurisprudence; a Zemstvoist and a large landed proprietor. Prince
Dolgoroukov: The bearer of a historic name. These are, I think, the
most prominent of the Cadets.
Together with the Cadets there is another small party who vote
with the Cadets, called the Party of Democratic Reform; it contains
two of the most capable men of the Duma. Professor Kovolievski: A
scholar and an unrivalled authority on Parliamentary traditions. An
eloquent speaker, who by the charm of his personality has become
the most popular member of the Duma. M. B. V. Kousmin
Karavaieff: A Zemstvoist, educated at the Academy of Military Law,
at which he afterwards became a professor, until he was obliged to
resign in 1904. At the request of General Kouropatkin he went to the
war, where he held a responsible position; he is one of the best, if not
the best, speaker in the Duma; quiet, persuasive, logical, and
eloquent. Prince Urussoff, formerly employed in the Ministry of the
Interior, also belongs to this party.
On the left is the Labour Party. M. Anikin: A village teacher; a
social revolutionary, opposed to violence; he speaks eloquently. The
abilities of this party seem to me entirely destructive and in no way
constructive. M. Zhilkin: A peasant by extraction; subsequently a
journalist; a tall man with big features, light hair, and spectacles. The
tactical leader of his group. He speaks well and clearly. M. Aladin: Of
peasant extraction, but educated at the University of Kazan, who
emigrated to England. A violent and talented speaker; too violent to
have influence in the Duma. His speeches are sometimes interrupted
by cries of “Enough.” One of the most interesting revolutionary
figures.
The peasants either belong to no party at all or to the Labour
Party. Those who belong to no party consider the Labour Party to be
foolish. One of them said to me that they were anxious to meet the
proprietors halfway, but the Government thwarted them by being so
uncompromising. A great many of these peasants are exceedingly
sensible. The Labour Party is utterly and fundamentally opposed to
the Cadets, whom it despises. The situation of the Duma as regards
the Government, by which it is practically ignored, continues to be
abnormal; for this reason, and owing to the fact that any active move
on the part of the Government unites the whole Duma in unanimity
against it, the creation of further parties is rendered difficult. The
level of speaking in the Duma is high; a competent English Judge
here says it is considerably higher than the English level. Time has
certainly been wasted in talk; but the Right, and neither the Cadets
nor the Labour Party, have been to blame for this, and also the
abnormal situation of the Duma.
As to the current of opinion outside the Duma. The attitude of the
Government, that the Duma is merely a revolutionary meeting from
which nothing serious can be expected, is reflected in Conservative
circles with this difference: that, while holding this opinion, they
blame the Government for its action. Analogies with past history may
be misleading, but, however different the revolutionary element here
may be from that which made the French Revolution, the
Conservative element here is startlingly like the Conservative
element in France in 1789.
Professor Aulard writes as follows about Louis XVI.: “Ce n’était
pas un esprit supérieur. Les royalistes le disaient bête, parce qu’ils le
voyaient physiquement épais ... dormeur, mangeur, ... mais il ne
manquait pas d’intelligence, et sa proclamation aux Français, qui est
bien son œuvre personnelle, offre une critique de la Constitution de
1791 beaucoup plus fine que celle que, de nos jours, Taine en a écrite.
Voici en quoi son intelligence fut inférieure à sa tâche: c’est qu’il ne
comprit pas qu’avec le système nouveau et le droit populaire, il
pouvait être un roi tout aussi puissant, tout aussi glorieux, tout aussi
roi, qu’avec le système ancien et le droit divin.”
This last sentence explains the whole attitude of the Conservatives
here. They do not understand that if you have constitutional
institutions you must have a constitutional Government. A man who
calls himself a Monarchical Liberal said to me the other day that the
Duma did not represent the majority of Russians, who were
moderate, and that the elections were to blame because the
Government had not taken the necessary steps to influence them in
the right direction, as was always done in other countries, including
England. This view, which is largely shared here, revealed to me the
truth of what some one else said to me not long ago: that Russians of
the upper classes here are often more cultivated than the upper
classes of other countries; but they have no more idea of the nature
of constitutional government than the Turks.
On the other hand you have the revolutionaries outside the Duma,
who have no real notion of constitutional government either,
attacking the Cadets with unbridled violence every day, because they
say that they are the only bulwark against revolution. Therefore
between these two dismal extremes we have only the Cadets; capable
and well organised it is true; the question is, How long can they
remain masters of such a situation?
June 2nd.
To-night I had a long talk with M. Aladin, the Radical deputy. He
gives me a totally different impression from the usual Russian
“Intelligent.” He has been Anglicised. I don’t mean to say this has
made him superior to his countrymen, but it has made him different.
He complained of the want of practical energy among the Russians.
They had not got, he said, enough to satisfy an English child.
A friend was sitting with him—a musician, and at one moment
they compared pistols, when the musician began gesticulating with a
revolver. I felt nervous because Russians are so careless with
firearms. M. Aladin said that in England there were precedents and
prejudices about everything; here they were fighting in order to
establish their precedents and their prejudices.
I asked him whether, since he knew England well, he thought
political liberty was really a great advantage, and whether the great
liberté de mœurs enjoyed by Russians did not compensate for the
habeas corpus. He said he wasn’t certain whether political liberty
was worth having, but he was convinced it was worth fighting for.
Nobody can possibly accuse this man either of talking nonsense or
of being a doctrinaire, but he seems to me a square peg in a round
hole, as Kislitzki was in the war.
He does not seem to evaporate in talk. His manner is mild, almost
gentle, and you at once feel he has unlimited energy. That is to say,
he is just the opposite of the ordinary “Intelligent” revolutionary,
who is all words and no deeds.
CHAPTER XX
CURRENT IDEAS ON THE DUMA
St. Petersburg, June 3rd.
“The Duma is impossible,” said the Frenchman.

“In what country of the world are people who commit murder
amnestied? And the land question—violent measures such as the
Cadets propose will ruin the country. Agrarian reforms can only be
gradual.”
A young man who had lately joined the Cadet party started to his
feet. “You forget,” he said, “that we are in the midst of a Revolution;
that it is not a question of what other countries do in times of peace
and prosperity. What is called amnesty here is called justice in other
countries, and as for doing things gradually, it is too late. The
Ministers come to the Duma and speak of gradual reform. It is like
telling a person who has got appendicitis to go to the Riviera and
enjoy the sunshine. Matters have been brought to such a pass that a
drastic remedy is imperative. The very people who preach to us now
that prevention is better than cure are those who during fifty years
refused to prevent.”
“As for the amnesty question,” said the man who belonged to no
Party, “I refuse to discuss it. Both sides tire me with it. You,” he said,
turning to the Cadet, “with your hysterical bomb-throwers, and you,”
turning to the mild Conservative landlord, “with your bungling
police. The question of amnesty is absurd, because very few criminals
are in prison at all. The bomb-throwers nearly always either get
killed or escape altogether. The mass of people who are in prison are
there by chance. They might be in the Duma; it is a mere fluke. At
Tambov the other day a clerk whom I know of went to take steps
about the raising of his wages. He was arrested, together with the
man who drove him, and the son of that man. They have been in
prison ever since. No sort of accusation has been brought against
them.”
“And don’t you call that a disgraceful state of things?” said the
young Cadet.
“I was thinking of the amnesty as it affects the Government,”
answered the man who belonged to no Party, “and I repeat that as far
as danger goes it makes no difference one way or the other.”
“But as a question of principle it is impossible,” said the
Frenchman.
“Yes, impossible not to give it,” said the Cadet.
“What do you think of the Cadets?” said the man who belonged to
no Party to the ex-official who belonged to the landed gentry. “I
could not vote for them or against them,” he answered. “I feel with
regard to them exactly as I feel with regard to the Japanese; the same
combination of admiration and disgust. I feel humiliated at
recognising myself to be their inferior, and proud at being in some
respects their superior. I believe that there is the same difference
between myself and a Cadet as there is between a Mandarin and a
Japanese. Perhaps the social value of Chinese philosophy in not
incomparable to the French Eighteenth Century strain, which is still
so strong in us. At any rate, going back to the Cadets and the
Japanese, don’t you see a likeness between the faculty of
organisation that both of them possess, the grasp of technical means,
the near-sighted enthusiasm? Parallels between the ci-devant
Russian and the Chinese have been worn threadbare. But now we are
face to face with the extraordinary situation of having, as it were,
Japanese and Chinamen in the same country struggling for
prevalence. This is why I could neither vote for the Cadets nor
against them. I feel that they are a superior and at the same time an
inferior race, to whom one must leave the dirty business of governing
the country just as the Merovingian Kings did with the Mayors of the
Palace, reserving to themselves the faculty of healing scrofula and the
divine right of remaining Kings.”
“I don’t feel that,” said the man who belonged to no Party; “the
difference between us and all Europeans and the Japanese seems to
me to be a difference of kind; they are as different from us as bees are
different from men. The difference between you and the Cadets is
merely a difference of class and of education.”
“I could get on perfectly well with the Cadets,” said the ex-official,
“just as I could get on with the clerks who used to be in my office. If I
were the Emperor I would prefer a Cadet Government to a
Conservative one. But, for their weal or woe, Russia is not Cadet. The
Cadets can reform Russia if they choose just as the Japanese can
reform China. But just as the Japanese will never make the
Chinaman Japanese in character, so the Cadets will never make
Russia Cadet.”
“I don’t agree with you,” said the Cadet. “The same argument
might have been used by an Intendant at the beginning of the French
Revolution with regard to the Tiers État. They no doubt said then
that the Tiers État represented nothing, because it had not been
allowed to represent anything up to that moment. The same thing is
true here. The Tiers État has been suppressed politically, and owing
to this suppression it has burst out. It is far bigger than you think,
because all your minor mandarins and some of your major
mandarins belong to it and form part of it. Only yesterday I heard a
reactionary complaining bitterly that all the officials in St. Petersburg
sympathised with the Cadets, which was scandalous considering that
they received Government wages. Besides this, the Cadets include all
the intellect of the country and all the most intelligent men. They
have partisans drawn from every class.”
“I disagree with you,” said the man who belonged to no Party to
the ex-official, “on different grounds. I believe the Cadets to be just
as Russian as you are, in the sense of being different from mere
Westerners. The other day a charming old Cadet gentleman whom I
know had some friends to dinner. They began playing windt at nine
o’clock in the evening and they went on playing until eleven o’clock
the next morning without stopping. In what other country would that
happen? Certainly not in England or in France.”
“Grattez le Cadet et vous trouverez le Russe,” answered the ex-
official. “Perhaps if you scratch the Japanese you will get at the
Chinaman.”
“Surely not,” said the man who belonged to no Party; “but apart
from this the antagonism between officialdom and the Tiers État is
not a thing exclusively Russian. It has happened in every country.
The end of the struggle is that officialdom or lawlessness is put under
control. That is what is happening here. Peter the Great was the first
Cadet, only he was self-sufficient and had need of no Party.”
St. Petersburg, June 9th.
There is a current of opinion which is hostile to the Duma, and I

have lately had the opportunity of seeing manifestations of it. The
views of the Ministry have now been made plain to us and need no
comment; but one of the ideas which form the basis of their attitude
and their action is suggestive, namely, that Count Witte is entirely
responsible for the present state of things, in not having introduced
universal suffrage, which, if it had been applied during the elections,
say the Ministers, would have produced a majority in the Duma
infinitely less Radical than the present one. I cannot help feeling
slightly amused when I hear this catchword solemnly repeated,
because when I was here before the elections at Christmas time, the
same people who repeat it used equally solemnly to explain to me
then the utter impossibility and the terrible danger of universal
suffrage. Personally, I am convinced that whatever the system of
suffrage had been, the majority would have been Radical, because
the majority of the country is Radical. That is to say, there is in the
country a large majority of discontented people. Nobody, I think, can
refute this proposition. It was confirmed to me the other day by an
intelligent Conservative. When I say Conservative, I mean that he
belongs to none of the Liberal parties. He explained his point of view
to me thus: “I dislike the Cadets,” he said; “they inspire me with a
profound antipathy; I think they have played a double game in their
dealings with the Left; I think they drew a line to the Right, and none
to the Left; that they promised more than they could give. They said
more in their propaganda than they now say in the Duma. On the
other hand, we have nothing better than them. Besides them we have
only the Government, which is not worth mentioning, and the
Extreme Left, which is demented. Again, I think they really do
contain the most intelligent men we have got in Russia now—the best
brains, the best workers, and the best organisers—and I could only
hope for a peaceful issue if the Emperor were to support them. I
consider them the sole bulwark against Anarchy.”
I asked him what he thought of their attitude towards the land
question.
“I don’t think the land question can be settled by any one project,”
he answered, “because the conditions are so different in various parts
of Russia. The Cadets talk of local committees and of the necessity of
expropriation in principle. I think what the peasants want is capital,
not land. When the agitation began my peasants came to me and
asked for five thousand dessiatines. I offered them one thousand,
and then they found that five hundred was all they could manage to
cultivate. I think, of course, that all the land which is rented should
be expropriated, and I think the folly of the Government in ignoring
the question of the land rented to the peasants was supreme. The
Government thinks it can remedy the present evils by drastic means,
but they leave the cause of the evils untouched, which is this: there is
a mass of discontented people in Russia, and as long as they remain
discontented the disorder will continue. There are some things which
could be done at once to render the peasants less discontented. They
can be given rights if they cannot be given land. They are now at the
mercy of the local magistrate.”
The net result of this man’s opinion was that it is a choice of evils,
and the Cadets are the lesser evil. Yesterday I had a talk with a man
who bitterly attacked the Cadets and all their ways. He was a
member of the Duma and belongs to the Left. He spoke in this strain:
“The Cadets insist on acting legally. It is sheer cowardice. In times of
revolution the only effective action is illegal action. The Cadets have
no right to call themselves the Party of the freedom of the people.
They are nothing but Moderate Liberals.”
“But what do you think they ought to have done?” I asked. “When
the Government refuses to consider our Bills,” he answered, “except
according to a process and after a space of time which they
determine, we ought to pass them in defiance of the Ministry and let
them dissolve us.”
“But, supposing they don’t dissolve you?” I asked. I don’t know
what his answer was, because this conversation took place in the
lobby of the Duma, and the spokesman, who was a Cossack member
(not a man with a shock of hair and golden sequins or silver braid on
his coat, but a pale, thin, short man, with large bright eyes and no
collar), had such a fiery and emphatic delivery that a large crowd
collected round us, and one of the crowd entered with him into a
heated argument, of which I heard fragments. “We have done
nothing,” he said. “We have been here a month and talked.” “What
else could we do?” said his interlocutor; “the Government take no
notice of us.” “We ought to declare ourselves a Constituent Assembly.
The people of St. Petersburg are like ducks who have been fired at.
They are afraid of the sight of blood. But the Government needn’t
think they have got the best of us, not those silly little gramophones
(this to his interlocutor) who repeat what the Cadets say, but us, the
representatives of the people; we shall have a nice surprise for them.
We have got terrible means at our disposal without even appealing to
the people. That’s the worst of us Russians: we know how to talk,
how to write; they translate our books into foreign languages; but we
don’t know how to act. I mean the educated Russians, the Cadets;
but we are going to show that we do know how to act. Every day for
the last month I have acted in a certain direction.”
The rest of the philippic was lost to me. One of the arguers, who
had just joined the Cadet Party, and being a young official was
frightfully proud of the fact, seemed somewhat mortified at being
called a “little gramophone.” The temper of the Duma, although its
outward behaviour is decorous, seems to be rising in temperature.
The majority is in favour of moderation, and at present the majority
is powerful. The Government has been treating the Duma like a
spoilt child which needs humouring.
CHAPTER XXI
THE BEGINNING OF DISORDER
St. Petersburg, June 16th.
There can be no doubt that the political atmosphere has in the last
two days become sultry. The tension of feeling in the Duma has
ominously increased, and the feeling of the country has manifested
itself in increasing disorders. Even among the troops mutinies have
been reported from five different towns, and the sailors at the
various ports are said to be in a dangerously excited state. It is now
little more than a month since the Duma met, and by looking back
one can judge to a certain degree of the effect its existence has had on
the nation at large. Some people say the Duma has done nothing but
talk. It seems to me it would be rather difficult for a Parliament,
especially a new one, to pass measures of a complicated and
important nature in dumb show. Even the House of Commons, after
centuries of experience, has not arrived at this. There are four Bills in
committee at this moment. The agrarian question is, it is true, being
discussed at length before the committee has drafted the Bill. But it
should be borne in mind that the situation of the present Duma is
abnormal. It proposes to elaborate measures based on certain
principles which the Government have declared to be inadmissible.
The Government morally deny the existence of the Duma. A
Minister goes so far as to request a newspaper correspondent to state
in the influential organ he represents that the Parliament which has
been summoned by his Sovereign is no better than a revolutionary
meeting, and that it is the result of the revolutionary machinations of
his immediate predecessor in office. Besides this, the official organ of
the Government publishes telegrams—which, even if they are not (as
there is strong reason to suppose) manufactured in St. Petersburg or

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Academic Conference Presentations: A

Step-by-Step Guide Mark R. Freiermuth

ISBN 978-3-031-21123-2 ISBN 978-3-031-21124-9 (eBook)

Cover pattern © Melisa Hasan

2 Conferences: Choose Wisely Grasshopper 11

3 Getting Started: The Precise Abstract 21

4 After the Excitement Fades: Preparing for the Presentation 41

5 Tea for Two or More: The Group Presentation 99

6 Conferences: Live and In-Person107

7 Ghosts in the Machine: The Virtual Presentation119

8 The Seven Deadly Sins: What Not to Do!129

9 The Top Five151

Keywords Presentation • Performance • Process

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

International Students and the ITA

were asked to give a presentation based upon their research. Teachers of

conference sponsor-provided notepad. He slipped something onto the

know—I am taking a very practical and basic approach after all—but I

Conferences: Choose Wisely Grasshopper

Abstract In this chapter, I discuss what would-be presenters should con-

Keywords Conference selection • Proposal • Abstracts • Keynote

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 11

compared to the mega-conferences (over 2000 participants). I find them

Fortunately, we had a good time (not so much at the conference but

Finding the Best Fit

trusted organization—the Linguist List—appeared in my search. I am

a profit-motivated organization trying to get your money for a lousy con-

Getting Started: The Precise Abstract

Keywords Abstract • Proposal • Research • Classroom research •

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

organize such a monstrosity—and, to be sure, well-organized conferences

The Submission Procedure

in a place where I know that I will look at it on occasion. (Sure my desk is

conference reviewer, I tend to reject abstracts with even a few grammatical

Writing the Abstract—Follow a Pattern

1. Why is this topic interesting or important? Is there a significant

By answering each of the eight questions—in the order presented here—

Here is an actual example of a successful abstract that I used for a recent

In the language learning classroom, students’ willingness to communicate is

When used in the language learning classroom, computer-mediated com-

Additionally, a descriptive analysis of the texts produced by students under

1. Why is this topic interesting or important? Is there a significant

In this case, we use findings by MacIntyre (absolutely seminal research

3. What discovery am I intending to make using my own research?

Of course, in regard to point 3’s questions, it is unlikely that you will

4. What is my purpose or research question? (Keep this part short

5. How was my study conducted? Who participated? How many par-

munication used to solve a provided prompt, which effectively

As some of you have already surmised, this section could be referred as

6. What was achieved?

7. WHY WAS THIS IMPORTANT? This will hopefully be one of your

Such discussion elements were used more frequently by students

8. What are you going to do on presentation day?

In this case, we are planning on ‘identifying’ and ‘discussing’ differ-

1. Why is this teaching idea interesting or important? Can you identify

“Can you make the turn on Bravo?” An airport simulation in an English

In our classroom-based research, 22 female Japanese university students

The Short Description for the Conference Program

This study compared Japanese English language learners’ willingness to

I generally find it troublesome to keep to the word limits imposed by con-

1. What were you trying to do?

After the Excitement Fades: Preparing

Abstract In this chapter, I discuss some steps would-be presenters can

2 Conferences: Choose Wisely Grasshopper 11

3 Getting Started: The Precise Abstract 21

4 After the Excitement Fades: Preparing for the Presentation 41

5 Tea for Two or More: The Group Presentation 99

6 Conferences: Live and In-Person107

7 Ghosts in the Machine: The Virtual Presentation119

8 The Seven Deadly Sins: What Not to Do!129

9 The Top Five151