The Bluegrass Music Symposium
PRESENTATION GUIDELINES
These guidelines are intended for presenters whose proposals have been approved by the Program Committee. The roster of presentations is complete, and no further proposals can be considered at this time.
AUDIOVISUAL REQUIREMENTS
(IMPORTANT -- PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!)
Based on observation of other conferences and an inventory of our equipment, our AV Committee has outlined the following requirements: In order to have the symposium run smoothly, we will use a single computer and projector combination, with the presentations loaded in appropriate program order. Computers and/or projectors belonging to individual presenters will not be used.
To facilitate this, please submit your PowerPoint and any other media on a Mac or PC CD/DVD by Friday, 12 August 2005. Our set-up can handle PowerPoint (for Windows or Mac), and Keynote (for Mac). Your CD/DVD will be loaded into a Mac or PC computer in appropriate program order. Media received after Friday 12 August 2005 cannot be guaranteed to be available for you to make your presentation.
Please refer any AV questions to our technical advisor, Professor Chris Antonsen, at chris.antonsen@wku.edu.
GENERAL GUIDELINES AND SUGGESTIONS
(A few notes for those who are not familiar with the customs and courtesies of academic conferences)
The schedule for this conference is very full! The smooth running of the whole program demands that sessions remain on schedule. Papers are limited to 20 minutes. The chair of the session will hold you to this length, and cut you off if you go over. (The chair should function like the stage manager from hell in this regard.) Please focus your a topic so that it can be addressed meaningfully within this time limit, and plan to rehearse it in full beforehand, AV elements and all, a day or so before the conference. (Don’t just plan to talk fast.) Bring or borrow a watch, and consult it during your talk. Sessions will be organized with time for the audience to address questions to the presenter.
Conference presentations themselves tend to be on the formal side, with the expectation that the presenter is not just talking “off the cuff” but reading from a prepared manuscript. This doesn’t mean that the presentation can’t be funny or include improvised asides or comments (though watch your time if you digress) -- indeed, the audience will be grateful if you make good eye contact, entertain them as well as educate them, and behave as though you were enjoying the experience and not doing it under threat of torture. Conference presentation is a specialized form of performance, and holding your audience’s interest is an essential element in your success.
Please bring an extra copy of your presentation for the Western Kentucky University Folklife Archive, as a record of this event. Experienced presenters at an academic conference often bring a few extra copies of their papers ready to give members of the audience who request it. These are understood to be “reading copies”; not prepared for publication, although the author may intend to revise for publication eventually. Sometimes you will see a line at the top: READING COPY: NOT FOR REPRINT OR QUOTATION WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION. (Please respect this.) Representatives from several presses publishing works on bluegrass will be attending the meeting. They will have books for sale, but will also be on the look-out for possible future contributors to their catalog. If they express interest in your presentation, having a copy of your paper ready to hand them with appropriate contact information is an excellent introduction. (By the way, several presses have indicated that they would consider publishing a collection of the best articles presented at the symposium -- something to keep in mind as you prepare your proposal and presentation.) Even if you don’t choose to bring copies of your paper for audience members, don’’t forget to bring your business cards.
It is understood that your proposal and presentation represent original work, presented for the first time to the conference audience. It should not be, for example, a paper you’ve given elsewhere, an abridgment of your most recent book, or a summary of someone else’s work. If you have questions about this, please get in touch with Erika Brady.
Cancellation
Life happens. If it should become necessary for you to pull out of the conference after your paper has been accepted, please inform the organizers as soon as possible so that the program can be rearranged. But do consider this a professional commitment, and honor it to the best of your ability.