Conferences
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What are your experiences at conferences? Does the information below fit with your personal experiences, or is there more advice you can add. Add to this article by using the edit tab above!
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What conferences are there?
- For psychology as a whole, the biggest conference is the APA conference held every year which represents all divisions and topics within psychology.
- The APA conference can be quite big and unrepresentative of any particular field, so for Social and Personality Psychology, the main conference is the SPSP conference will be held in San Antonio, Texas, on January 27-29, 2011.
- APA also has regional chapters which have their own conventions, such as
- the Eastern Psy Association,
- the Midwestern Psy Association,
- the New England Psy Association,
- the Rocky Mountain Psy Association,
- the Southeastern Psy Association,
- the Southwestern Psy Association,
- and the Western Psy Association.
- The APS conference is another big and multidisciplinary conference which focuses on psychological science related topics.
- Another good convention for Social and Personality researchers is the SPSSI conference held every other year that deals mainly with public policy and social issues.
- The SESP conference held every year is open to members and sponsored guests -- each member can bring one other person.
- The Society for Psyhophysiological Research Conference is held yearly. This conference tends to attract a variety of psychologist who use physiological measurements in their research. Social and personality psychologist, as well as cognitive psychologist might find this conference stimulating and useful.
- There are a host of international conferences and smaller conferences or workshops held each year by many different organizations, and you may even think about going to sociological conferences because of the overlap with psychology in terms of content and methodology. See the "Resources" section at the end of this Article for more info.
Why should you go?
- The better question is why shouldn't you go?
- Conferences offer the ability to present your research, learn about the research of others in your field, share knowledge, get feedback on your work, meet the people in your field, meet the people who are doing the type of research you are doing, and most (or least) importantly -- add to your CV in terms of conference presentations, posters, talks, symposium, poster awards, travel awards, etc.
- There are many costs involved in attending a conference, though, including the time commitment, travel costs, hotel rooms, etc. Be sure to book your hotel early and nail down your transportation as soon as possible because hotels fill up fast.
What should you do at the conference?
Here are some tips and advice...
Giving Presentations...
- ► Posters
° Make your poster as professional looking as possible because the poster represents you at the conference.
° Have a section where you briefly summarize the entire poster, maybe in abstract form, because most people walking by your poster simply want to know the take-home message, not the details. If someone wants to learn more, then the rest of the poster presentes the details of the research.
° Many people create individual page-size sections which they post individually on the corkboard at the conference, whereas others create one large powerpoint slide that contains all the sections of the poster. The advantage of creating individual page-size sections is the option to include color (because printing a color powerpoint slide can be expensive).
° Make a 1-page handout that summarizes the content of the poster to hand out to people if they ask.
° Have the poster ready before you leave home. This may sound obvious but each year many students try to revise their poster at the conference and incur unneeded stress.
°
- ► Talks
° Unlike posters, you can give the same talk at different conferences.
° The most important thing when giving talks is to perfect the talk before the conference by giving practice talks to your peers where you receive feedback and critiques about your performance.
° Its polite to have your title slide or first slide list out your collaborators.
° You may want to bring notes or an outline of what you are going to say because if the powerpoint projector doesn't work for some reason you won't be able to use the slides to guide what you are going to say next.
° When presenting complex data (such as path models, graphs/charts with multiple conditions, etc) you may want to present each piece step-by-step because you can describe the purpose/result for each part of the data as you reveal each piece.
°
°
Viewing Presentations...
- ► Posters
° Try perusing the conference Program before each poster session to see which posters you want to look at.
° Ask questions -- that is why the person is standing in front of their poster, to answer your questions.
° Ask for handouts because why try to remember each poster when you can have the handout.
° Attend the poster sessions of your fellow graduate students -- no one wants to be standing alone next to their poster for an hour.
°
- ► Talks
° Ask your advisor and other graduate students what are the most important talks to attend.
° You can also search through the Program on the first day of the conference and map out what talks you are going to attend.
° Going to talks in your area of interest is helpful to learn more about the topics you are interested in and learning more about the people who do the same type of research as you, but a conference is also a time to branch out so try attending talks of other topics you find interesting or provocative.
° Once again, support your friends by attending their talks.
°
°
Meeting People...
- ► Posters
° Many students try to network with professors and never realize how easy and beneficial it can be to network with other students, especially if those students do the same type of research as you.
° Search out those posters that overlap with your research interests and strike up a conversation with the poster presenter.
°
- ► Your advisor
° Your advisor is your best source of networking so try to spend some time during the conference with your professor and his/her contacts.
° But keep in mind that many people view conferences as the time when they are able to meet up with their colleagues and friends from other institutions, so do not monopolize your advisor's time.
°
- ► Be professional
° Conferences are a wonderful way to generate contacts as people tend to do work with (and hire) those who they like (and drink with) but try to be professional at all times.
° Dress professionally. Causual attire is fine for some days or some events, such as going out at night with friends, but why not look as professionally as you want to be treated by others in your field.
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Wait, you mean I can create my own conference?
- APA, NIH, NSF and other funding agencies provide funds for developing your own conference or workshop.
- These small conferences or workshops can relate to either topic/content (e.g., open to researchers in a given field, inviting students/professors from related fields, etc) or locality (e.g., just your department, colleges in the local area, etc).
- Planning and organizing your own conference/workshop is another way to share knowledge with your peers, meet others in your field, and all the other benefits of a large-scale conference.
Resources
- For listings of conferences, see...
- - the conferences webpage on the APA website [1]
- - the APA website also provides a list of international conferences [2]
- - you can try the websites for each Regional Psy Association within APA and look for conferences [3]
- - you can also go to the website for each State Psy Association within APA [4]
- - or better yet, see each division within APA because many have their own conferences [5]
- - the American Sociological Association website has a list of sociological conferences [6]
- - the best way to find conferences is ask the people you work with or look at the websites of the organizations you belong to...
- For more tips on giving presentations, see...
- - Sigma Xi has a tips for poster presentations here.
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