Matthew Wolf-Meyer Professionalization

Preparing for Conference Presentations (and what happens next)

There’s a genre to AAA presentations — like for all conferences — and there’s pragmatic reasons for the genre. Basically, it goes like this:

1) A paragraph long anecdote from your fieldwork
2) The presentation of your argument and brief mention of relevant literature
3) Case #1 to explicate your argument — something ethnographically rich, but no longer than one and a half or two pages
4) Case #2, as above
5) Conclusion, including a recapitulation of your argument

Anthropologists love their introductory anecdote — especially one that presents a conundrum or puzzle. This should lead pretty naturally into your argument, so you should pick something that has a logical relation to your thesis. If you’re coming from a different disciplinary background — or are an anthropologist going to a conference in a different field — the format may differ slightly, but, generally, leading with one’s evidence is a strong way to approach a paper. If you can lead in with a quandary of some sort, it tends to pique audience member’s attention; if you start with some dry theoretical debate, chances are you’re going to lose everyone in the audience who isn’t particularly invested in that debate…

Your argument should be rather straightforward — don’t give people too much to think about: just one idea will do. Remember, your paper is only 7-8 pages long, and thoroughly explaining one idea will take up that space quickly. Your mention of relevant literature can be quite short — just a couple names will do, if that. Assume that your audience knows the genealogy of your argument, unless it originates from some other, uncommon source. But even if that’s the case, keep your discussion of sources rather short — interested audience members can always ask you about it later or look it up online. You’re there to present your ideas, not someone else’s.

I may be alone in this, but most of what I remember from past AAA presentations are the empirical cases that people present in their papers. They don’t need to be especially long, but they should be good ones — you want your audience remembering what you do and what your research is based on. If you have a website — either a personal one or one hosted by your university or academia.edu — make sure that the keywords that people might take away from a presentation are reflected in that website. I often remember what people talk about, sometimes their institutions, and rarely their full names. Years later, when I try and look someone up, those are pretty much the keywords I plug into Google. You want to make sure that your conference keywords are the keywords that will bring people to your work. That might seem commonsensical, but it’s important to keep in mind that there is often drift between how one presents oneself online and in person (and his or her research) and what has been presented in the past. Keep your metadata fresh, but also make sure it reflects what you’ve done historically.

If your panel has a discussant (or two), please be kind to them. Usually discussants will ask for papers by a specific date; be respectful of that deadline. Yes, things come up, and sure, there can be delays. But your discussant is probably counting on those kinds of things happening in her or his life too. So a rough draft of a paper is better than no paper or a late paper. Also: sending things like the whole chapter that the presentation is going to be carved out of or a published article that you plan on basing your presentation on are not appropriate things to do. Yes, you’re busy, but so is your discussant (presumably, that’s what he or she is your discussant, after all). Trying to guess what your presentation is going to be — based on too much or the wrong information — isn’t going to lead to a very good discussion. And, it’s likely to just mean that your presentation isn’t going to be included in any formal remarks about the panel. That can be okay: some discussants are great at winging it and might be able to fit in a discussion of your paper based on what they hear. Rather than burden your discussant with a guessing game, you can always just make the suggestion that you’d be happy to have more freewheeling comments based on the presentation you eventually give.

If a panel goes especially well, panel organizers often get the idea that it could become something more, and conference presentations sometimes get spun into articles or book chapters in edited collections. That can be a fine afterlife for a conference presentation, with the caveat that guest-edited journal issues can sometimes be treacherous, and edited collections are sometimes not counted as peer-reviewed (which may or may not be important given your professional needs). For more on publishing strategies, look here.

Here’s an example of a paper (my AAA presentation from a panel in 2012) and the book chapter it eventually became. If you’re looking for other examples, you can always look up old presentations in conference proceedings and email the author to see if she or he will share the paper as presented. Some people (like me) keep this stuff for years…

Finally, be sure to keep in mind the recommendations for accessible presentations. Printing out copies of your talk can be helpful for many audience members, and ensuring that any visual component is high contrast (e.g. having a white or black background with the opposite colored text) helps people make sense of what they see.

Matthew Wolf-Meyer Professionalization

Writing Job Letters & my Sample Job Letter with Commentary

As always, these are generic guidelines — depending on where you’re applying and what your committee says, you might need to tweak these suggestions.
Keep your job letter short — 2 pages, 12 point font, single-spaced. You’ll want to include much more, but the goal is to get an invitation for a campus visit. So, to get there, give your reader some interesting things to think about, index that you’re a potentially interesting colleague, and leave them wanting more — if you tell them too much, you run the risk of people feeling like they already know all there is to know about you…
The form is pretty generic:
1)   Address the job you’re applying for and give a sense of your interests & training
2)   Give a 1 paragraph summary of your dissertation
3)   Give a 1 paragraph summary of your next project and how it relates to your dissertation
4)   Write about your teaching interests & pedagogy in 1 paragraph
5)   Write about your broad research interests in 1 paragraph
6)   Close by addressing possible synergies between you and the department you’re applying to — show that you know something about the faculty as potential colleagues, but don’t overdo it.
The best job letters are anxiety-free. That might seem difficult, but if you write about what you know and your strengths, that will help to minimize any textual stress…
You can see a copy of my sample job letter with commentary here:
Matthew Wolf-Meyer Professionalization

Composing a CV & my Sample CV with Comments

Curriculum vita can be complicated things… they need to capture as much of your history as you can fit, without bogging down your reader with unnecessary details. Your committee might have insights on how to order your CV based on its content, but all CVs seem to include the following sections (with some variations in subsections):
1)   Your training, including your prior and current professional positions (if you’re employed), your educational background, your research interests, and your fellowships & awards (although this last section sometimes gets moved elsewhere)
2)   Your publications, including any peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed publications, including book reviews, as well as work that you currently have in process.
3)   Your teaching experiences, which can include both courses that you’ve taught as well as classes that you’ve TAed for.
4)   Your conference activities, including presentations that you’ve given and panels that you’ve helped to organize.
5)   Your professional service, including any activities related to the discipline, department, or university.
6)   Some people also include a section on their research experiences; this is probably only important if you’ve conducted research that isn’t reflected in your publications or interests.
How you order your CV is up to you, but its arrangement conveys implicit messages to your reader. For instance, if you’re applying for a position at a liberal arts institution, you might foreground your teaching experiences; if you’re applying for a position at a research university, you might foreground your awards and publications.
The content on your CV should be listed in reverse order, with the most recent stuff first, and oldest stuff last.
You can check out a copy of my 2011 CV here: