B: If you do it well, it is the paper you present at a conference, right? The hope is that at the end of the semester, you write a paper that you can walk out the door with and present at a conference. Obviously you’re going to want to revise a little, but the point is you want to go out and be prepared.
S: In what ways might you revise between class and a conference?
B: I think it is very difficult for us in our world wrapped in academese to learn how to communicate with other people orally in a way that is really engaging. So I think one of the things that you have to imagine is a flesh-and-blood audience, who, depending on the time in which you present, may be hungry and waiting for happy hour. So I think one of the things you need to think about after turning in the conference paper is revising it for style, oral delivery, engagement, enthusiasm, gaging the levels of intensity with which you present the material and just being kind to the people trying to pay attention to what you’re saying. Consider the performance; you’re not just writing a paper that’s going to disappear. You’re writing something that you’re going to get up and perform to them.
S: So what makes the best conference performances?
B: What makes it a really great conference presentation is a really cool idea and a human connection with me, in the audience. Think about those moments when you’re in sacrament meeting and someone gets up and starts speaking and everyone sort of snaps their heads up because it’s like the sun has come out of the clouds. It’s a human connection when someone makes eye contact with me, when someone cracks a joke and everyone laughs. They’re engaging the way the audience responds and they present something provocative.
S: So potty words?
B: Yes.
S: Okay. Say you’ve written a paper that is really, bang-ho...how do you find a conference that matches the direction of your research?
B: The big conferences are sometimes the ones that you want to go to the most, but regional conferences—it’s kind of cool to see how the local scene is playing out. Get your ideas addressed in a smaller, more intimate audience. I went to the Virginia Military Institute Spilman Symposium as the first conference I went to. Seventy attendees—that was it. And it was cool! I gave my presentation and there were seventy people there ready to engage with me about it. I went to the C’s [CCCC], which is the Valhalla of our field and there were only three people at our presentation, two of which I have already known and invited! So that’s kind of lame. I’m not ready to make any categorical decision about the virtue of a conference based on size.
S: So say I find a conference that I’m interested in. What kinds of moves do you have to make in your proposal that will make it interesting to the organizers of the conference?
B: I think conference people probably like to see that you have a firm grasp on what the conversation is about your subject and (I know I beat on this incessantly) that there is a gap, you are counterclaiming or that you’re asking a question. I think in addition to these two moves [starts counting on his fingers]: knowing the conversation, knowing how your argument fits in it, the third thing would be suggesting implications that actually matter to people. So those three things: knowing the conversation, knowing how your argument fits into it in a unique and progressive way, and some interesting implications of your study.
S: Because we are writing these papers for our classes, how do we link these smaller conference papers into our larger project, which may not have a ton to do with whatever that particular seminar’s topic was?
B: Gotcha. Well, I’ll tell you what I do: I think of an idea for a proposal, then write up the paper—see where this is going?—then I turn the conference paper into an article to get thrashed and rejected by a journal. That’s my method. You probably need to think about these projects for a thesis. Because it’s only eight pages and you need twenty-five for a thesis, you can think of those eight pages as a lit review of your idea, or the application of your idea. And then the next conference paper can be another part of that. You can cobble them together. I think that’s an effective strategy to prepare for your thesis.
S: Any parting words about how students should approach these papers that they write for a seminar?
B: My advice would be do not be afraid to take risks. Do not worry that you have nothing to say. Think of yourselves as explorers and rhetoricians and scholars who have something of value to say to others. Think of yourself situated in a dialogue that is meaningful to you personally and to the field itself. Focus on connecting your personal and professional and public interests in the projects that you pursue.
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