ASCS (35) 2014 – First Call for Papers

ASCS 35 (2014) is to be held at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand, from Tuesday 28th to Thursday 30th January 2014. The conference convenor is Dr Gina Salapata (G.Salapata @massey.ac.nz). Further details will be placed from time to time on the ASCS website.

Deadline for Offers of Papers and Review Procedure

The deadline for the offer of papers is Saturday 31st August 2013. Any offers which come in after that date unfortunately will have to be rejected.

The following requirements will be in place again for this conference. Only one offer will be accepted from any one person. Those attending the conference (and offering a paper) must be ASCS members; if you are not a member and wish to join in order to attend ASCS 35, you can find a membership application form here. Scholars from countries other than Australia and New Zealand will not be required to become ASCS members.

An alternative to offering a paper, particularly for postgraduate students, is a ‘poster presentation’, and we would be interested in hearing from anyone who would like to present using this format.

All offers of papers will be reviewed (anonymously) by a conference program review committee. Its task is to make recommendations to the Conference Convenor about the suitability (or not) of the papers offered.

Emeritus Professor John Davidson has been appointed Chair of the review committee. In coming weeks, ASCS will issue a call for expressions of interest from ASCS members to serve on this committee with him. In consultation with other senior ASCS members, he will form a group which can assess the abstracts across the wide range of the topics which the ASCS conference traditionally attracts.

Bruce Marshall, along with the ASCS Secretary Kathryn Welch, will co-ordinate the committee but neither will be a member of it. If you have any questions about the procedure for submitting an abstract, please send them to Bruce (brucemar@hinet.net.au).

Abstracts

Offers of papers should be accompanied by an abstract of 200-250 words.

Abstracts over the limit will be returned to the person making the offer to be reworded to fit the maximum and delays in conforming to this limit could lead to the rejection of the offer. On the other hand, abstracts should not be so short that the review committee will not get the real gist of what you want to argue. Advice on what should be contained in an abstract is given below as a guide, particularly for those with less experience in offering conference papers.

All papers will be 20 minutes in length, to be followed by 10 minutes of discussion.

Offers of papers and abstracts, or of poster presentations, or interest in offering a paper, panels and other presentations etc. should be sent to Bruce Marshall (brucemar@hinet.net.au) and to Kathryn Welch (kathryn.welch@sydney.edu.au). There is no special form – all that is needed is the title, your university or other affiliation, and the abstract of your paper or summary of your proposal.

Content of Abstracts

The abstract should contain the following information:

• a clear initial statement of purpose;
• a brief explanation of the abstract's relationship to the previous literature on the topic, including some brief citations of, or reference to, any important literature;
• a summary of the argumentation;
• some examples to be used in the argumentation (this step could be left out if the word limit is affected);
• do NOT include a separate bibliography; simply include references in a short style within the abstract itself, e.g. “Smith (2012) argues ...”

The abstract should make it clear that the paper is suitable for oral presentation within the time limit (maximum time is 20 minutes).

Withdrawal of Offers

To avoid disruption to the draft program (and to preserve the convenors’ sanity) by last- minute withdrawals at the last minute, please note the following requirements:

• No offer of a paper will be accepted finally until the conference registration fee has been paid.
• Refund of the registration fee will be available up to one month before the conference (less an administrative fee).
• There will be no refund of the registration fee for a withdrawal from the conference (except in the case of illness or serious misadventure) in the month before the conference.

Please therefore only submit an offer if you are going to be able to complete and present the paper. Withdrawal of an offer because you didn’t finish writing it in time is not considered a case of “misadventure” (just bad management)!

Sample Abstracts

Below are listed some websites containing abstract guidelines, which may be particularly useful for those submitting an offer and abstract for the first time.

The APA website:
http://apaclassics.org/index.php/annual_meeting/program_guide_details/types_of_submissions_and_related_instructions/

Here is an excellent site for postgraduates with step-by-step advice for those who are writing an abstract for the first time (from a Classical point of view):

http://lizgloyn.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/how-to-write-a-conference-abstract/