The Pipeline to Publication

Here is a useful suggestion published in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Chronicle Careers: 12/5/2006: The Pipeline to Publication

I have been doing fewer and fewer "proposed" conference presentations because I'm too busy with other kinds of presentations and committee work, but I still do one or two proposed presentations each year.

The call for papers and conference proposal serve as one of the motivating forces to develop new projects and to refine my research ideas.

If it's an empirical research, I often present the whole study in one presentation, although it's possible to develop multiple presentations focusing on different aspects of the study, especially for bigger projects. I might also develop separate presentations focusing on the theory part of the study or the exploration of the critical issues that led up to the study.

In the presentation, I try to focus on two or three major findings and implications. Other than that, I try to limit my presentation to the most essential information--why the project is important to the field (which include a mention of a few key sources), essential features of the method, main findings and a few supporting evidence from the study, and a quick discussion of implications. Anything I didn't discuss can be dealt with during the discussion at the end.

When I present my theoretical and historical work, I try not to present everything because of the time limitation. I might do an overall sketch of the main argument with a focus on the implications, or I would take a segment of the project and discuss its implications. For this reason, the resulting theoretical/historical articles are usually syntheses of bits and pieces of arguments that I present in different presentations.

In any case, I try to make my presentation argument-driven, using data to provide examples to support or illustrate my claims.

And I don't necessarily develop all the arguments at once. I develop different parts of a project here and there depending on the most pertinent issues in the field and the audience. Some of the ideas that I am using for a book chapter I am writing came from two separate presentations I did this year, but one of the main arguments--my primary agenda for the project--evolved from a discussion I had after my TESOL session in the late 1990s and a conversation I had with a colleague at a recent conference.

It's helpful to get feedback from the audience, but it's the conversation I have with people afterwards--during the questions as well as conversations I have with people in the hallway, coffee shops, book exhibits, etc., that really helps me see what the issues are, how I might conceive of my audience, and what I want to communicate to them in a public forum.