WRITING PAPERS AND GOING TO CONFERENCES

Gita Subrahmanyam Authoring a PhD and Developing as a Researcher

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

WHY ARE YOU HERE TODAY?

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

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

Credit:www.imageafter.com

WHY GO TO SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES? 1. For staff

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

WHY GO TO SEMINARS AND CONFERENCES? 2. For PhDs

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

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

THE ELEMENTS OF A GOOD PAPER AND PROPOSAL

CONFERENCE PAPERS SHOULD BE

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

FOCUS ON THE NEED TO KNOW CRITERION

Normal (written) form is: What do readers really need to know? Conference (presentation) form is: What does the audience really need to see on screen? What do listeners really need to have explained to them?

NEED TO KNOW IMPLICATIONS 1

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

NEED TO KNOW IMPLICATIONS 2

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

NEED TO KNOW IMPLICATIONS 3

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

TIME LIMITS FOR PRESENTATIONS

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

IMPLICATIONS FOR PROPOSALS

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

IMPLICATIONS FOR PROPOSALS (2)

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

Core argument/bottom-line findings should form centre-piece of the abstract Dont waste words on literature review or methodology

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

A GOOD PROPOSAL/ABSTRACT

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

GET SOME FEEDBACK

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

WHAT CAN GO WRONG ON THE DAY WITH AN OTHERWISE GOOD SEMINAR OR CONFERENCE PAPER

SCARY CONFERENCE VISION

- real life is more prosaic

BE PREPARED FOR A REALISTIC AUDIENCE SIZE

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

BE PREPARED FOR POSSIBLE PRESENTATION PROBLEMS

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

THINGS TO AVOID, IDEALLY:

- BEING INVISIBLE by never standing up - HAVE NO VISUALS AIDS unexciting - READING THE PAPER WORD FOR WORD

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

THINGS TO AVOID, contd.

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

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

RANDOM UNIVERSITY ROOM functional but depressing, no daylight, blackboard!

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

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

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

LARGE ROOM HAZARDS long thin room, audience obstructs each others view, no equipment for visual displays

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

SUBTLE HAZARDS - half the audience cant see the OHP, narrow tables, and uncomfortable seating arrangment

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

THINGS TO AIM FOR, IDEALLY

STAND UP, and use CLEAR, VARIED SLIDES for best feasible delivery

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

THINGS TO AIM FOR, contd

FOR LARGE AUDIENCES (just in case) think of the view from the back row

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

IDEAL SEMINAR ROOM central

display screen + OHP, wide tables, space for moving around, daylight or good lighting, smallish group

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

PRESENTING DATA

poorly

INDIVIDUAL AND BLOC INCENTIVES UNDER WEIGHTED VOTING *

START BADLY

Patrick Dunleavy and Rolf Hoijer

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

LSE Public Policy Group, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE

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

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

analysis, and his lonely faith in the value of other effective number indices, for which there has been little or no take-up in the existing literature. By contrast we believe that the wider effective number family has little to offer, and that continuing to use unmodified N2 in

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

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

(3)

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

Figure 7.1: How health boards compare

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

Trtmnt rates/pop Argyll & Clyde Ayrshire & Arran Border Dumfries & Galloway Fife Forth Valley Grampian Greater Glasgow Highland Lanarkshire Lothian Orkney Shetland Tayside Western Isles
1

33212.42 33200.32

72331.011 31699.21

22876.55 29748.33 27681.49 31827.222

33855.18 23909.83 31768.41 21727.37 28233.25 50259.21 30840.19

. 2.

Includes Berwick in 1997-98 only

Estimates only due to data problems

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

FIGURE 7.4: HOW HEALTH BOARDS COMPARE

80000

70000

60000

50000

40000

30000

20000

10000

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

10

11

12

13

14

15

T rtm nt ra te s /po p

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

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

i. Triads area

VERY LARGE TABLES

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

Description Bottom left cell Bottom right cell

Top right cell

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

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

Bloc sizes V2 V3 26 25 26 26 48 44 38 32 28 26 25 25 3 7 13 19 23 25

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

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

ii. Quinns area

Bloc sizes Description Bottom left cell Bottom right cell Blocs All 6 8 14 20 6 8 14 20 V1 17 31 29 23 17 24 23 20 17 V2-V4 17 17 17 24 23 20 17 V5 17 17 17 3 5 11 17 V1 1.18 0.65 0.69 0.87 1.18 0.69 0.76 1.0 1.18 Per capita SS scores V2-V4 1.18 1.18 1.18 0.69 0.76 1.0 1.18 V5 1.18 1.18 1.18 6.67 4.0 1.82 1.18 Diff 0 0.53 0.49 0.45 0 5.98 3.24 0.18 0

Top cell

iii. Sevens area

Description Bottom left cell Bottom right cell Top cell Blocs All 6 8 14 6 8 14 V1 13 21 15 13 16 14 13 Bloc sizes V2-V4 V5-V6 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 13 16 13 14 13 13 13 V7 13 13 13 13 9 11 13 V1 1.10 0.68 0.95 1.10 0.89 1.02 1.10 Per capita SS scores V2-V4 V5-V6 V7 1.10 1.10 1.10 1.10 1.10 1.10 1.10 1.10 1.10 1.10 1.10 0.89 1.10 1.59 1.02 1.10 1.30 1.10 1.10 1.10 Diff. 0 0.42 0.15 0 0.70 0.28 0

PRESENTING DATA

properly

STRONG EXPOSITION proper

display, visible fonts, speaker visible and using pointer for details

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

Formula for effective number of parties

Health boards

Treatment rates per 100,000 people

Border Tayside Highland Ayrshire and Arran Argyll and Clyde Lothian Greater Glasgow Dumfries and Galloway Western Isles Forth Valley Shetland Grampian Lanarkshire Fife Orkney Mean treatment rate

723 503 339 332 332 318 318 317 308 297 282 277 239 229 217 335

Upper outlier Upper outlier

Upper quartile

Figure 7.2: How Scotlands health boards compared in treating cataracts, 1998-9 financial year

Median

Lower quartile

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

Figure 1: How Scottish health boards treat cataracts, 1999-2000

Border Tayside Highland Ayrshire and Arran Argyll and Clyde Lothian Greater Glasgow Dumfries and Galloway Western Isles Forth Valley Shetland Grampian Lanarkshire Fife Orkney 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

Cataract treatment rates per 100,000 people