CFP: Conference Proposal

Hey all.  I hope you had a great Thanksgiving break and are ready for the final stretch.  Last week, coming up! I wanted to post the brief guidelines for the conference proposal that we discussed in class for your reference.

First, remember that conference proposals are not summaries of your work or work that you plan on doing.  A conference proposal is first and foremost an argument.  That is, you are trying to persuade a conference committee that your proposal/paper should be accepted to the conference.  Toward that end, the guidelines for your conference proposal emphasize important components of the argument you need to make.

Second, since many if not most conference proposals limit you to 250-750 words, you need to be both concise and strategic.  That is, since you have to be very economical in your writing, what you choose to put in your proposal should both explain your project and forward your argument.

So, without further delay, here’s the three components I want you to focus on in your proposals:

• Context/Issue.  In this part, what you are doing is attempting to situate and/or construct your reader.  Think of this part as first providing any needed context your reader might need to feel “comfortable” with your project.  By “comfortable” I don’t mean water down your project.  I mean that you want to make sure that your reader has enough of the “backstory” so he/she doesn’t get hung up on trying to figure out where you’re coming from.  This might mean sketching out a social/cultural/historical development that you are in conversation with.  It might mean introducing the conversation that your paper is entering.  Or, it might raise a series of questions to which your paper responds.
• Heart of your argument.  The second component is your opportunity to “pitch” your project.   This means making your argument–albeit in a very condensed form–not writing about “what you plan to do” or “ideas you have” or summarizing everything in your paper.  Since the person reading your proposal has some kind of investment in the conference being engaging, interesting, and “successful” he/she will be looking for arguments that are well thought through, pointed, and engaging.  The goal of this component is to make your argument “shine” and to pique the interest of the reader.  You do not need to make every aspect of your argument clear (quite difficult in so few words).  But it should be clear to the reader what motivates your project.
• Significance.  While we all strive for our writing to be significant in some broader sense, here your task is more narrow.  You need to make it clear why your specific project is significant to this specific conference.  This is where the CFP is your friend.  Most CFPs will do more than announce that there is a conference.  The CFP is likely to include suggestions for papers, key questions that the conference organizers are asking, the motivation or theme of the conference, and a wealth of other information.  The CFP basically provides you with a profile of the conference organizers and likely participants.  In this component, you should make it clear where your project (and why your project) fits in.   If relevant, you can also use language right from the CFP to show your project’s connection to the conference.  However, do not rely too heavily on the language of the CFP; you don’t want your readers to think that you are just kissing their butts to get your paper accepted.

I hope that is useful!  I look forward to class on Wednesday…I’ll bring the pizza.