The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Conference Papers

What this handout is about.

This handout outlines strategies for writing and presenting papers for academic conferences.

What’s special about conference papers?

Conference papers can be an effective way to try out new ideas, introduce your work to colleagues, and hone your research questions. Presenting at a conference is a great opportunity for gaining valuable feedback from a community of scholars and for increasing your professional stature in your field.

A conference paper is often both a written document and an oral presentation. You may be asked to submit a copy of your paper to a commentator before you present at the conference. Thus, your paper should follow the conventions for academic papers and oral presentations.

Preparing to write your conference paper

There are several factors to consider as you get started on your conference paper.

Determine the structure and style

How will you structure your presentation? This is an important question, because your presentation format will shape your written document. Some possibilities for your session include:

  • A visual presentation, including software such as PowerPoint or Prezi
  • A paper that you read aloud
  • A roundtable discussion

Presentations can be a combination of these styles. For example, you might read a paper aloud while displaying images. Following your paper, you might participate in an informal conversation with your fellow presenters.

You will also need to know how long your paper should be. Presentations are usually 15-20 minutes. A general rule of thumb is that one double-spaced page takes 2-2.5 minutes to read out loud. Thus an 8-10 page, double-spaced paper is often a good fit for a 15-20 minute presentation. Adhere to the time limit.  Make sure that your written paper conforms to the presentation constraints.

Consider the conventions of the conference and the structure of your session

It is important to meet the expectations of your conference audience. Have you been to an academic conference previously?  How were presentations structured? What kinds of presentations did you find most effective? What do you know about the particular conference you are planning to attend? Some professional organizations have their own rules and suggestions for writing and presenting for their conferences. Make sure to find out what they are and stick to them.

If you proposed a panel with other scholars, then you should already have a good idea of your panel’s expectations. However, if you submitted your paper individually and the conference organizers placed it on a panel with other papers, you will need additional information.

Will there be a commentator? Commentators, also called respondents or discussants, can be great additions to panels, since their job is to pull the papers together and pose questions. If there will be a commentator, be sure to know when they would like to have a copy of your paper. Observe this deadline.

You may also want to find out what your fellow presenters will be talking about. Will you circulate your papers among the other panelists prior to the conference? Will your papers address common themes? Will you discuss intersections with each other’s work after your individual presentations? How collaborative do you want your panel to be?

Analyze your audience

Knowing your audience is critical for any writing assignment, but conference papers are special because you will be physically interacting with them. Take a look at our handout on audience . Anticipating the needs of your listeners will help you write a conference paper that connects your specific research to their broader concerns in a compelling way.

What are the concerns of the conference?

You can identify these by revisiting the call for proposals and reviewing the mission statement or theme of the conference. What key words or concepts are repeated? How does your work relate to these larger research questions? If you choose to orient your paper toward one of these themes, make sure there is a genuine relationship. Superficial use of key terms can weaken your paper.

What are the primary concerns of the field?

How do you bridge the gap between your research and your field’s broader concerns? Finding these linkages is part of the brainstorming process. See our handout on brainstorming . If you are presenting at a conference that is within your primary field, you should be familiar with leading concerns and questions. If you will be attending an interdisciplinary conference or a conference outside of your field, or if you simply need to refresh your knowledge of what’s current in your discipline, you can:

  • Read recently published journals and books, including recent publications by the conference’s featured speakers
  • Talk to people who have been to the conference
  • Pay attention to questions about theory and method. What questions come up in the literature? What foundational texts should you be familiar with?
  • Review the initial research questions that inspired your project. Think about the big questions in the secondary literature of your field.
  • Try a free-writing exercise. Imagine that you are explaining your project to someone who is in your department, but is unfamiliar with your specific topic. What can you assume they already know? Where will you need to start in your explanation? How will you establish common ground?

Contextualizing your narrow research question within larger trends in the field will help you connect with your audience.  You might be really excited about a previously unknown nineteenth-century poet. But will your topic engage others?  You don’t want people to leave your presentation, thinking, “What was the point of that?” By carefully analyzing your audience and considering the concerns of the conference and the field, you can present a paper that will have your listeners thinking, “Wow! Why haven’t I heard about that obscure poet before? She is really important for understanding developments in Romantic poetry in the 1800s!”

Writing your conference paper

I have a really great research paper/manuscript/dissertation chapter on this same topic. Should I cut and paste?

Be careful here. Time constraints and the needs of your audience may require a tightly focused and limited message. To create a paper tailored to the conference, you might want to set everything aside and create a brand new document.  Don’t worry—you will still have that paper, manuscript, or chapter if you need it. But you will also benefit from taking a fresh look at your research.

Citing sources

Since your conference paper will be part of an oral presentation, there are special considerations for citations. You should observe the conventions of your discipline with regard to including citations in your written paper. However, you will also need to incorporate verbal cues to set your evidence and quotations off from your text when presenting. For example, you can say: “As Nietzsche said, quote, ‘And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you,’ end quote.” If you use multiple quotations in your paper, think about omitting the terms “quote” and “end quote,” as these can become repetitive. Instead, signal quotations through the inflection of your voice or with strategic pauses.

Organizing the paper

There are numerous ways to effectively organize your conference paper, but remember to have a focused message that fits the time constraints and meets the needs of your audience. You can begin by connecting your research to the audience’s concerns, then share a few examples/case studies from your research, and then, in conclusion, broaden the discussion back out to general issues in the field.

Don’t overwhelm or confuse your audience

You should limit the information that you present. Don’t attempt to summarize your entire dissertation in 10 pages. Instead, try selecting main points and provide examples to support those points. Alternatively, you might focus on one main idea or case study and use 2-4 examples to explain it.

Check for clarity in the text

One way to anticipate how your ideas will sound is to read your paper out loud. Reading out loud is an excellent proofreading technique and is a great way to check the clarity of your ideas; you are likely to hear problems that you didn’t notice in just scanning your draft.  Help listeners understand your ideas by making sure that subjects and verbs are clear and by avoiding unnecessarily complex sentences.

Include verbal cues in the text

Make liberal use of transitional phrases like however, therefore, and thus, as well as signpost words like first, next, etc.

If you have 5 main points, say so at the beginning and list those 5 ideas. Refer back to this structure frequently as you transition between sections (“Now, I will discuss my fourth point, the importance of plasma”).

Use a phrase like “I argue” to announce your thesis statement. Be sure that there is only one of these phrases—otherwise your audience will be confused about your central message.

Refer back to the structure, and signal moments where you are transitioning to a new topic: “I just talked about x, now I’m going to talk about y.”

I’ve written my conference paper, now what?

Now that you’ve drafted your conference paper, it’s time for the most important part—delivering it before an audience of scholars in your field!  Remember that writing the paper is only one half of what a conference paper entails. It is both a written text and a presentation.

With preparation, your presentation will be a success. Here are a few tips for an effective presentation. You can also see our handout on speeches .

Cues to yourself

Include helpful hints in your personal copy of the paper. You can remind yourself to pause, look up and make eye contact with your audience, or employ body language to enhance your message. If you are using a slideshow, you can indicate when to change slides. Increasing the font size to 14-16 pt. can make your paper easier to read.

Practice, practice, practice

When you practice, time yourself. Are you reading too fast? Are you enunciating clearly? Do you know how to pronounce all of the words in your paper? Record your talk and critically listen to yourself. Practice in front of friends and colleagues.

If you are using technology, familiarize yourself with it. Check and double-check your images. Remember, they are part of your presentation and should be proofread just like your paper.  Print a backup copy of your images and paper, and bring copies of your materials in multiple formats, just in case.  Be sure to check with the conference organizers about available technology.

Professionalism

The written text is only one aspect of the overall conference paper. The other is your presentation. This means that your audience will evaluate both your work and you! So remember to convey the appropriate level of professionalism.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Adler, Abby. 2010. “Talking the Talk: Tips on Giving a Successful Conference Presentation.” Psychological Science Agenda 24 (4).

Kerber, Linda K. 2008. “Conference Rules: How to Present a Scholarly Paper.” The Chronicle of Higher Education , March 21, 2008. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Conference-Rules-How-to/45734 .

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Words Doctorate

How to Write a Conference Paper

How to Write a Conference Paper

Table of contents

How to write a conference paper with innovation.

  • Write a Conference Paper with Precision
  • Write a Conference Paper for Peer-review

How to Write a Conference Paper with Worth the Presentation

  • Write a Conference Paper with an Appropriate Abstract
  • Write a Conference Paper with the Right Format

Before gaining insight into - how to write a conference paper , try to understand that conference papers are meant to get presented in front of a highly knowledgeable audience. This audience is well aware of the subject, yet looks forward to gaining added information or an innovative idea to enhance the current subject. To write a conference paper there are some key principles that you need to follow:

Write a conference paper - Words Doctorate

Note that every conference comprises of its predetermined criteria for the selection of research topic, formatting and presentation of the paper.

To write a conference you must understand the purpose, the discipline, and the format of the paper. Unlike any other research paper , a conference paper remains concise and absolute about the new idea or any innovative plan. You need to consider some brainstorming sessions for yourself to resolve a particular problem to build a new way of looking at a particular issue. While doing so, you must express your in-depth understanding and knowledge about the subject in a very precise manner. Moreover, it is also necessary that the audience that comprises your peers get the encouragement to evaluate your paper .

To gain an answer to how to write a conference paper?’ always remain focused on enhancing your innovative research approach, and express the same by following the steps as noted below:

Deal with a Common Topic -> Identify the Challenge/s -> Undergo Voracious Readings -> Brainstorm Yourself -> Find Solution/s to the Identified Challenge/s

By means of offering a unique and effective solution to your conference paper, you can add great relevance to the subject and this is something that gets highly acknowledged by scholars.

Write a Conference Paper with Precision

For a conference paper always create a draft. Try to construct the information around it. Avoid all kinds of repetitions and unnecessary information. Do not ever include any word or sentence that is irrelevant to the topic.

Your Introduction should be constructed as per the interest of the audience. There is no need for any reference to former research work. You are not supposed to elaborate on the ways you have attained the results. Just stay focused in explaining the Results that you have attained from your experiment. Conclude the conference paper with affirmations and possibilities for future research.

Write a conference paper by addressing the following aspects in a very precise and comprehensive manner:

Write a conference paper by addressing the following aspects - Words Doctorate

In the first paragraph of your paper, express the purpose of your presentation. Support it with relevant information and statistics. Explain the aim and objectives with great precision. Make sure that you give correct, valid and details about the database. Explain the results that you have attained while resolving the research issue. Express the relevance of your paper and determine its importance for future attention. In every step acknowledge the former researcher who guided you through the research process. In every step add your extended thought.

Be very precise and concrete, yet expressive in every sentence of your conference paper .

Write a Conference Paper for Peer-review

Since the conference paper gets presented to scholars, make sure that you maintain complete professionalism while making the presentation. There should be an adequate amount of clarity in your language and a comprehensive way of presenting every justification. When you write a conference paper, remain specific about supporting your logical sentences with in-text citations. Always explain the reasons to either support or reject the particular thought of the former researcher. Enlist the sources of the in-text citation in the Reference List.

While explaining your research context use transitional phrases, such as-

‘therefore’, ‘hence’, ‘consequently’, ‘moreover’, ‘meanwhile’, ‘however’, ‘therefore’.

Always prefer to address the systematic mode of explanation in a very step-by-step manner. Always use ordinals and signpost phrases, such as –

‘firstly’, secondly’, ‘next’, 'This essay critically examines', ‘The major issue…’, 'This essay is organised ...'.

Open debates for discussions and remain ready for feedbacks and rejections from your peers. If you are getting a notable amount of critical points of view, then consider your conference paper as a success. Gaining the attention of your peers adds relevance and significance to your conference paper. Always welcome and appreciate their ideologies and school of thinking.  

The conference papers are subject to deliver path-breaking ideas and thus the presence of such a paper should be very neatly structured. To bring the scholars to your presentation sessions, you must offer a very convincing Abstract. As the scholars will find the Abstract to be critical and interesting, they will prefer to find out what you are going to present. It is at this point that the presentation of your conference paper must remain strict to the standardised format, as mentioned in the letter of ‘Call for Papers. You can structure the format of your presentation in support of reading out your paper with visual presentations or make it a roundtable discussion.

Write a Conference Paper with an Appropriate Abstract

To get a rigid answer to the question- how to write a conference paper?’ you need to understand that a conference paper is a verbal presentation. This is the reason that the Abstract of a conference paper is saved for all those people who will attend the conference. In most of the conferences, the presentations of the conference papers are distributed in different rooms. The scholars are offered handouts or schedules, where the Abstract of papers will be presented. Specific information about the rooms and timings of every paper is noted in these handouts or schedules. After reading the Abstracts, the scholars decide to attend the respective presentations of the papers, which is complete as per their choices and preferences. This is the reason that the Abstract of a conference paper is much more than just an outline of the accomplished brainstormed conclusion attained by you. Your Abstract must comprise of the following specifications:

Write a Conference Paper with an Appropriate Abstract - Words Doctorate

Write a Conference Paper with the Right Format

To write a conference paper, the format of a conference paper must be organised in a very systematic way. The core inclusions in the format are:

Write a Conference Paper with the Right Format - Words Doctorate

Unlike any other research paper, write a conference paper in a very different format. There is no specific Introduction or Literature Review. The conference paper starts directly with the Purpose of the Paper, where you need to state the aims and objectives of the research. Then in a very short paragraph, state the research approach. The core concern of a conferment paper is the results that you attained. Present your results in coherence with the innovative conclusive proceeding. Offer recommendations and scopes for developing your thought in future.

Since you need to write a conference paper for a presentation of 20 to 30 minutes, it is necessary to include only information which can support the Purpose and Results of your research. However, always add the Acknowledgements, References, and Appendices to your conference paper and present them in case any scholar wants to have additions support to your statements.

Thus, the aforementioned points are effective in delivering a clear concept on how to write a conference paper?’. Follow the instructions and make a difference in the world of intellectual platforms.

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Conference Paper Format and Style Guidelines

June 23 2022 Thursday, June 23, 2022 Tips and Tricks

Matthieu Chartier, PhD.

Founder @ Fourwaves

There are many different ways to write a conference paper. Most journals have their own requirements around specific length, document type, and the font details of pieces being submitted for publishing.

However, there are certain details that are commonly found in conference papers. Most are brief in length, attempting to explain complex concepts using simple, concise language. They typically include the article’s purpose and objectives, research methods, findings/results, conclusions, and references. 

The information covered in a conference paper is closely-related to the oral presentation that the author is hoping to make at an academic conference. These papers are often written in a format that will “match” the oral presentation with a goal to communicate a research project and its main findings, and to solicit feedback and generate interest in the work being done.

This article will define a conference research paper and describe its purpose, formats, structure and provide tips on how to write the best conference research paper possible. 

What is a conference research paper?

A conference research paper is a piece of writing that an author submits to conference organizers. The papers offer a preview of the work the researcher wants to present to let others in their field know about it and solicit feedback that could generate ideas for improvement.

Scientific papers

These papers are submitted for review in advance of the conference. This process begins with a call-for-papers, when a conference organizing committee sends out an invitation to academics in hopes of generating multiple submissions of content to be presented at their event. These invitations can be sent via email or posted to a conference announcement website. Then, the organizing committee conducts a thorough review process to confirm the legitimacy of the work being submitted. Then, the work is either approved or rejected, and those accepted become part of the conference programme and the authors are scheduled to present at the conference .

When the event concludes, these conference papers are combined into a conference proceedings document that is often published and kept as a written record of the event. 

What is the best conference paper format?

The most commonly used conference paper formats start with a title page and abstract and go on to describe the research being conducted and the methodology being used. Conference papers should be well-structured and concise, free of grammatical errors with references formatted based on requirements set out in the call-for-papers.

How to structure a conference paper

Conference papers should be structured around the prime objectives of the research being conducted and the summary of its findings. Most conference papers start by introducing the purpose of the research, the methodology, the results of the study, and references of the sources used. 

Here are the elements that are typically included in a conference paper: 

The title page

The title page is used to identify the main pieces of information needed in order to identify and evaluate a conference paper. It includes the title of the paper, which should clearly identify the focus of the research being presented. The title page should also include the author’s name, credentials, the research institution they’re affiliated with, the submission date, and the name of the conference for which the paper is being submitted. 

While the exact format that the conference is looking for should be described in the call-for-papers sent out by event organizers, you can find templates for conference paper title pages online. Here is one example of an APA style title page you can reference. 

The abstract

Conference papers begin with an abstract. An abstract is a short summary of the prime objective of your research, your hypothesis, the way you plan to conduct the study, the results, and the conclusions. Most abstracts are one or two paragraphs and kept under 250 words, but it’s not always the case so it’s best to check the guidelines provided by the conference organizers. 

The research methodology

In order for conference organizers to review and evaluate a conference paper, they must understand the methods used by the researcher to conduct the study being presented. Include a section in your paper that clearly (but briefly) describes your methodology, including any dominant theories that the methods are based on. 

The results

Clearly outline the results of the study, drawing data-driven conclusions. Present the insights uncovered by the research and how they can be used to advance your field of study. This will generate interest from other researchers in your field, potentially leading to partnerships or funding opportunities down the road. 

Your research results should take up about one-third of your conference paper, so for a 10-page paper, this section should be no longer than 3.5 pages. Whenever possible, display quantitative results in table format to make it easy for readers to understand. 

The references

Most conferences will clearly outline the type of references they expect in their call-for-papers or advertisement soliciting research submissions. Follow these guidelines to reference the work used to inform your research. 

Most events will request APA, MLA or Chicago-style formatting, but be prepared to reference any of the common formats. As a general rule, APA is most often used in education, psychology and sciences, MLA is used in the humanities, and Chicago style is used in business, history and fine arts. 

Tips to write a conference paper

1. focus on the abstract.

The abstract is the first thing academics look at when evaluating a piece of research. If your paper is accepted, you will be presenting your work to a group of your peers, and this abstract is their preview to the information that will be discussed. You’ll want to make it clear, concise, and interesting to read. 

This is also what conference organizers use to categorize different streams of work within the conference, so it’s important that your focus and subject matter is clearly defined and easy to determine. This will ensure you’re placed alongside researchers with a related field of study. 

Begin your abstract by defining the problem you hoped to solve when you began your research. Then, describe how you went about studying that problem before presenting your research findings and how they help solve the problem. 

2. Create a logical flow

Before you start writing, take some time to create an outline that follows a logical, cohesive flow of information. Review your research and determine the most important things you want to share in your presentation, and create your outline based on this list. An outline will help you stay focused and organized, and will make creating the abstract a breeze. 

In your outline, you should also plan to include data points that back up your conclusions to make your paper strong and convincing. 

3. Be careful of length

Look into the structure of the conference and find out the length of the presentations. This is usually stated in the conference posting, but if not, you can use the following guidelines. Most conferences allot 10-20 minutes for each oral presentation, and each page of writing takes about 2 minutes to read. Based on these numbers, a conference paper should not exceed 10 pages. 

4. Follow the format guidelines

Conference organizing committees will most of the time set specific guidelines for researchers to follow in their submissions. These guidelines will include the preferred file type (.doc, .rtf. .pdf etc), the font type and size, the spacing, where they want the page numbers, the length of the abstract, reference format, and more.

This simplifies the review process by allowing the reviewers to focus solely on the paper content, rather than having to decipher references or look for specific pieces of information.

5. Read it out loud

To keep your conference paper short, it’s important that every word counts. To keep your paper free of fluff and unnecessary words, read it out loud to yourself and remove or revise anything that isn’t optimal.

Reading out loud will also help you confirm that the information you’re presenting is organized into a logical flow that builds up support for your overall argument. Sometimes words look good typed out on a screen, but they don’t sound convincing or appropriate when spoken out loud. Since this paper is an overview of the research you hope to present in an oral presentation at a conference, it should sound convincing when you read it aloud. 

6. Write for your audience

Remember that you are writing for academic researchers who are knowledgeable in your field. 

Academic writing uses a more formal tone than a blog or news article. It is free of personal opinions or anecdotes, and does not include any jargon, cliches, or slang. Academic writing maintains a clear focus on the main area of research, and every sentence should resonate with your audience of researchers. 

Every piece of data used in a piece of academic writing should be backed-up with data. Researchers reviewing your work expect to be presented with data-driven insights that can be quantifiably verified. 

Reference everything. Not only does this add weight and legitimacy to your work, but it also shows respect for the researchers who came before you.  

Useful resources for conference papers

There are many resources available to help you write and format your conference papers. These are often free, and easily-accessible online. Here are a few to check out:

Overleaf is an online LaTeX editor that provides known journals and conference paper formats. It is a helpful resource but can be difficult for those that are not very technical. 

A friend to all writers, Grammarly provides free editing and grammar checks through a simple AI-powered platform available through the web or on your mobile device. There are free or paid versions available, depending on the level of functionality you’re looking for. 

Evernote can simplify and organize your research by making it easy to collect and share notes, and keep them with you wherever you go. 

Citationsy is a relatively new application that automates the process of creating and formatting references. This can be a significant time saver and remove one of the less exciting elements of academic writing.

If you’re at the stage in your research where you’re ready to write a conference paper and apply to present at an academic conference, congratulations! This means you have conducted a significant amount of research and are ready to share it with your peers.

We hope you’ve found this article a good resource to help you write this paper. If there are any tips or pieces of information that we’ve missed, please let us know .

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Structure Your Paper

Learn how to structure your paper for publication. IEEE has put together some tips and best practices for what should be included in your conference paper.

Your paper title should be specific, concise, and descriptive. Avoid using unnecessary words such as “new” or “novel”. Include keywords that will help a reader find your paper.

Provide a concise summary of the research conducted. Include the conclusions reached and the potential implications of those conclusions. Your abstract should also:

  • consist of a single paragraph up to 250 words, with correct grammar and unambiguous terminology;
  • be self-contained with no abbreviations, footnotes, references, or mathematical equations;
  • highlight what is unique in your work;
  • include 3-5 keywords or phrases that describe the research, with any abbreviations clearly defined,  to help readers find your paper.

First Footnote

Funding footnote.

If the research reported in your paper was supported by a funding source, include the funder’s name and grant information in a footnote on the first page of the paper.

Human and animal research statements

For papers reporting on research involving human subjects or animals, complete and include one of the following human/animal research statements in a footnote on the first page of the paper:

  • Papers That Are Reporting on Human/Animal Research and Have Review Board Approval:   This work involved human subjects or animals in its research. Approval of all ethical and experimental procedures and protocols was granted by (Name of Review Board or Committee) (if provided under Application No. xx, and performed in line with the (Name of Specific Declaration (if applicable/provided)).
  • Papers That Are Reporting on Human/Animal Research and Are Exempt From Review Board Approval: This work involved human subjects or animals in its research. The author(s) confirm(s) that all human/animal subject research procedures and protocols are exempt from review board approval.

Refer to the IEEE’s policy on Research on Human and Animal Subjects .

Introduction

Help the reader understand why your research is important and what it is contributing to the field.

  • Start by giving the reader a brief overview of the current state of research in your subject area.
  • Progress to more detailed information on the specific topic of your research.
  • End with a description of the exact question or hypothesis that your paper will address.

Also state your motivation for doing your research and what it will contribute to the field.

Formulate your research question. It should include:

  • a detailed description of the question;
  • the methods you used to address the question;
  • the definitions of any relevant terminology;
  • any equations that contributed to your work.

The methods section should be described in enough detail for someone to replicate your work.

Results and Discussion

Show the results that you achieved in your work and offer an interpretation of those results. Acknowledge any limitations of your work and avoid exaggerating the importance of the results.

Summarize your key findings. Include important conclusions that can be drawn and further implications for the field. Discuss benefits or shortcomings of your work and suggest future areas for research.

Acknowledgments

You can recognize individuals who provided assistance with your work, but who do not meet the definition of authorship . The acknowledgments section is optional.

Provide citation information for all the previous publications referred to in your paper. Cite only those references that directly support your work.

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This resource provides a detailed overview of the common types of conference papers and sessions graduate students can expect, followed by pointers on presenting conference papers for an audience. 

Types of conference papers and sessions

Panel presentations are the most common form of presentation you will encounter in your graduate career. You will be one of three to four participants in a panel or session (the terminology varies depending on the organizers) and be given fifteen to twenty minutes to present your paper. This is often followed by a ten-minute question-and-answer session either immediately after your presentation or after all of the speakers are finished. It is up to the panel organizer to decide upon this framework. In the course of the question-and-answer session, you may also address and query the other panelists if you have questions yourself. Note that you can often propose a conference presentation by yourself and be sorted onto a panel by conference organizers, or you can propose a panel with a group of colleagues. Self-proposed panels typically have more closely related topics than conference-organized panels.

Roundtables feature an average of five to six speakers, each of whom gets the floor for approximately five to ten minutes to speak on their respective topics and/or subtopics. At times, papers from the speakers might be circulated in advance among the roundtable members or even prospective attendees.

Workshops feature one or a few organizers, who usually give a brief presentation but spend the majority of the time for the session facilitating an activity that attendees will do. Some common topics for these sessions typically include learning a technology or generating some content, such as teaching materials.

Lightning talks (or Ignite talks, or Pecha Kucha talks) are very short presentations where presenters' slide decks automatically advance after a few seconds; most individual talks are no longer than 5 minutes, and a lightning talk session typically invites 10 or more presenters to participate over the course of an hour or two rather than limiting the presenters like a panel presentation. A lightning talk session will sometimes be held as a sort of competition where attendees can vote for the best talk. 

SIGs (Special Interest Groups) are groups of scholars focused on a particular smaller topic within the purview of the larger conference. The structure of these sessions varies by conference and even by group, but in general they tend to be structured either more like a panel presentation, with presenters and leaders, or more like a roundtable, with several speakers and a particular meeting agenda. These styles resemble, respectively, a miniconference focusing on a particular topic and a committee meeting. 

Papers with respondents are structured around a speaker who gives an approximately thirty-minute paper and a respondent who contributes their own thoughts, objections, and further questions in the following fifteen minutes. Finally, the speaker gets that same amount of time to formulate their reply to the respondent.

Poster presentations ask participants to visually display their ideas on a research poster, which is typically displayed with other research posters in a specific area at a conference. The poster needs to be understandable on its own (without the author) as viewers sometimes look through the posters outside the bounds of the poster session, which is a scheduled period of time where poster authors stand with their posters and engage viewers in conversation about the work. Research posters have long tended to follow common templates for design, but in recent years some scholars have begun challenging these templates for improved usability (for example, the Better Poster campaign as described here  or the APA template based on the original, here.

You can read more about research posters on our resource here .

Presenting the conference paper

Aim to take less time than you are given! If your presentation slot is 15 minutes, aim for 13 or 14 when you practice. A little leeway and a slightly shorter presentation is a courtesy to your audience and to your fellow presenters, and will not at all imply that you are unprepared or unprofessional — in fact, being able to keep well within your allotted time is the mark of a good presenter.

Make sure you speak slowly and clearly, using accessibility aids if available such as a microphone or closed captioning on a slide deck. Many presenters have begun bringing accessibility copies of their talks, which are printed transcripts of the talk using a larger font for audience members who need them. It is also becoming increasingly common for presenters at conferences to share their slides and copies of their talk via a shortened link or QR code found on the bottom of the slides so that audiences may access them later or even while they are in your session.

The conventions for presentation differ based on field. Some fields tend toward reading papers aloud with very little audiovisual accompaniment; others use slide decks; others speak extemporaneously. You can find out more about typical practices in your field by attending conferences yourself and by asking mentors. Generally, you will be able to improve the accessibility of your presentation if you have a visual accompaniment and prepared remarks.

Even in fields where presenters tend to read papers verbatim, it is rarely a good idea to bring a paper from a class or another research paper you have written without editing it for an oral presentation. Seminar papers tend to be too long to read in 15 minutes, and often lead to graduate students surpassing their time limits. Moreover, research papers are meant to be read — they lack the kinds of repetition and simple sentence structure that are more beneficial to listeners. Finally, conference presentations do not serve the same purposes as most class papers — typically in a class, you're expected to show that you have understood the material, but at a conference, listeners are more interested in hearing what contributions you have that might help them in their own research. It's typical to move the bulk of your literature review to an appendix or another document so that you can discuss other scholarship in the area if it comes up in the Q&A, but during your presentation you're left free to focus on your own methods and findings. (Many presenters will even say: "I'm skipping a lot of [X material] for the sake of time, but I'm happy to discuss it later with anyone who's interested.")

Since you will present your paper orally, you may repeat important points and say more about the structure of the essay than a written submission to a journal (or a paper for your undergraduate or graduate courses) would require. This often means signposting orally when you are moving to a new section of the paper or when you are shifting to a new idea. The thesis of your paper should come early in your presentation to give listeners a clear understanding of what is to follow. At this point, you may also overview or forecast your paper and tell listeners how you will move from one argument to the next. It is generally advised to quickly summarize your important points in a bulleted list at the end of your presentation to remind everyone of the two or three most essential arguments or findings.

If you use a slide presentation, you may want to follow the guidelines presented in the OWL resource, Designing an Effective PowerPoint Presentation .

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  • How to cite a conference paper in APA Style

Citing a Conference Paper in APA Style | Format & Examples

Published on November 6, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on December 4, 2023.

The format for citing conference papers in APA Style depends on whether the paper has been published, and if so, in what format. Note that a separate format exists for citing dissertations . You can cite a conference paper easily by using our free APA Citation Generator .

To cite a paper that has been presented at a conference but not published, include the author’s name, the date of the conference, the title of the paper (italicized), “Paper presentation” in square brackets, the name and location of the conference, and a URL or DOI if available.

Cite a conference paper in APA Style now:

Table of contents, citing a conference paper published in a journal, citing a conference paper published in a book, frequently asked questions about apa style citations.

Conference papers are sometimes published in journals. To cite one of these, use the same format as you would for any journal article .

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writing a conference paper

Conference papers may also be collected in book form. In this case, you can cite one in the same way as you would cite a chapter from a book .

Include the DOI at the very end of the APA reference entry . If you’re using the 6th edition APA guidelines, the DOI is preceded by the label “doi:”. In the 7th edition , the DOI is preceded by ‘https://doi.org/’.

  • 6th edition: doi: 10.1177/0894439316660340
  • 7th edition: https://doi.org/ 10.1177/0894439316660340

APA citation example (7th edition)

Hawi, N. S., & Samaha, M. (2016). The relations among social media addiction, self-esteem, and life satisfaction in university students. Social Science Computer Review , 35 (5), 576–586. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439316660340

In an APA journal citation , if a DOI (digital object identifier) is available for an article, always include it.

If an article has no DOI, and you accessed it through a database or in print, just omit the DOI.

If an article has no DOI, and you accessed it through a website other than a database (for example, the journal’s own website), include a URL linking to the article.

The abbreviation “ et al. ” (meaning “and others”) is used to shorten APA in-text citations with three or more authors . Here’s how it works:

Only include the first author’s last name, followed by “et al.”, a comma and the year of publication, for example (Taylor et al., 2018).

You may include up to 20 authors in a reference list entry .

When an article has more than 20 authors, replace the names prior to the final listed author with an ellipsis, but do not omit the final author:

Davis, Y., Smith, J., Caulfield, F., Pullman, H., Carlisle, J., Donahue, S. D., James, F., O’Donnell, K., Singh, J., Johnson, L., Streefkerk, R., McCombes, S., Corrieri, L., Valck, X., Baldwin, F. M., Lorde, J., Wardell, K., Lao, W., Yang, P., . . . O’Brien, T. (2012).

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If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2023, December 04). Citing a Conference Paper in APA Style | Format & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved February 19, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/apa-examples/conference-paper/

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What Makes a Great Conference Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

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A conference paper is both a presentation and a paper. A scholar is invited or selected to present their research at a conference, and will prepare a paper to accompany that presentation. In some fields, conference papers are published as part of the conference proceedings, either before or after they are presented at the conference. In other fields, only abstracts are published in the conference proceedings. These abstracts help conference attendees decide which sessions to attend, which is especially important when there are concurrent sessions. Presenters may be asked to provide a copy of their conference paper to the person moderating their session, to help him/her facilitate discussion. Other times, writing a conference paper is simply an intermediate step for the author, with the final goal being the conference presentation. In these cases, the researcher will usually say they are "giving or presentation" or "giving a talk", rather than "presenting a paper".

Here we will go through the steps of putting together a great conference paper and presentation.

Step 1: Keep in mind the benefits of presenting at a conference

A major benefit of presenting at a conference is the opportunity to connect with people who work on similar topics. By presenting your work in progress, you can get feedback that helps identify and address shortcomings, and/or helps focus the overall research project. This feedback will help strengthen your work before it is submitted for publication through a rigorous peer-review process , and/or submitted for consideration by a thesis committee, selection committee, or tenure committee.

Therefore, one of the major goals of your conference presentation and paper should be to facilitate conversations with colleagues working in related areas. This may involve highlighting unexpected connections, or problems that you are still working through.

By presenting yourself and your work in a professional setting, you are introducing yourself to a room full of people who might be able to help you with your career goals. There will likely be people at the same career stage with insight to share, and people recruiting applicants for graduate school, post-doctoral positions, faculty positions, and other professional opportunities. A good conference presentation can easily cause them to seek you out for additional conversation.

Step 2: Know Your Audience

Think about why people have decided to attend your chosen conference, and your assigned session within the conference. This will help you decide what concepts you need to explain in detail, and what concepts your audience will already be familiar with. Time is almost always a major limitation for conference presentations, while space (and retaining the reader's interest) is a limitation for conference papers and abstracts. Do your absolute best to hit the "sweet spot" where your paper, presentation, and abstract seem familiar enough for your audience to take interest right away, yet novel enough for them to remain engaged.

While some conferences will cover a broad range of topics (e.g. genetics), your specific session will likely be more focused (e.g. genetic modification with CRISPR-Cas9). Know that your audience will have multiple opportunities to learn specifics about the topics that are common to your session, so you should focus on explaining aspects that are specific to your work.

Introduce your topic in a way that appeals to the broadest audience at your particular conference. For example, at a conference focusing on climate change, you might start with how CRISPR-Cas9 technology can be used to modify crop plants to better tolerate climate change. At a conference focusing on genetic diversity, you might start with how CRISPR-Cas9 technology can be used to better understand how specific genetic changes affect plant phenotypes.

Presenting your work so that it appeals to shared interests will help facilitate conversation.

Step 3: Plan for your time limit and your word limit

Conference presentations have very specific time limits, typically 10-20 minutes with a few minutes for questions from the audience. If you go over your allocated time, you will either lose you time for questions (and lose the opportunity to make useful connections), be interrupted by the moderator, steal time from other presenters who have worked hard to stay within the time limit, and/or cause the session to run overtime. None of these are good options. Be courteous and make every effort to stay within the time limit for your presentation.

For a conference paper, the consequences of going over the designated word limit are less dire. However, staying within the word limit for your paper will help you stay within the time limit for your presentation. In general, it takes 2 to 2.5 minutes to read one page of double-spaced text aloud at a reasonable pace.

Plan for the limited time and space. It is better to explain a few topics clearly than to explain many topics poorly.

Step 4: Focus on the big picture

In a 10-minute presentation, you can reasonably cover one big idea. For a 20-minute presentation, you might be able to cover two big ideas. Start with the "big picture", so that everyone can get a basic understanding of why your research is important. Then add enough detail so that people who are knowledgeable about your field can clearly see that you are also knowledgeable, that your study is well designed, and that your conclusions are based on solid evidence.

You may have a lot of results that you are excited to share. Do not share them all in your presentation. Instead, share some of your results with a reasonable amount of detail, then briefly summarize other exciting results in a concise list. This can help generate questions from the audience, and people who are interested in additional detail can easily find you to continue the conversation. After your session is over, stay near the front to see if anyone approaches you with questions. Chat with the other presenters or the moderator. Make sure that your email address is correct in the conference proceedings, and check your email during breaks.

Step 5: Use appropriate visual aids

Follow the conventions of your field for showing data, calculations, graphs, etc. Make sure that everything is clearly labeled, and expect some people to take pictures of your slides. (In some competitive fields, this unfortunately means that you may want to exclude a few key details until you are close to publication.) A good rule of thumb is to spend 1-2 minutes per slide, although this will depend on how much information is included in each slide.

Your slides should complement what you are saying, not repeat what you are saying. Essential labels must be included, but I otherwise recommend limiting the text. A brief title can indicate what is shown on the slide, while an additional line of text might highlight a key conclusion. A list of bullet points might also be appropriate. Use large font.

For scholars who are communicating in a second language (often English), the same rules apply. If you are nervous about the audience understanding you, use clearly labeled diagrams, graphs, and other visual aids to help convey the important points.

Visual aids can also help introduce the "big picture" to the broadest possible audience. It may be appropriate to use stock photos of glaciers, baby animals, hospital patients, etc. Many high-quality scientific images are also available to share through Creative Commons .

Step 6: Write, practice speaking, and revise

Start with an outline of what you want to cover in your allotted time. For a typical 10- to 15-minute presentation, it should be a short list. Also note how much time you expect to spend on each topic (e.g. 2 minutes for introduction, 2 minutes for methods, 4 minutes for results, 2 minutes for conclusions and future directions).

Once you have a basic outline, start writing. I recommend writing one section at a time, starting with the introduction or the section you feel most confident about. Sketch out your visual aids. When you have a few good paragraphs, practice reading aloud with your best "engaging speaker voice". Read with expression, emphasize the important concepts, point to your visual aids, and pause at appropriate times so the audience can digest what they heard.

After the first few readings, you will likely want to edit to improve flow. Once you feel moderately good about your delivery, time yourself. Consider the time limit for your presentation, and decide whether you are happy with your use of time. Revise as necessary. (You can also talk faster, but a top priority should be to deliver a clear presentation.) Repeat this process until you are reasonably happy with each section, and then with the overall presentation.

Next, practice with an audience. (Colleagues who will also be giving conference presentations are often a good choice.) Make eye contact. Be an engaging speaker. Time yourself. Listen to feedback from your audience about what was and wasn't clear, and revise again.

Putting together a great conference paper and presentation is a lot of work, but it is one of the best ways to connect with people who might be able to help you with your research and your career.

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Journal or Conference Paper: Planning Your Paper

Writing a technical paper can feel overwhelming, no matter what stage of your academic career you are in. It can be difficult to decide what content to include in your paper, what experiments are left to do, or even which section to start writing. Fortunately, starting the writing process by creating a plan can help you to stay focused and write your paper with intention. A plan is a detailed method or a series of actionable steps that will allow you to achieve your paper-writing goals.

Why does planning matter?

Developing a plan can help keep you focused so that you write to achieve your desired goals. Most importantly, planning–that is, thinking about the important steps surrounding the paper writing process–will lead to a well-focused paper. The planning process helps you think carefully about your audience, your goal(s), your paper’s purpose(s), and your personal objective(s). Planning helps break the daunting task of writing a paper into smaller, manageable chunks. If the process is started early enough, it can even help with planning the research – for example, by designing specific experiments to achieve your objective. All in all, planning is essential for writing your paper with intention.

Creating your own plan

There is no standard format or structure to a plan, and it will likely be an iterative process to develop one that works for you. One effective format is to have a running document with a list of planning questions and answers, and a to-do list for each subsection of your paper. Here, we break down a generic plan into its essential components:

Step 1: Identify your audience Every section of your paper should be written with your target audience in mind. Carefully identifying your audience is necessary to determine the level of background material needed to frame your problem and to focus your paper with a specific set of take-home messages. It is your job as the author to make your audience care about the problem you are addressing. Here are a few questions to help you identify your audience: 

  • Who reads the papers in the conference or journal you plan to submit to?
  • What will the audience know about your field?
  • Does your paper have more than one audience (for example, theoreticians and practitioners)?

Step 2: Define your purpose The purpose is what you want your audience to learn and/or do after reading your paper. Clearly determining the purpose of your paper before starting the writing process helps to effectively shape your paper by writing with the intention of achieving that purpose. Defining your purpose is closely related to identifying your audience, and you may have multiple purposes, each targeting a specific sub-group within your audience. For example, if you are developing a new algorithm with medical applications, you may want to convey the algorithmic novelty to a computer science audience, and the clinical applicability to a medical audience. To help define your purpose, think about what messages you want to convey and what you want your audience to do after reading your paper. Here are some example purposes:

  • Form new collaborations with other researchers in or outside of your discipline
  • Inspire applications of your work in the natural sciences and medicine
  • Popularize a new technique that you developed

Step 3: Answer the big picture questions The previous two steps should help to identify the main take-away messages of your paper. To effectively convey those messages, there are several big picture questions that your paper should clearly answer. Throughout the planning and writing processes, you should explicitly answer the following questions:

  • What is the motivation for your work?
  • What problem did you solve? OR What question did you answer?
  • How did you improve on the existing state of the art?
  • What should the audience remember about your solutions or results?
  • What evidence or data shows that your work solves the problem or answers the question?

You do not need to answer these questions in order, and you should continue to revisit and revise your answers to them during the planning and writing phases.

Steps 4 through n: break writing into small tasks the rest of the plan is up to you, and what remains is creating a systematic way to break the writing process down into smaller chunks. to help you get started, we’ve provided a paper-writing checklist (in the resources section below) that contains actionable items to help with planning and writing subsections of your paper. you do not need to complete every task on this checklist. rather, choose relevant tasks from this list, add your own, and order them in a way that makes sense to you., it is most important is to pick the tasks that are easiest for you to get started with. building momentum early on in the writing process can help you overcome writer’s block. here, we expand on a few of the tasks that are especially helpful with planning and getting started:.

  • Write a top-down outline down to bullet points: Write out the sections and subsection headers. List the work that is completed and remaining. Outline as deeply as possible, and update this outline throughout the writing process.
  • Write a TODO list for each section: Using your outline, create a TODO list for each section or subsection. Add deadlines and timelines for the items left to complete. This can help you plan your writing from start to finish. Having a TODO list created before you start each writing session may also eliminate the feelings of having too much to do or not knowing where to start.
  • Come up with a 30-second elevator pitch: Creating an elevator pitch is an effective exercise to concisely convey the purpose and takeaways of your paper. Succinctly describe your problem and its motivation, outline your method, and summarize your results. This will help in the writing process with structuring the key components of your paper, and will be useful when talking about your work with other researchers. 
  • Make hand-drawn figures: Drawing sketches of your figures can help you decide how you want sections of your paper to look and think carefully about your deliverables. For example, you can sketch graphs illustrating your results or didactic illustrations explaining your method.
  • Start with the paper section that is easiest for you to write : You do not need to write your paper from beginning to end. Starting with the section that is most familiar to you is an effective strategy for getting started. A common technique is to write the introduction and abstract last.
  • Dump your thoughts into a text file or onto a piece of paper : As you start to write, you may have thoughts that should go in the paper but not be sure where they belong. Write these at the bottom of your planning document, and come back to them later. You don’t want to forget these insights, but you also don’t want them to distract you.

After planning, start writing

After planning, you must eventually start writing. As you write each section of your paper, you may find the following articles helpful:

Abstract Paper: Introduction Paper: Methods (EE) Paper: Methods (CS) Paper: Results Paper: Discussion/Conclusion

Overcoming challenges

While writing each individual section or subsection, you may find yourself getting distracted or struggling with writer’s block. There are a myriad of possible ways to overcome writing struggles. Here are a few that we find particularly helpful:

Overcoming writer’s block:  Writer’s block is often caused by perfectionism. You may find yourself stuck thinking about the right words to use. Try setting a timer for 30 minutes and dumping all of your thoughts on paper. Do not stop, and do not edit. It is much easier to trim your text down than to get the perfect first paragraph.

Make a digital file cabinet: As you start writing your paper, you will inevitably read background material, including other papers or blog posts. Rather than trying to incorporate this information into your paper immediately, store them in your “digital file cabinet” and add a note about why this paper or information is useful.

Avoid context switching and distractions: Write for set amounts of time (for example, 2 hours per day). During these blocks, avoid checking email, Slack, or any other distractions. Try moving to a different location (for example, a library or coffee shop) and writing without internet access.

Resources and Annotated Examples

Paper-writing checklist.

Worksheet for helping to create your own paper-writing plan 66 KB

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10 tips for writing a great conference paper

writing a conference paper

The acceptances for conference papers at DesignCon 2015 went out recently, so here are a few tips for writing a great conference paper.

writing a conference paper

#1: Set the Context: Preface the need for and value of your topic but don’t make it sound like marketing materials and don’t allow it to become a major portion of your paper.

Be sure to introduce the context of your work. Remember that you're presenting this paper because you're the expert on the work being reported. Vanishingly few readers (and none of the ones you care about) will have the background to understand your work without a lot of background to bring them up to speed.

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So, introduce the general field of which your paper is a part. Then, introduce the practical problem your paper addresses. Carefully state the assumptions on which your work is based. Compare and contrast your approach to other approaches that have been taken. Don't dive into the details until this context has been carefully presented. As a rule of thumb, approximately 20% of the paper should be devoted to introducing the problem to be solved and the basic concepts used. #2: Provide Details Explain thoroughly, as if you were guiding experienced peers how to reproduce your efforts on their own. Use graphics.

#3: Keep the Math to a Dull Roar Our field depends on math, so almost all papers require some amount of math. However, the goal of the paper should be to present some ideas or information that can inform an engineer's judgement in his or her daily work. Perhaps unlike some academic settings, absolutely no one at DesignCon cares whether or not you can manipulate heavy duty mathematics.

What this means is that it's often necessary to simplify the mathematics to present the underlying concepts, even if the resulting treatment is not completely general or is maybe a bit simplistic. For example, maybe it would be best to solve the two-port case and leave the general matrix treatment as an exercise for the extremist. Maybe you should use a picture instead of a few equations.

This does not mean, however, that you can skip the derivation and go straight to the result. In most cases, the derivation is more important than the result, in that it is usually the derivation that presents the underlying ideas and information. A rule of thumb: If an equation, set at a normal type size, takes more than half a line, it's probably too long.

#4: Be mindful of tone This is not a journal paper, write it as if you were explaining the topic to an engineering colleague in your own company. It is fine to be informal, but please don’t be sloppy. Use a spelling and grammar checker. Or better yet, if grammar is not your thing, ask a friend or colleague to read it over. #5: Remember it’s a paper– not a group of slides Do not simply link your presentation slides (which you will need when you present your paper at the conference) together in a PDF document. The paper should be a stand alone document. It should not read like a printout of the slides from PowerPoint with speaker text included.

#6: Define every acronym/abbreviation Yes, do this. Why is it important? It makes your work more accessible to all members of the audience and clears up any ambiguity. For instance, is EM electromagnetic or electromigration? #7: Double and triple check for jargon Convert internal company jargon to words that appear in textbooks and dictionaries. Explain any highly specialized industry jargon. Make your paper accessible to those who are new to your topic, or whose first language is not English.

#8: Where you can, keep the language simple For example, use “method” instead of “methodology,” “on” instead of “upon,” “use” instead of “utilize.” #9: Try to use active verbs Be skeptical of constructions that use “is” “has” “was” (use a grammar checker to find and eliminate passive voice where possible)

#10: Start early so your paper will be done on time I know, this may be the toughest one. But, I always find that if I can “sleep on it,” the paper is improved the next day. Also, sometimes I don't feel like writing and that makes it twice as hard and half as good. Give yourself enough time to write, review, and proofread before the deadline. (The paper deadline for DesignCon 2015 is November 10, 2014.)

Good luck. We are looking forward to reading your papers. If you have questions or more advice, feel free to use the comments section below. If you are submitting a paper to DesignCon, access the speaker center here   for templates and directions on submission, etc. If you would like to see the accepted papers for DesignCon 2015, check out the schedule builder . Acknowledgement: Many thanks to the DesignCon 2015 Technical Program Committee members who helped contribute to this list, namely: Mike Steinberger, Brad Brim , and Ransom Stephens.

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How to write a conference paper

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Writing a strong conference paper can be a demanding task that requires significant time and resources. But before delving into that, it is necessary to know exactly what a conference paper is. A conference paper is an article presented at a conference. Like journal articles, conference papers (or sometimes only their abstracts) are usually peer-reviewed (by two or more referees) before being accepted for presentation at a conference venue.

This implies that a rejected paper will not make it to a conference. For this reason, it is very necessary to know how to write a conference paper that will scale all hurdles and thus get selected for presentation. The presentation is usually oral and can include visuals and software such as PowerPoint.  

For easier access to a larger audience, conference papers are sometimes later published in conference proceedings. A conference proceeding is a collection of papers published in an academic conference or workshop. In other words, it is a written compilation of papers presented by researchers to other researchers and the public at a conference. Conference proceedings are usually made available to the public in printed and electronic volumes, either before the conference is about to begin or just after it ends.

What is the ideal conference paper format?

Even though they tend to have a broad identical framework, conference paper formats can vary from one conference to another. However, some common sections you are likely to see in a typical conference paper include:

  • an abstract,
  • an introduction,
  • objectives,
  • a methods section,
  • results/findings,
  • discussion of findings,
  • conclusion/recommendations,
  • acknowledgments, and
  • references.

Some will also include subheadings such as problem statement, literature review, and funding footnote. The time allocated for oral presentation can vary as well but usually is not more than 30 minutes.

Importance of conferences

Attending conferences can be beneficial, especially for student researchers who are just getting started with their studies and aren’t quite ready to publish yet. Not only will a conference enable you to acquire new knowledge/insight, but it’s also an opportunity to network with other participants, including potential employers.

For paper presenters, it is an opportunity to get feedback on your research, for example by discussing with, asking, and taking questions from the audience. This can help you think of new ways to tinker with your paper for publication in a journal.

Below are some other reasons that make conferences useful.

  • They help publicize research efforts
  • They create avenues for cross-fertilization of ideas
  • They help add rigor to research
  • They are an opportunity to impress potential employers
  • They enrich your curriculum vitae
  • They are a salient consideration for many teaching positions
  • They encourage tourism

Tips for writing a strong conference paper

Study the conference organizer’s guidelines

The very first step to take before you start to write your conference paper is to check the conventions and paper submission guidelines of the conference organizer. Take note of the prescribed citation style or any other writing requirements and write accordingly.

Not adhering to such rules can lead to the rejection of your paper, even if it is of a very high standard. To get a clearer picture, you may also want to look at sample papers of previous proceedings of the conference you will be participating in.

Research the topic exhaustively

Conducting a thorough investigation of the selected topic should be another important consideration before you start to write your conference paper. This is because, when conducted efficiently, it helps provide the researcher with in-depth knowledge about all aspects of the topic, especially the research problem. It will also help in the formulation of the paper’s research questions, hypothesis, thesis statement, as well as the most suitable research methods to use, amongst other benefits. Needless to remind you that your investigation should be multi-dimensional rather than reliant on one source, e.g., the internet .

In a nutshell, a thorough investigation of your topic should not be taken for granted because it will help you to start and complete your conference paper in the strongest possible manner.

Plan your paper

Remember that you will be presenting your conference paper before an audience. So, it is vital to plan it carefully in terms of organization and format, according to the officially provided guidelines. Moreover, every presenter usually has just about 30 minutes or less to present his or her paper, so be sure to take this into cognizance as you plan. However, this limited oral presentation time does not necessarily imply that your paper should be very short because your presentation does not have to include every word in your paper but rather its key aspects.

How strong is your grammar?

At the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, the expectation is that your grammar (and reasoning ability) should be fairly sophisticated or polished enough for rigorous and complex work. If this is not the case, it is recommended that you try as much as you can to learn the rudiments of correct grammar (both written and spoken). Without a sound mastery of your writing language, you are bound to struggle in terms of writing a conference paper or other academic papers.

Craft a strong introduction

The Introduction is one of the most important parts of any writing and it’s no different in the case of a conference paper. The introduction sets the overall tone for the paper and can be presented in many ways. It can be kept short and simple with only a small description of the introductory contents or it can be long and elaborative.

Whether short or long, the introduction should be easy to understand and devoid of complex language or vocabulary. Note that some technical jargon peculiar to the topic or discipline should be an exception to this language use prescription and should be used whenever and wherever necessary. Being the first part of the paper, the introduction must be crafted in such a way as to attract and keep the reader.

Help the audience by including some examples

Even academic conference papers could use some examples, especially when a live audience is involved. Examples tend to make understanding easier for audiences, particularly those who are not well versed in the topic being presented. This is in contrast to abstract, complex reasoning that is often confusing.

Though conference papers have a broad identical framework, their format can vary from one conference to another. Like all other academic papers, it is not an easy task to write a conference paper. But if you stick to the conference organizer’s guidelines, conduct in-depth research, have a good mastery of English language, plan your paper well and adopt other measures mentioned above, you should be on your way to constructing a credible conference paper.

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Tips for Writing a Conference Paper

When you attend a conference, it is not always easy to prepare the paper you want to present. There are many factors to take into account, from the guidelines of the conference itself, to the audience you are addressing, and how to present it.

Today we talk about what you can do to write your paper and we recommend a guide where you can find much more information and tips.

What is a Conference Paper?

A conference paper usually consists of two separate documents:

  • The written document , where you describe the totality of the work or the research that has been done
  • The oral , where you present the most important points of your work.

Therefore, the preparation of both parts must be different and distinguished. Although the objective may be the same (show your ideas, your point of view or your discovery) the way of approaching it may show certain differences.

Factors to Consider

Before you start writing your paper, there are a number of factors to consider:

  • Conference guidelines : To know what you can write about, check what topics and guidelines the conference has. This will help you target your topic.
  • Think about the problem you want to solve . Once you have selected what you are going to talk about, you need to focus on what problem you want to talk about and what objective or solutions you present.
  • What would you like your presentation to look like? Think about the most appropriate way to present your work, you have a variety of ways to choose from (panel, visual presentation, a combination of both).
  • Don't forget the summary : here you will collect everything that needs to be known about your work so that interested people can find out quickly, and it will also help the conference itself to organize the sessions.

Once you have clarified all these factors, you can start writing your paper.

Tip: While you are writing, never lose sight of the purpose and objective of your paper, and always remember who you want it to be aimed at and write it accordingly.

Once written, what should I do?

When you have finished writing your paper, don't forget:

  • Include citations and references in the proper format.
  • Perform a peer review . This will help you validate your work, enrich it and find errors and mistakes that you would have a harder time finding yourself. Don't forget that the writing process can be a long one and that we are all human and can miss some mistakes. Resorting to a review of your work helps to prevent this.
  • Create a script for your oral presentation. As we have said before, your written work is not the same as the oral presentation you make of it. Try to show the most important points of your work in a dynamic way and never forget the time you have to do it. If you have doubts about how to make your presentation, there are a lot of templates and examples that can give you ideas on how to do it.

Remember to rehearse your presentation as many times as necessary until you feel confident with it. Don't be afraid to make changes if you think they will make your presentation better and more appropriate for your audience.

Learn about the Complete Guide to Writing a Conference Paper

writing a conference paper

At Orvium we understand that it is not always easy to write a conference paper and that there can be many details and phases that can make this process much longer.

For this reason, we have prepared a complete guide where you will find all the phases to writing your paper, as well as a series of steps and tips that will help you to do it more comfortably.

Download our free guide by simply clicking on the button below.

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Introduction

Most disciplines have conferences (also called meetings, symposia, colloquia, etc.) where there are opportunities to present research, with some having more formal options to submit papers (which resemble journal articles). Some disciplines, like computer science, have many conferences and place high importance on conference papers. This page will cover presenting your research at such conferences.

Note: If you are a graduate student, speak to your supervisor/advisor about expectations around conferences.

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Conference listings.

Major societies usually have at least one conference per year, with some having multiple (even hundreds) of topic-specific conferences.

See specific societies for their annual conferences. A few sites try to list conferences from across the world across multiple societies or organizations are below. Once you identify a conference, be sure to go to the conference's official web site.

  • Conference Listings (from Conference Management Software)
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Create a form in Word that users can complete or print

In Word, you can create a form that others can fill out and save or print.  To do this, you will start with baseline content in a document, potentially via a form template.  Then you can add content controls for elements such as check boxes, text boxes, date pickers, and drop-down lists. Optionally, these content controls can be linked to database information.  Following are the recommended action steps in sequence.  

Show the Developer tab

In Word, be sure you have the Developer tab displayed in the ribbon.  (See how here:  Show the developer tab .)

Open a template or a blank document on which to base the form

You can start with a template or just start from scratch with a blank document.

Start with a form template

Go to File > New .

In the  Search for online templates  field, type  Forms or the kind of form you want. Then press Enter .

In the displayed results, right-click any item, then select  Create. 

Start with a blank document 

Select Blank document .

Add content to the form

Go to the  Developer  tab Controls section where you can choose controls to add to your document or form. Hover over any icon therein to see what control type it represents. The various control types are described below. You can set properties on a control once it has been inserted.

To delete a content control, right-click it, then select Remove content control  in the pop-up menu. 

Note:  You can print a form that was created via content controls. However, the boxes around the content controls will not print.

Insert a text control

The rich text content control enables users to format text (e.g., bold, italic) and type multiple paragraphs. To limit these capabilities, use the plain text content control . 

Click or tap where you want to insert the control.

Rich text control button

To learn about setting specific properties on these controls, see Set or change properties for content controls .

Insert a picture control

A picture control is most often used for templates, but you can also add a picture control to a form.

Picture control button

Insert a building block control

Use a building block control  when you want users to choose a specific block of text. These are helpful when you need to add different boilerplate text depending on the document's specific purpose. You can create rich text content controls for each version of the boilerplate text, and then use a building block control as the container for the rich text content controls.

building block gallery control

Select Developer and content controls for the building block.

Developer tab showing content controls

Insert a combo box or a drop-down list

In a combo box, users can select from a list of choices that you provide or they can type in their own information. In a drop-down list, users can only select from the list of choices.

combo box button

Select the content control, and then select Properties .

To create a list of choices, select Add under Drop-Down List Properties .

Type a choice in Display Name , such as Yes , No , or Maybe .

Repeat this step until all of the choices are in the drop-down list.

Fill in any other properties that you want.

Note:  If you select the Contents cannot be edited check box, users won’t be able to click a choice.

Insert a date picker

Click or tap where you want to insert the date picker control.

Date picker button

Insert a check box

Click or tap where you want to insert the check box control.

Check box button

Use the legacy form controls

Legacy form controls are for compatibility with older versions of Word and consist of legacy form and Active X controls.

Click or tap where you want to insert a legacy control.

Legacy control button

Select the Legacy Form control or Active X Control that you want to include.

Set or change properties for content controls

Each content control has properties that you can set or change. For example, the Date Picker control offers options for the format you want to use to display the date.

Select the content control that you want to change.

Go to Developer > Properties .

Controls Properties  button

Change the properties that you want.

Add protection to a form

If you want to limit how much others can edit or format a form, use the Restrict Editing command:

Open the form that you want to lock or protect.

Select Developer > Restrict Editing .

Restrict editing button

After selecting restrictions, select Yes, Start Enforcing Protection .

Restrict editing panel

Advanced Tip:

If you want to protect only parts of the document, separate the document into sections and only protect the sections you want.

To do this, choose Select Sections in the Restrict Editing panel. For more info on sections, see Insert a section break .

Sections selector on Resrict sections panel

If the developer tab isn't displayed in the ribbon, see Show the Developer tab .

Open a template or use a blank document

To create a form in Word that others can fill out, start with a template or document and add content controls. Content controls include things like check boxes, text boxes, and drop-down lists. If you’re familiar with databases, these content controls can even be linked to data.

Go to File > New from Template .

New from template option

In Search, type form .

Double-click the template you want to use.

Select File > Save As , and pick a location to save the form.

In Save As , type a file name and then select Save .

Start with a blank document

Go to File > New Document .

New document option

Go to File > Save As .

Go to Developer , and then choose the controls that you want to add to the document or form. To remove a content control, select the control and press Delete. You can set Options on controls once inserted. From Options, you can add entry and exit macros to run when users interact with the controls, as well as list items for combo boxes, .

Adding content controls to your form

In the document, click or tap where you want to add a content control.

On Developer , select Text Box , Check Box , or Combo Box .

Developer tab with content controls

To set specific properties for the control, select Options , and set .

Repeat steps 1 through 3 for each control that you want to add.

Set options

Options let you set common settings, as well as control specific settings. Select a control and then select Options to set up or make changes.

Set common properties.

Select Macro to Run on lets you choose a recorded or custom macro to run on Entry or Exit from the field.

Bookmark Set a unique name or bookmark for each control.

Calculate on exit This forces Word to run or refresh any calculations, such as total price when the user exits the field.

Add Help Text Give hints or instructions for each field.

OK Saves settings and exits the panel.

Cancel Forgets changes and exits the panel.

Set specific properties for a Text box

Type Select form Regular text, Number, Date, Current Date, Current Time, or Calculation.

Default text sets optional instructional text that's displayed in the text box before the user types in the field. Set Text box enabled to allow the user to enter text into the field.

Maximum length sets the length of text that a user can enter. The default is Unlimited .

Text format can set whether text automatically formats to Uppercase , Lowercase , First capital, or Title case .

Text box enabled Lets the user enter text into a field. If there is default text, user text replaces it.

Set specific properties for a Check box .

Default Value Choose between Not checked or checked as default.

Checkbox size Set a size Exactly or Auto to change size as needed.

Check box enabled Lets the user check or clear the text box.

Set specific properties for a Combo box

Drop-down item Type in strings for the list box items. Press + or Enter to add an item to the list.

Items in drop-down list Shows your current list. Select an item and use the up or down arrows to change the order, Press - to remove a selected item.

Drop-down enabled Lets the user open the combo box and make selections.

Protect the form

Go to Developer > Protect Form .

Protect form button on the Developer tab

Note:  To unprotect the form and continue editing, select Protect Form again.

Save and close the form.

Test the form (optional)

If you want, you can test the form before you distribute it.

Protect the form.

Reopen the form, fill it out as the user would, and then save a copy.

Creating fillable forms isn’t available in Word for the web.

You can create the form with the desktop version of Word with the instructions in Create a fillable form .

When you save the document and reopen it in Word for the web, you’ll see the changes you made.

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NeurIPS 2023

Conference Dates: (In person) December 10 - December 16 

Homepage: https://neurips.cc/Conferences/2023/

Call For Papers 

Abstract submission deadline:  May 11, 2023 

Full paper submission (all authors must have an OpenReview profile when submitting) deadline: May 17, 2023 

Supplemental material submission deadline: May 24, 2023 

Author notification: Sep 21, 2023 

Camera-ready, poster, and video submission: to be announced

Submit at:   https://openreview.net/group?id=NeurIPS.cc/2023/Conference

The site will start accepting submissions on April 19, 2023 . 

Subscribe to these and other dates on the 2023 dates page .

The Thirty-Seventh Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023) is an interdisciplinary conference that brings together researchers in machine learning, neuroscience, statistics, optimization, computer vision, natural language processing, life sciences, natural sciences, social sciences, and other adjacent fields. We invite submissions presenting new and original research on topics including but not limited to the following:

  • Applications (e.g., vision, language, speech and audio)
  • Deep learning (e.g., architectures, generative models, optimization for deep networks)
  • Evaluation (e.g., methodology, meta studies, replicability and validity)
  • General machine learning (supervised, unsupervised, online, active, etc.)
  • Infrastructure (e.g., libraries, improved implementation and scalability, distributed solutions)
  • Machine learning for sciences (e.g. climate, health, life sciences, physics, social sciences)
  • Neuroscience and cognitive science (e.g., neural coding, brain-computer interfaces)
  • Optimization (e.g., convex and non-convex, stochastic, robust)
  • Probabilistic methods (e.g., variational inference, causal inference, Gaussian processes)
  • Reinforcement learning (e.g., decision and control, planning, hierarchical RL, robotics)
  • Social and economic aspects of machine learning (e.g., fairness, interpretability, human-AI interaction, privacy, safety, strategic behavior)
  • Theory (e.g., control theory, learning theory, algorithmic game theory)

Machine learning is a rapidly evolving field, and so we welcome interdisciplinary submissions that do not fit neatly into existing categories.

Authors are asked to confirm that their submissions accord with the NeurIPS code of conduct .

Formatting instructions:  All submissions must be in PDF format. Submissions are limited to nine content pages, including all figures and tables; additional pages containing references are allowed. You must format your submission using the NeurIPS 2023 LaTeX style file which includes a “preprint” option for non-anonymous preprints posted online. The maximum file size for submissions is 50MB. Submissions that violate the NeurIPS style (e.g., by decreasing margins or font sizes) or page limits may be rejected without further review. If your submission is accepted, you will be allowed an additional content page for the camera-ready version. Papers may be rejected without consideration of their merits if they fail to meet the submission requirements, as described in this document. 

Use of Large Language Models (LLMs): We welcome authors to use any tool that is suitable for preparing high-quality papers and research. However, we ask authors to keep in mind two important criteria. First, we expect papers to fully describe their methodology, and any tool that is important to that methodology, including the use of LLMs, should be described also. For example, authors should mention tools (including LLMs) that were used for data processing or filtering, visualization, facilitating or running experiments, and proving theorems. It may also be advisable to describe the use of LLMs in implementing the method (if this corresponds to an important, original, or non-standard component of the approach). Second, authors are responsible for the entire content of the paper, including all text and figures, so while authors are welcome to use any tool they wish for writing the paper, they must ensure that all text is correct and original.

Double-blind reviewing:  All submissions must be anonymized and may not contain any identifying information that may violate the double-blind reviewing policy.  This policy applies to any supplementary or linked material as well, including code.  If you are including links to any external material, it is your responsibility to guarantee anonymous browsing.  Please do not include acknowledgements at submission time. If you need to cite one of your own papers, you should do so with adequate anonymization to preserve double-blind reviewing.  For instance, write “In the previous work of Smith et al. [1]…” rather than “In our previous work [1]...”). If you need to cite one of your own papers that is in submission to NeurIPS and not available as a non-anonymous preprint, then include a copy of the cited anonymized submission in the supplementary material and write “Anonymous et al. [1] concurrently show...”).

OpenReview: We are using OpenReview to manage submissions. The reviews and author responses will not be public initially (but may be made public later, see below). As in previous years, submissions under review will be visible only to their assigned program committee. We will not be soliciting comments from the general public during the reviewing process. Anyone who plans to submit a paper as an author or a co-author will need to create (or update) their OpenReview profile by the full paper submission deadline. Your OpenReview profile can be edited by logging in and clicking on your name in  https://openreview.net/ . This takes you to a URL "https://openreview.net/profile?id=~[Firstname]_[Lastname][n]" where the last part is your profile name, e.g., ~Wei_Zhang1. The OpenReview profiles must be up to date, with all publications by the authors, and their current affiliations. The easiest way to import publications is through DBLP but it is not required, see  FAQ . Submissions without updated OpenReview profiles will be desk rejected. The information entered in the profile is critical for ensuring that conflicts of interest  and reviewer matching are handled properly. Because of the rapid growth of NeurIPS, we request that all authors help with reviewing papers, if asked to do so.  We need everyone’s help in maintaining the high scientific quality of NeurIPS.  

Abstract Submission: There is a mandatory abstract submission deadline on May 11, 2023 01:00 PM PDT, six days before full paper submissions are due. While it will be possible to edit the title and abstract until the full paper submission deadline, submissions with “placeholder” abstracts that are rewritten for the full submission risk being removed without consideration. This includes titles and abstracts that either provide little or no semantic information (e.g., "We provide a new semi-supervised learning method.") or describe a substantively different claimed contribution.  The author list cannot be changed after the abstract deadline. After that, authors may be reordered, but any additions or removals must be justified in writing and approved on a case-by-case basis by the program chairs only in exceptional circumstances. 

Supplementary material:  Authors may submit up to 100MB of supplementary material, such as appendices, proofs, derivations, data, or source code; all supplementary materials must be in PDF or ZIP format. Supplementary material should be material created by the authors that directly supports the submission content. Like submissions, supplementary material must be anonymized. Looking at supplementary material is at the discretion of the reviewers. The deadline for supplementary material is one week after the main paper.

We encourage authors to upload their code and data as part of their supplementary material in order to help reviewers assess the quality of the work. Check the policy as well as code submission guidelines and templates for further details.

Ethics review:  Reviewers and ACs may flag submissions for ethics review . Flagged submissions will be sent to an ethics review committee for comments. Comments from ethics reviewers will be considered by the primary reviewers and AC as part of their deliberation. They will also be visible to authors, who will have an opportunity to respond.  Ethics reviewers do not have the authority to reject papers, but in extreme cases papers may be rejected by the program chairs on ethical grounds, regardless of scientific quality or contribution.   

Paper checklist: In order to improve the rigor and transparency of research submitted to and published at NeurIPS, authors are required to complete a paper checklist . The paper checklist is intended to help authors reflect on a wide variety of issues relating to responsible machine learning research, including reproducibility, transparency, research ethics, and societal impact. The checklist does not count towards the page limit and will be entered in OpenReview.

Preprints:  The existence of non-anonymous preprints (on arXiv or other online repositories, personal websites, social media) will not result in rejection. If you choose to use the NeurIPS style for the preprint version, you must use the “preprint” option rather than the “final” option. Reviewers will be instructed not to actively look for such preprints, but encountering them will not constitute a conflict of interest. Authors may submit anonymized work to NeurIPS that is already available as a preprint (e.g., on arXiv) without citing it. Note that public versions of the submission should not say "Under review at NeurIPS" or similar.

Dual submissions:  Submissions that are substantially similar to papers that the authors have previously published or submitted in parallel to other peer-reviewed venues with proceedings or journals may not be submitted to NeurIPS. Papers previously presented at workshops are permitted, so long as they did not appear in a conference proceedings (e.g., CVPRW proceedings), a journal or a book.  NeurIPS coordinates with other conferences to identify dual submissions.  The NeurIPS policy on dual submissions applies for the entire duration of the reviewing process.  Slicing contributions too thinly is discouraged.  The reviewing process will treat any other submission by an overlapping set of authors as prior work. If publishing one would render the other too incremental, both may be rejected.

Author responses:  Authors will have one week to view and respond to initial reviews. Author responses may not contain any identifying information that may violate the double-blind reviewing policy. Authors may not submit revisions of their paper or supplemental material, but may post their responses as a discussion in OpenReview. This is to reduce the burden on authors to have to revise their paper in a rush during the short rebuttal period.

After the initial response period, authors will be able to respond to any further reviewer/AC questions and comments by posting on the submission’s forum page. The program chairs reserve the right to solicit additional reviews after the initial author response period.  These reviews will become visible to the authors as they are added to OpenReview, and authors will have a chance to respond to them.

After the notification deadline, accepted and opted-in rejected papers will be made public and open for non-anonymous public commenting. Their anonymous reviews, meta-reviews, author responses and reviewer responses will also be made public. Authors of rejected papers will have two weeks after the notification deadline to opt in to make their deanonymized rejected papers public in OpenReview.  These papers are not counted as NeurIPS publications and will be shown as rejected in OpenReview.

Publication of accepted submissions:  Reviews, meta-reviews, and any discussion with the authors will be made public for accepted papers (but reviewer, area chair, and senior area chair identities will remain anonymous). Camera-ready papers will be due in advance of the conference. All camera-ready papers must include a funding disclosure . We strongly encourage accompanying code and data to be submitted with accepted papers when appropriate, as per the code submission policy . Authors will be allowed to make minor changes for a short period of time after the conference.

Contemporaneous Work: For the purpose of the reviewing process, papers that appeared online within two months of a submission will generally be considered "contemporaneous" in the sense that the submission will not be rejected on the basis of the comparison to contemporaneous work. Authors are still expected to cite and discuss contemporaneous work and perform empirical comparisons to the degree feasible. Any paper that influenced the submission is considered prior work and must be cited and discussed as such. Submissions that are very similar to contemporaneous work will undergo additional scrutiny to prevent cases of plagiarism and missing credit to prior work.

Plagiarism is prohibited by the NeurIPS Code of Conduct .

Other Tracks: Similarly to earlier years, we will host multiple tracks, such as Datasets and Benchmarks ,  Competitions , tutorials as well as workshops, in addition to the main track for which this call for papers is intended. See the conference homepage for updates and calls for participation in these tracks. 

Experiments: As in past years, the program chairs will be measuring the quality and effectiveness of the review process via randomized controlled experiments. All experiments are independently reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Financial Aid : Each paper may designate up to one (1) NeurIPS.cc account email address of a corresponding student author who confirms that they would need the support to attend the conference, and agrees to volunteer if they get selected. To be considered for Financial the student will also need to fill out the Financial Aid application when it becomes available.

Amir Globerson, Moritz Hardt, Sergey Levine, Kate Saenko NeurIPS 2023 Program Chairs

Tristan Naumann and Alice Oh NeurIPS 2023 General Chairs

IMAGES

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COMMENTS

  1. Conference Papers

    A conference paper is often both a written document and an oral presentation. You may be asked to submit a copy of your paper to a commentator before you present at the conference. Thus, your paper should follow the conventions for academic papers and oral presentations. Preparing to write your conference paper

  2. How to Write a Conference Paper

    How to Write a Conference Paper with 1. Innovation -> Precision, Peer-review, 2. Worth the Presentation -> an Appropriate Abstract, Right Format.

  3. Conference Paper Format and Style Guidelines

    A conference research paper is a piece of writing that an author submits to conference organizers. The papers offer a preview of the work the researcher wants to present to let others in their field know about it and solicit feedback that could generate ideas for improvement. These papers are submitted for review in advance of the conference.

  4. PDF Writing a Good Conference Paper

    Writing a Good Conference Paper Because they are both written and read aloud, conference papers present unusual problems for the writer. When we are only writing an essay, the concerns we have are different—sometimes in kind, sometimes in degree—from when we write essays that will be read aloud.

  5. What Is a Conference Paper and How Is It Written?

    One of those steps might entail writing a conference paper. What is a conference paper? Learn more here and get some valuable tips for success. In This Article: What Is a Conference Paper? Is a Conference Paper Necessary for a Doctoral Degree? Preparing To Write Your Conference Paper How To Write a Conference Paper What Is a Conference Paper?

  6. Structure Your Paper

    Structure Your Paper . Learn how to structure your paper for publication. IEEE has put together some tips and best practices for what should be included in your conference paper. Title. Your paper title should be specific, concise, and descriptive. Avoid using unnecessary words such as "new" or "novel".

  7. Conference Presentations

    Purdue OWL Graduate Writing Graduate Writing Genres Conference Presentations Conference Presentations This resource provides a detailed overview of the common types of conference papers and sessions graduate students can expect, followed by pointers on presenting conference papers for an audience. Types of conference papers and sessions

  8. PDF Writing a Conference Paper in the Humanities

    A conference paper is a paper that is orally presented to an audience. Almost all conference presentations involve a question and answer session after the presentation. Writers should aim to stimulate and guide the Q&A session in order to receive helpful feedback on their work. Writing for a Conference Audience:

  9. How to Write an Engaging Conference Paper

    A conference paper is a written document that outlines your oral presentation at a conference. These papers cover the details of the presentations for attendees to review in situations when the attendee was not able to hear the oral presentation.

  10. How to write a conference paper?| Editage Insights

    You can refer the following format while writing your conference paper: Abstract: It is the first section of the paper and summarizes the findings of your research. You can include the main points of your research like the purpose of your research, the methods used, the findings as well as the conclusion of your research in the abstract.

  11. PDF To Write a Conference Paper

    Never put something in the abstract that is not in the body of the paper. For example, if "unique insights into the state of the art" appears in the abstract, then the "unique insights" must appear in the body of the paper. Use abstracts from oft cited papers as examples.

  12. Citing a Conference Paper in APA Style

    Revised on December 4, 2023. The format for citing conference papers in APA Style depends on whether the paper has been published, and if so, in what format. Note that a separate format exists for citing dissertations. You can cite a conference paper easily by using our free APA Citation Generator.

  13. What Makes a Great Conference Paper: A Step-by-Step Guide

    Step 1: Keep in mind the benefits of presenting at a conference A major benefit of presenting at a conference is the opportunity to connect with people who work on similar topics. By presenting your work in progress, you can get feedback that helps identify and address shortcomings, and/or helps focus the overall research project.

  14. Writing a Conference Abstract and Paper for Presentation

    This chapter provides guidance on how to write a successful conference abstract, in addition to writing and delivery of a conference paper. It covers the key issues to consider and is organised into two main sections: the first deals with how to write an abstract and the second with how to write and present a conference paper.

  15. Journal or Conference Paper: Planning Your Paper

    Step 1: Identify your audience Every section of your paper should be written with your target audience in mind. Carefully identifying your audience is necessary to determine the level of background material needed to frame your problem and to focus your paper with a specific set of take-home messages.

  16. PDF How to Write a Conference/Paper Abstract

    Provide an overview of your paper Situate your paper within a literary tradition and theoretical scope (can be light on theory, but must have a theoretical approach) Provide a short and informative view of your paper (keep it concise) Persuade the committee to accept your paper (use the rhetoric of persuasion.

  17. 10 tips for writing a great conference paper

    #1: Set the Context: Preface the need for and value of your topic but don't make it sound like marketing materials and don't allow it to become a major portion of your paper. Advertisement Be sure to introduce the context of your work. Remember that you're presenting this paper because you're the expert on the work being reported.

  18. How to write a conference paper

    Writing a strong conference paper can be a demanding task that requires significant time and resources. But before delving into that, it is necessary to know exactly what a conference paper is. A conference paper is an article presented at a conference.

  19. Q: How to write a conference paper based on a journal article?

    Coming to extracting or adapting the paper for the conference, the conference paper will have the same structure and sections as the journal paper. However, for the conference, you may choose to focus more on certain sections, such as the findings and discussion.

  20. Tips for Writing a Conference Paper

    Before you start writing your paper, there are a number of factors to consider: Conference guidelines: To know what you can write about, check what topics and guidelines the conference has. This will help you target your topic. Think about the problem you want to solve. Once you have selected what you are going to talk about, you need to focus ...

  21. Conferences

    Most disciplines have conferences (also called meetings, symposia, colloquia, etc.) where there are opportunities to present research, with some having more formal options to submit papers (which resemble journal articles). Some disciplines, like computer science, have many conferences and place high importance on conference papers.

  22. How to write a Conference Paper II A Step by Step Approach II ...

    #conferencepaper #conferencewriting #researchpaper #paperwriting #researchpaperIn this video, we are going to learn the following contents.1) How to select a...

  23. How to Write a Conference Paper

    Advice from a Computer Science PhD Student on how to write a conference / research paper So far in my PhD (I'm a first year PhD student) I have gotten two pa...

  24. PDF Strategies for Essay Writing

    provide when you are writing a paper. Here are some useful guidelines: o If you're writing a research paper, do not assume that your reader has read all the sources that you are writing about. You'll need to offer context about what those sources say so that your reader can understand why you have brought them into the conversation.

  25. Writing a Conference Abstract and Paper for Presentation

    This chapter provides guidance on how to write a successful conference abstract, in addition to writing and delivery of a conference paper. It covers the key issues to consider and is organised into two main sections: the first deals with how to write an abstract and the second with how to write and present a conference paper. ...

  26. Create a form in Word that users can complete or print

    Show the Developer tab. If the developer tab isn't displayed in the ribbon, see Show the Developer tab.. Open a template or use a blank document. To create a form in Word that others can fill out, start with a template or document and add content controls.

  27. NeurIPS 2023

    Camera-ready papers will be due in advance of the conference. All camera-ready papers must include a funding disclosure. We strongly encourage accompanying code and data to be submitted with accepted papers when appropriate, as per the code submission policy. Authors will be allowed to make minor changes for a short period of time after the ...

  28. Takeaways from special counsel's report into Biden's handling of

    Special counsel Robert Hur's report released Thursday did not charge President Joe Biden with a crime, but it painted a picture of a forgetful commander in chief who failed to properly protect ...