Why you should apply to conferences:

• Conferences provide an opportunity to make a professional name for yourself. You get to showcase your scholarship, win admirers, and attract the attention of journal editors who may be interested in publishing your work.
• Conferences hone your scholarship and expand your intellectual field of vision by subjecting your work-in-progress to rigorous and sometimes unpredictable questioning.
• Networking is very important. Conferences allow you to meet and socialize with other graduate students in and outside your field. The academic world is small, and they will be part of your network of professional peers in the future. Often the people you meet at your first conferences are the folks you will draw on in putting together a panel at your next conference. A conference can lead to a familiar face at a job interview or a helpful contact down the road.
• It is a good idea to present your work at “starter” conferences (see list below), not just national conferences. It will boost your professional confidence and credibility.
• For graduate students, conferences should not be an end in themselves. They are a means to achieve your professional ends, including getting your work published and meeting people who may help you secure a job.

How many conferences is enough?

• Before you go on the job market in literary studies, aim to present at at least three conferences. One of these should be at a major conference in your field. Graduate students do much of their conference work when they’re writing their dissertations, since this is when they’re doing their most original and consequential work, but most also present at least one paper before prelims.
• Comp/Rhet grad students are encouraged to go to one conference a year, ideally two, beginning in year 2 of the program. This is fairly typical for the field.
• You may give the same paper at different conferences, but, at the very least, the titles should be different, particularly if the second time you give a paper, you incorporate feedback you received from the first.
• Note: on your resume an article “counts” more than a conference. If you can’t afford conference travel, time is well spent working on a publication.

Finding and choosing a conference:

• Conferences vary. Some are selective and intimidating, some more welcoming and less pressured. Exclusiveness does not always correlate with size.
• You might choose your first conference by how much it costs to travel to and by how easy it is to have a paper accepted. Suitable “starter” conferences for literary studies include regional general conferences (e.g., the Mid-American Chapter of the American Studies Association [MAASA]) and local graduate-student conferences (e.g., UW’s MADLIT conference). Comp/Rhet sees less value in “starter” conferences. Whatever your field, see the list of conferences below, and talk to faculty members and veteran graduate students in your field about suitable conferences.
• Be alert for calls-for-papers (CFPs) around topics and fields that interest you. To do this, subscribe to the U Penn CFP site , a clearing house for CFPs in literary studies. The site offers information about graduate conferences, conference convened around specific topics and periods, and conferences in various sub-fields. CFP announcements can clutter your email, so you might create a filter for them.
• Search out conferences in other fields—Law, History, Political Science, and so forth. They often welcome work from outside their home discipline.

How to apply to a conference:

• You apply to a conference by submitting a paper abstract in response to a CFP. CFPs are put out either by conference organizers, who then vet proposals and organize panels, or by individuals seeking to convene a potential panel. In some cases, the conference organizers consider only panel proposals.
• Typically you may submit only one abstract.
• It increases the odds of acceptance dramatically if (where allowed) you propose a panel for the conference, perhaps in conjunction with a faculty member. Putting together a panel (by putting out your own CFP) is a great way to learn about the freshest work on your topic and to introduce yourself to scholars you admire in your area.
• Conferences tend not to accept panels that are entirely from one university or that are only grad students (except for grad-only conferences).  An advantage of attending conferences is that you’ll meet people with whom you can put together panels. You can recruit assistant professors who were grad students in our department but have recently been hired elsewhere.

Crafting a winning abstract:

• A CFP typically lists a set of suggested topics or questions your paper might address, and it specifies what information you must provide with your abstract.
• Your abstract should offer an intellectually catchy and rhetorically efficient summary of your paper topic. Abstracts are short, frequently 300 words or less. Your abstract should do two things: 1) Clearly summarize your paper topic; and 2) Specify how the paper is significant—that is, how it will advance the field or our understanding of a topic, problem, or question. Aim high, and think big picture, especially for large conferences with broad audiences. Why should someone outside your specialization care about your argument or analysis? Include a statement explicitly highlighting the stakes of the paper.
• State your argument in the opening sentence.
• Make every sentence count. Avoid jargon. Use the present tense (e.g., “My paper argues that . . “), as if your paper is already written.

Costs, Grants, and Reimbursements:

• Conferences often have discounted registration fees for graduate students. (For example, the Midwest MLA’s student registration fee is $45.)
• Association meetings often require that you belong to the association, requiring you to pay a membership fee. Students typically receive a discount.
• Conferences often reserve a block of hotel rooms for participants. You’re not required to stay at the conference hotel, although at smaller conferences, staying at the conference hotel allows you to develop camaraderie with other presenters.
• Conferences sometimes offer travel grants and other financial aid for graduate students. Check the conference web site for information about travel grants and financial waivers.

Applying for Departmental Funding Consideration

• All eligible graduate students in English are invited to apply for travel support for conferences for professional presentations, and for summer institutes, archival research, and summer language study. You may also apply for a subvention for a publishing project, with proof of the forthcoming publication plan. We ask that everyone apply for support prior to your travels. We will continue with the policy of supporting at least one conference travel per year($300-regional or grad student conference, $400-domestic, $500-Canadian, $600-other International), but you must still submit a well-constructed proposal and CV as described below rather than just a form and receipts. You may apply up to three times but will receive no more than $1,500. There are three application deadlines each academic year.

Conference papers (basics):

• Do not exceed the specified time limit, typically 20 minutes. It takes exactly 2 minutes to read a single double-spaced page of 12-point courier text. Accordingly, a 20-minute paper should be no more than 10 double-spaced pages of 12-point courier text.
• See follow-up document for more advice about crafting successful conference papers. 

See next page for lists of recommended conferences.