If you plan to take pursue a higher degree or work in academia, you will most likely write a conference paper. This is a kind of research paper that is presented at a conference with a specific focus and for a specific community. You can find examples of calls for conference papers on many university websites (here is an example of a call for papers for conferences regarding gender studies from UPENN).The conferences that we’re focusing all have an academic focus, but they are widespread—for example, there is a meeting of scholars that present research at Comic Con in San Diego.

For your conference paper, you will do a critical analysis of a text, image, film, body of work, that is of interest to you and that you feel is relevant today.

You will complete two small writing assignments leading up to your conference paper: a proposal and a literature review.

Your proposal will be 1-2 pages in which you state your topic and why you chose it, what the thesis of your paper will be, how you plan to conduct your research, and what you hope to achieve through this research. Imagine that you are proposing this topic to the people who are putting together the conference you’re writing this paper for.

For your literature review, you will find 3 sources on your topic, read them carefully, and write 2-3 pages describing the thesis or “point” of the text, how effective you believe the text is, and how it will relate to your own paper. Try to tie the articles together in some way (maybe they all come together to create a common argument, maybe there is a more specific facet of the topic they all focus on, maybe they all have similar rhetoric). Also try to avoid using the first sources that you find and use the ones that will be the most useful to your paper as a whole.

Your final conference paper will be approximately 8 pages. They are meant to be read aloud, so while they are still formal, they should also present research in an entertaining way. You can assume that your audience already has a knowledge of your subject, so you don’t have to do a lot of explanation of terms. Part of this paper will be a shorter version of your literature review (no more than 2 pages), and the rest will be your own addition to the conversations that are happening around your topic. At the end of your paper, you should inform the audience if you plan on doing more research, if you think there are any places in the research that need more attention, and any questions that came up for you while you were researching.

There will be a round of first drafts, peer review, and individual conferences before your final paper is due.

Proposal: due 4/2

Literature Review: due 4/14

First draft: due 4/28

Final draft: due 5/5