Tag Archives: academia

The Road Towards a PhD

Thais Rutledge

(Note: Thais Rutledge is co-chair of the MLA Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Humanities.)

The impetus for this blog post was a conversation that took place in the Graduate Lounge at MLA 2023 about the need for resources, guidance, and information about how to pursue a PhD. This blog post, therefore, is an attempt to encourage individuals who wish to earn a PhD in an MLA field, but who, like myself, might benefit from some advice on how to go about it all.

My decision to return to graduate school came after years of random jobs, and from my desire to become a university professor. In addition, my love for teaching and researching was my fundamental reason for wanting to pursue a PhD. What I did not know, however, was how to search for schools that would be a good fit, whom to talk to about my research interests, and how to go about securing funding, among other things.

Looking back at my experience, I now realize how clueless I was about the process. It all came to a head during my first year as an MA student at a local college, which I was attending to test the waters without disrupting my life. As I began to search for schools to apply to, the only thing I knew about funding was something a previous professor had told me—to only attend a program that was fully funded. In amazement at what his advice implied, I wondered: “Wow, I can get funding to go to graduate school?” How naïve I felt; but at the same time, as I look back, I wish I had had more information. But that started me on doing more research to find the answers to my questions.

The right questions led me to many discoveries and meetings with individuals who truly wanted to help. The thought of contacting people I had not met gave me a bit of anxiety, as I was not sure how to talk to them. Still, eventually I reached out to schools, departments, and the professors whom I believed could be a good fit for my dissertation committee. After choosing the top five schools that would provide full funding for my graduate education, I called the respective graduate coordinators at each institution. These individuals provided me with more information, guidance, and answered all of my questions. In fact, many encouraged me to email professors that I may have wanted to work with. I was stoked! I had no idea that I could actually email professors, and that they would, in fact, respond. What would I say to them? The thought of contacting a professor that I had never met (or taken a class with) was a bit uncomfortable, I admit. However, I needed to use the personal skills I had to get the answers I needed. I wondered if I would get a response, if the response would be welcoming, or if I would get a response at all.

My emails to professors were pretty straightforward. I told them who I was, my interest in the school, and in their work. To my surprise, I received kind replies and answers from most I contacted. I felt heard and seen for the first time by these professors who seemed eager to hear my research idea and why I was interested in their schools. After a few emails, phone calls, and in-person physical meetings with professors and chairs of departments (today they might be on Zoom), I was ready to begin the application process. The in-person meetings allowed me to not only put a face on my application, but they also allowed me to have conversations with the people I would be working with. Most importantly, I wanted to make sure these individuals registered my interests and commitment to pursuing a doctorate. I sent out five applications and got accepted—with full funding—into two, including my first choice.

My entire experience proved the complete opposite from what I had heard from other fellow students at the MLA whose experiences were different from mine. I am not speaking for all here when talking about my own road towards a PhD. I am quite aware that others have had no guidance on how to go about earning such a prestigious degree. What I do believe, and encourage, is to go after the answers you seek. Talk to other students, professors, graduate coordinators, and chairs of the departments. You might be surprised at the answers you get. Finally, and I hate to sound so cliché here, if you don’t succeed at first, try it again. 

The graduate secretary or coordinator or graduate advisor of any program you might be interested in would be glad to help you with information and how-tos. Go in having done your research, and with specific questions to make the most of your time with those offering guidance.

The MLA Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Humanities offers a number of resources for prospective and current graduate students on their web page.  Graduate students are also eligible to apply for travel grants to attend the annual convention, where many professional development opportunities are on offer, from group and one-on-one mentoring to sessions on obtaining jobs with humanities PhDs and more.

Tips for Writing a Dissertation or Capstone Project

Writing a doctoral dissertation or a capstone project for a master’s program can be one of the most challenging and intensive parts of earning a graduate degree. This already difficult task has been heavily exacerbated by major global events, such as the Covid pandemic, systemic racism, and visa restrictions on international students. Members of the Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Humanities (CSGSH) share some practical tips and advice for working on and completing a dissertation or capstone project that can help graduate students complete their projects during these challenging times.

 

Didem Uca, Assistant Professor of German Studies, Emory University

DONE IS GOOD

Every semester before finals week at my undergraduate alma mater, Bryn Mawr College, we hung to-do lists on our dorm room doors with the phrase “DONE IS GOOD” and gleefully cheered each other on as we checked each item off. Once I reached ABD status in my Ph.D. program, I learned a different saying with a similar sentiment: “A good dissertation is a done dissertation. A great dissertation is a published dissertation. A perfect dissertation is neither.” If you are in a book field, you have to accept that you may not be able to accomplish everything in the dissertation that you hope to accomplish in the version that will eventually be published as a monograph. There are multiple reasons why this might be the case––perhaps you and your committee do not share in that vision; perhaps there are archival materials that you are unable to access due to COVID; or perhaps you simply are running out of time, funding, or patience. But pragmatism wins out over perfection. Done is good.

Backwards Create a Realistic Schedule and Set SMART Goals

Speaking of to-do lists, when you are working on a project that is bigger than anything you have ever completed before and that spans several years, it may be overwhelming to figure out your timeline and path to completion. Speak with your advisor and recent graduates or other students ahead of you in your program to make sure you understand what the precise dissertation or thesis requirements are for your program. Then, open your virtual or paper calendar or planner and begin to schedule your timeline working back from the date when you want to (or must) defend. The following example of an ABD beginning work on their dissertation illustrates this process: If you will run out of funding on June 1, 2023, you will likely need to defend, and in some cases, deposit your dissertation in time for the spring graduation deadline, which may be as early as April. You already have a dissertation outline and have reviewed relevant literature for your prospectus and have one chapter drafted based on a conference paper. After speaking with your advisor, you have learned that you are expected to write 4 chapters, an introduction, and a conclusion, and the three most recent graduates of your program wrote between 250-300 pages.

Using this information, begin to create SMART––Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound––goals to fulfill these requirements in time for your anticipated defense date. Make sure to account for the time it will take for your committee members to read and offer feedback on your work and any other academic and life obligations, such as needing to travel to an archive before working on a chapter, teaching service, or taking a week off before your wedding. Be realistic, build in extra time for the unexpected, and continue updating and revising your SMART goals throughout the process.

Gamify Writing––and Write Every Day

If you think you hate writing, may I suggest that you actually hate the anxiety of not writing? The mere thought of opening a blank document or returning to a particularly vexing paragraph can be paralyzing, and thus, we often choose to focus our energies on everything but writing. For me, this included reading Joan Bolker’s classic Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day, in which she advises dissertators to “Do some work on your thesis every day, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes. (“Every day” is more important than how much time you spend, or how many pages you produce, or what quality of work you produce on any particular day.)” This advice was transformative at a time when I was plagued by writing––or, more precisely, not writing––anxiety and intense guilt. So I followed Bolker’s advice and began writing. For the first few weeks, guided by my SMART goals and completion schedule, I began to write 150 new words every day. I increased this amount to 200, 250, 500, 750…until I was reliably writing 1500-2000 words a day, managing to add 200 new pages to my dissertation in the final four months before my defense. Anything you write today is something you will not have to write tomorrow or two months from now. Future you will thank you for your diligence. If this abstract gamification strategy isn’t effective, consider that, like all living creatures, you are not above bribery; give yourself rewards for meeting your daily benchmark, such as, as soon as I finish my 350 words for today, I can watch the next episode of The Great. Speaking of which, I have to go work on my book proposal so that I can watch Sarah Cooper’s special on Netflix.

 

Amir Hussain, Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature, Emory University

I have three pieces of advice to offer.

First, think about and seek agreement about what kind of dissertation project you aim to do.

There are many different kinds of dissertation projects that one can theoretically do. But not every dissertation project can be done without the aspects and planning that so often precede the actual dissertation writing, such as the prospectus, language training, archives you may need to visit or approvals you may need to have to conduct your research, and committee support. While a traditional dissertation is typically conceived of as one large project with chapters that are in some way or other organically related, there are many discussions about traditional dissertations and discussions on other innovative configurations for the dissertation. So it is crucial that you, your advisor, and your committee are on the same page about the kind of dissertation you want to do, are expected to do based on previous discussions or on disciplinary training, and would be departmentally permitted to do. Seek input from your advisor and committee on this with the prospectus and throughout the project. And while it is possible that your project may develop as you work on it, there should still be a reasonable consensus and clarity about what kind of project you are working on and why.

Second, keep in touch with your advisor regularly. 

Your advisor is not merely the main key between you and graduating with a Ph.D. degree. Rather, your advisor is your main and most vital source of help throughout your degree. Ideally, this help should come in many forms: input on your trajectory during the doctoral program, honest but supportive feedback on your dissertation and on application materials, and institutional guidance. It is crucial to get input on your work at crucial junctures, such as between ending one chapter and starting another, or on materials that you submit as part of your applications for fellowships or for jobs. If you are not receiving critical feedback on your work, be sure to ask for it. On the other hand, if you need more encouragement, it is fine to ask for that, too. Regardless, keep in touch with your advisor and avoid long stretches of time without any communication. This way, not only will your advisor know what you are working on, but you will also know if you are staying on track or if you need more feedback and assistance.

Third, take your time with the dissertation.

The authors of The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy argue that the rapid pace in academia and in contemporary society is not conducive for the long form of research and scholarly writing. Their view applies directly to dissertators as well, who are often interrupted by competing demands and pressures to publish their work quickly. But being slow and deliberate with the long process of research, writing, and revision can allow dissertators to get sufficient feedback from an advisor or committee, to revise, to produce stronger work, and to aim for quality over quantity. And on a related note, taking your time on a dissertation relates to how one thinks of graduate school more broadly. Applying for dissertation funding or teaching opportunities during this crucial stage can allow you to spend this time now to write and get feedback during your graduate school years.

 

Viana Anette Hara, Ph.D. student in Romance Languages, University of Oregon

On Taking Care of Yourself

I have no idea the amount of mental, physical, and emotional energy that the ultimate goal of writing a dissertation requires. I remember attending a workshop on how to initiate your dissertation by organizing material, choosing your project’s topic, and the importance of communication with your advisor—all of these are crucial steps. However, it was not mentioned that physical and mental health are pivotal to accomplish this goal and that life also happens. 

While writing my master’s degree thesis, my beloved dog of 16 years old died. I was already stressed, physically, and mentally. This event caused me great sadness, and I hit a wall on my thesis. Life can happen to all of us in many ways. So what do you do when you are mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted? And, what do you do when life happens while you are writing a thesis or dissertation?

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to these questions, but I’d like to share with you some humble suggestions that worked for me and could work for you:

Seek help: It is vital to have a support system, whether it is a family member or someone you trust, or a healthcare professional. Seek help. It is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you are human, and not only a graduate student. 

Sleep: Sometimes, there is so much to do and not enough time to sleep. But remember that sleep is essential for brain function. Rest makes a difference in mental, emotional, and physical states.

Eat: I am not referring to a diet, but instead, to the mindfulness of nourishing your body. The act of eating away from distraction, including your dissertation is important. Focus on taking care of your body by fueling it with food.

Walk: The act of walking helps the body physically and mentally, and you are moving. It lightens the mood, and it helps support sleep. It is not a strenuous exercise, and it can be done anywhere.

Meditate: I was very skeptical about meditating, but it helped me greatly–physically, emotionally, and cognitively. It is not really about quieting your mind. After all, we are graduate students. We are always thinking. Instead, it is observing those thoughts calmly while being aware and connecting to your body. Great ideas can flourish unconsciously in meditation.

Do it all over again: There is no formula to deal with life’s curveball. Making a habit of these small practices could help you while writing a dissertation or thesis, which you can carry over in other life stages.

 

Ari Wolf 

I’d like to offer some suggestions regarding the MFA thesis project. I completed my MFA in Creative Writing last year with relative ease of mind, and I hope you can learn from whatever small fragments of wisdom I picked up along the way.

First of all, start early.

If you begin writing your MFA thesis during your final year, you are probably going to find yourself far more crunched for time than you expect to be due to one small problem–human inclination to change our minds. Every single person I was in the Master’s program with changed our minds at least two or three times about the topic of our thesis, and often also the genre, timeline, and basically every other significant detail. This is to be expected, but these are not the kinds of questions you want to be asking yourself while going into your final month of your second-to-last semester of your MFA program. These are the kinds of questions to be asking yourself in your third-to-last semester of your MFA program, and to resolve over summer break. That way, when it comes time for you to write your thesis, you can actually write your thesis, instead of spending that time and brainpower trying to make decisions about who is going to narrate your story, and by the way are you going to write a memoir or a hybrid work? 

Second, and this is advice I learned the hard way, keep a separate draft for just yourself, and show this draft to no one.

Look, every class you take in graduate school is an academic class. Your advisor is not G-D, she is a professor, and it is her job to help you with your writing. Listen to what she is telling you. However, if you have only just written the last thirty pages of your draft, and by the way you decided on nonfiction after all, and so you are literally editing stories about your parents and sister…you need a spare draft. Trust me. Mark up the draft you hand in to your professor, make the edits your Thesis Advisor and Reader asked you to make, but hold a draft back for yourself. That way when you inevitably change your mind about story or direction later on, you can refer back to the original copy without finding yourself drawn astray by your need to make the grade. It is necessary to make whatever edits your professors require of you, in order to earn a healthy GPA. It is not necessary to edit your life’s work based on someone else’s feedback that you accept under the duress of GPAs and graduate school aspirations.

Finally, do not kill your darlings, move them.

Whenever I sit down to write a long paper, I keep two documents. One document is my working  draft of my paper. The other document is my “extra” draft, which has every line I wrote and loved but don’t quite have a place for. This is good advice whether you are working on a book or a Literature paper. Write your essay, but hold onto the ‘extra’ you love but can’t use right now. You might come back to it later in your paper, or you might use it to write a different paper altogether. But don’t throw away your words just because you don’t know how to use them quite yet.

Everyone take care, and don’t take this all too seriously.

Graduate Students Preparing for the Fall (Part 2)

Edited by G. Edzordzi Agbozo, with support from the members of the CSGSH

In this final part of our series on preparing for the fall semester, two international graduate students — Meng-Hsien Neal Liu, and Joan Jiyoung Hwang — share how the ongoing pandemic and the recent national debate on international students in the United States has affected their lives and their work. While Liu focuses on syllabus redesign for online teaching, Hwang reflects on the challenges and rewards that international students experience not only during the pandemic but more broadly.

Meng-Hsien Neal Liu
Ph.D. English/Writing Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This unprecedented global pandemic has mournfully thrown many international graduate students, myself included, into a welter, as we navigate through drastic change of our professional and personal settings, routines, obligations, and even prospects. These sudden changes have continued into the present period, with some universities keeping classes online for Fall 2020, some offering in-person instruction, and the others opting for a hybrid model. Undoubtedly, each of these curriculum delivery methods poses different kinds of challenges to administrators, staff, faculty, and students, but as a graduate student who juggles teaching, research, and coursework, I find the emotional and physical labor exacted on me particularly taxing. Although my institution aims for a hybridized delivery for the coming fall term, the first-year-composition class that I am teaching in the Fall 2020 at my institution will be online. As I am now revising my syllabus, several critical, yet fruitful questions about pedagogy and social justice emerge. These questions help me to critically deliberate on my role as a graduate teaching instructor in the climate of uncertainty.

Adapting my in-person writing class syllabus into an online version presents itself with a wide array of local and perhaps far-flung questions that I need to consider strategically. For example, how should I facilitate peer work synchronously and asynchronously? How do my students coordinate their peer reviews when they are not able to meet in person, when they are in different time zones, or when some do not have reliable access to the Internet? What if some students do not have personal laptops to do the work at home or in dormitories? What if some students cannot work for a long time on their computers due to their physical conditions, such as their vision or ability? What are some topics that are amenable to online migration and thus deliverable through an online facilitation? What are some topics that need to be omitted or changed? For instance, my first-year composition class is typically themed around language ideology along with some discussions dedicated to gender, race, class, and ethnicity. How should I create a “safe” (virtual) space where my students and I could be encouraged to engage in meaningful discussions about linguistic imperialism, ideology, and domination without fearing our words will be decontextualized? Or should I just change the theme of my writing class and go for a more skills-based composition class so that I could “play it safe”? Do I still want my students to undertake original research projects (e.g., conducting interviews) when campus resources might be hard to access? How can I motivate my students to continue applying themselves to honing their academic literacy, provided that they faced mental and perhaps physical, disquiet? On that note, how can I assess their performance meaningfully, when they might have to de-prioritize their academic work due to living, housing, or food insecurities? When students miss several synchronous meetings, should I still strenuously enforce the draconian institutionally-mandated attendance policy and take off points ? Some of these questions have been extensively discussed since the outbreak of the pandemic, but I foresee that this situation is going to be slightly more glaring for my incoming freshman students (and for us instructors), as students themselves will be exploring their first (full) semester in college in an unorthodox fashion — virtually. They will be entering into uncharted territory and need to forge interpersonal relations and affiliations with their instructors, teaching assistants, classmates, friends, advisors, majors, departments, or colleges on those little Zoom chat windows and boxes. Therefore, I made it a point to bear those questions in mind as I redesigned the syllabus.

That said, rather than feel downright saturnine about the upcoming fall semester; I do believe that there is one overarching theme that can salvage us from the narrative and the spanned time of uncertainty. To wit, that is humanity. The pandemic, however devastating, highlights our graduate teaching instructors’ need to be more humanistic, empathetic, and sympathetic, because we, along with our students, are collectively experiencing this unparalleled historical moment. Coupled with the recent civil unrest and the federal visa restriction targeted at international students, the pandemic has disrupted the normalcy of many people’s lives, but as we are readying ourselves for the fall semester, I am convinced that first-year-composition classes can functionally serve the critical role of helping students to theorize and discuss their thoughts regarding social justice and equality, a necessary, if not imperative, outlet that could endow students with anchors to stabilize themselves and obtain countervailing power to contest debilitating discourses.

Joan Jiyoung Hwang
Ph.D. Writing & Rhetoric, George Mason University

It’s no longer a visa issue; it is our life.
Frankly, I turn my eyes away from any news headlines related to the U.S. government’s immigration policy. I know it relates to my family and me one way or another, but my heart already hits bottom without even reading the contents. Any news cannot be good news for foreigners. On July 6, 2020, when news headlines on TV and on the internet were plastered with these two words, “ICE” and “international students” , my mind was blown away and I could not resist, this time, scavenging for any piece of news about this topic.
Holding a student visa or F-1 visa status was an honorable, legitimate entry ticket to the U.S. higher education after years of preparation, family support, and the careful juggling of financial investment and loss of opportunities. I am sure all international students remember the celebrations and congratulations they shared with their families, friends, colleagues, and excitement when their passports returned by mail with a student visa stamp. Ironically, however, the emblem of celebration, pride, and privilege turns into a label of exclusion as soon as our lives as international students start. We start being called visa students, multilingual writers, or foreign students.

When I tapped into the job market, while pursuing my doctorate degree, with my master’s degree earned in the U.S, I encountered a common job application program that has a section asking applicants to answer “yes” or “no” to a question if they need a sponsorship when hired. The first time I read this question, to be honest, I did not get it. The disability section has disclaimers that the information will not be disclosed and not used as discrimination against applicants but only for the purpose of providing necessary accommodation; the sponsorship section has no such disclaimer.

Being a graduate student, especially being an international Ph.D. student, is not just running a life as a full-time student. We have family, and our children go to school and grow up here. They make friends, participate in community sports clubs, compete with their friends in local competitions in band and sports, and volunteer just like any other youths with citizenship or legal residency. During their parents’ 6 to 8 years of graduate studies, if advancing into a doctorate degree, our children’s identities, cultural, ethnic, and communal, shape and develop here. The most critical time of their life takes root here, beautifully growing into valuable cultural capitals. The student parents build their companionship with their colleagues, faculty, and students, and their spouses stay connected with their neighbors, local churches, or any other affiliation of their interests and values. The entire family becomes a part of the communities. Following their parent’s work and study, my children, both in high school, have now spent a total of 70% of their life here in the U.S.. Still, their legal status is an F-2. Suppose I am not hired by any employer willing to sponsor me after my degree conferral. In that case, my children need to change their status from F-2 to F-1 when they start college in the U.S. and inherit the status of a non-immigrant student visa holder, exempt from all college benefits their friends and peers enjoy or compete for.

Being on a full-time graduate teaching assistantship, I take six credits of coursework and teach two three-credit courses each semester with tuition waivers and a decent stipend. This is an amazing equal opportunity for international graduate students and another source that attracts many capable international students to U.S. education. However, more than the tangible equality— this never means than the material conditions matter less —the personal and professional growth that I have experienced being a part of the amazing academic community of faculty, staff, and peers in my program is something I would not want to forfeit but instead continue to belong to as my second home. International graduate students live with this fear that someday, we might have to involuntarily opt out of this community, displaced from years of personal, professional, emotional, communal attachment, if the label, once a gracious entry ticket to the prestigious higher education in the U.S. and now a tag of non-immigrant status, doesn’t change into a temporary work-visa or an employment-based green card.

The student status of a non-immigrant goes beyond studentship; it is a life rooted and growing in a new land. It is not something that can be uprooted and transferred back across the borders at the mercy of policy upheavals. I hope legal, systematic consideration can be made for international graduate students’ resident status and employment after their degree. Once they receive the doctorate degrees, their stay should not be considered a matter of visa, but a matter of sustainability, the sustainability of a person as a scholar, and of a family as community members and research community that invested and nurtured the international graduate students.

Tips for Conference Presentations

Presenting at a conference as a graduate student can be intimidating and stressful, but a crucial part of your graduate school experience! As conference season rolls around, members of the CSGSH committee offer a compilation of presentation tips for graduate students preparing to present in humanities conferences. Whether this is your first time presenting or you are a seasoned presenter, these tips can help improve your presentation. We have divided the list into tips for before, during, and after presenting.

 

Before the Presentation

Allot yourself enough time to begin preparing well in advance of the conference, as there are a lot of things that need to come together by the presentation day.

 

When presenting from a seminar paper, you should plan on revising it to make it effective as an oral presentation. An unedited seminar paper rarely has the level of signposting required for an oral presentation.

 

Similarly, it is not recommended to present from an outline containing just key words or to speak impromptu. Withstanding extensive public speaking experience and nerves of steel, it is recommended that you create a carefully edited script.

 

When editing a written work for an oral presentation, it can help if most sentences are two lines long or shorter. Good punctuation can ensure that a five-line sentence remains coherent in writing, but in speech it can be hard to follow. Leaving really long sentences in a script before can mean losing your place while reading, or giving words the wrong intonation as read, which makes the ideas harder to follow.

 

If you are using a PowerPoint or a Prezi, avoid overloading with too much text, which can distract your audience. You want the audience focusing on you, not your slides. Here are some helpful tips for slides. (Also, mark the slide transitions in your script, if you are using slides.) Too much text also relates to accessibility.

 

Consider guidelines for accessible conference presentations. The Society for Disability Studies presents accessibility guidelines here. A disability accessibility specialist offers tips here. And the Web Accessibility Initiative offers many accessibility tips here.

 

Practice reading your presentation aloud. It is a truism that one double-spaced page takes about two minutes to read at an unhurried pace, so ten pages would make up a twenty-minute talk. But really, sometimes ten pages ends up taking eighteen minutes or sometimes twenty-two minutes, to read aloud. So, once your script says what you want it to say, read it aloud as many times as you can, making quick notes as you go (and editing afterward), until it sounds right. Some sentences that look fine on the page do not sound quite right when spoken.

 

Once the script sounds right, practice it with any A/V you will be using. That practice may bring forward technical issues you might not otherwise anticipate, giving you an opportunity to smooth these issues out. Then practice leaving extra space to say hello to the audience, to thank the panel organizer, and to offer any background that the audience might need (i.e. remarks that prepare and engage them). It is more than okay to write these extemporaneous-sounding remarks into the presentation script, if it will keep you on track. Ideally, try to practice in front of colleagues/department-mates. Practicing in front of a partner or friend can also work. Have someone time you as you read.

 

When it comes to A/V, prepare for the unexpected. What will you do if your laptop battery fails? What if your phone dies, and you lose your presentation notes? We live in a high-tech world, but sometimes technology can fail. Make a checklist of your materials and check it both before you leave home to travel to the conference, and before you enter the room to give your presentation. Have a video adapter for your machine (and expect that one of your co-presenters may need to use yours).

 

If you can, try to meet up with your co-presenters before the presentation, even if just for a 15-minute coffee to say hello. Meeting beforehand can really help organize the panel, and getting to know everyone’s work can make connections between the panel’s ideas during the presentation.

 

Bring business cards with you. You never know who might ask a great question or offer an idea post-session. Having your contact information handy allows you to take advantage of the connections you might make.

 

Plan what you will wear with your presentation in mind. For example, if you know you will be standing for your presentation, consider what shoes you will wear to be comfortable.

 

If you are nervous and have someone you know at your presentation, ask them to sit where you can see them. Sometimes, it is nice to be able to locate a familiar face as you look around the room at your audience.

 

Consider bringing a snack to eat an hour or so before your presentation, so you have something in your stomach.

 

Most of the time, you will have been asked beforehand for a bio, but if not, bring a short, succinct bio that a moderator can read during the speaker introductions.

 

During the Presentation

Get to the room where your presentation is as soon as you are able, and double-check your tech. Give yourself time to get organized and take some deep breaths.

 

Bring a bottle of water and take some sips during your presentation, even if you are not thirsty. This helps avoid a dry throat while talking.

 

Start by catching the audience’s attention and make a connection. This can be accomplished by reading a quote from the primary material that sets the stage, conducting a quick poll that gets them involved, or by sharing what led you to study your topic. Make it personal and make it pithy!

 

Signpost your argument with easy-to-follow language so that your audience stays with you throughout the presentation. Your introduction should prime the audience for what is to come (i.e. “In this paper, I draw on X and Y to argue that Z…”) and the structure of your presentation should be verbalized. Words like “first,” “next,” “furthermore,” “however,” and “finally” are your friends!

 

While the script you have prepared will keep you organized and ensure that your language is precise, make sure to read slowly and make eye contact with the audience. Notes in your script to “pause,” “slow down,” and “look up” make this easier.

 

Bring a couple printed copies of your presentation slides for accessibility.

 

Speak to the audience in front of you, not to your college professor and not to your high school English teacher.

 

Be respectful of your colleagues’ and the audience members’ time. This is essential conference etiquette and ensures that there will be time for discussion. Having the script that you have practiced reading aloud and timed beforehand keeps you within your allotted time.

 

One useful gesture is when you are exploring a new idea in the presentation, to say so and tell the audience that you would welcome their suggestions during the Q&A. This gives them an opportunity to demonstrate their expertise, and to help you refine your idea.

 

It is okay to ad lib if you want to point out a connection between your presentation and someone who has presented before you.

 

Do not sweat the Q&A. More often than not, you will get genuinely helpful, encouraging, and generous feedback that will help you work toward the next stage of the project. It is okay to take a second to think about your response before answering an audience member’s question. If you do not know what someone is referring to, you can always ask them to clarify or to restate their question. There may be audience members who seem to be there with the sole purpose of tearing down you and your co-panelists’ work, but this does not reflect on your presentation. And, keep in mind, that even a seemingly “hostile” question can indicate a gap in or a useful addition to your research that you had not considered and could become something that you follow-up on after the conference.

 

Take notes during your fellow presenters’ presentations. This will help you to make connections between your presentations and come up with questions.

 

Here is an essential part: be confident that you have something important to offer. You were accepted to your panel, to the conference, to the convention. No small feat. You have already convinced the panelists and the organizers that you belong. So, you do.

 

Don’t forget to have fun! If you are having fun, your audience will be too.

 

After the Presentation

Get together with your co-panelists. You have enough in common with them to be on the same panel, so try to have a meal together during the conference. They may even become your most treasured collaborators.

 

Take time after the conference to reflect on what you have learned during the conference, as well as to reflect on how your presentation panel went. There are many connections, materials, and new resources that you have probably learned about from your panel and during the conference, so do not forget to follow-up on these notes.

 

Remember, we are all learning and refining our arguments. Conferences are a great place to get ideas for further avenues of research. Pursue these threads after the conference is over so that you can further your project ideas.

 

–List contributed by Ariadne Wolf, Didem Uca, Kristina Reardon, Amir Hussain, Gerard Holmes, and Kayla Forrest