Greetings everyone. Welcome to uni-edit. Today, we've invited a guest,
an experienced conference attendee and presenter, to find out what an academic conference is,
what the different types of conferences are, and the main reasons to attend a conference.
Jenny has also been an academic English editor with uni-edit for many years. Before starting,
please click like below this video to support us in producing more of these free educational
videos, or click subscribe to keep up to date. Welcome Jenny! Hello thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to have you. So let's start with this question, "what is an academic conference?"
Well, an academic conference is essentially a meeting that researchers attend to present
their findings and hear about the latest work within their field. Conferences are usually
organized by associations or groups of independent researchers and these are overseen by scientific
or technical committee who ensure the technical quality of the research that's been presented.
"It sounds like conferences are only for academics is that true?"
Actually no, conferences aren't just for academics. They bring together a broad
variety of perspectives from academics, people in the industry, and practitioners
across several disciplines. They also come in all shapes and sizes so they range from small,
local meetings, to global events with thousands of international attendees.
"So what's the main purpose of one that you just mentioned like an international academic
conference?" Okay so conferences are designed to help researchers forge new connections.
They can also build on their research and enrich their careers. They create an opportunity for
academics and researchers from across the world to not only present and discuss their latest work,
but also discover new and interesting developments in their field.
"So how does it work?" Well as as almost everyone who attends the event also presents at
it. Conferences often have a program packed full of short presentations across a variety of topics.
These presentations are arranged into some parallel streams
with sessions that run simultaneously. So there's a lot of information being shared and attendees
won't likely be able to attend all of the presentations at one conference. So when you go
to a conference you need to plan your time based on the presentations that interest you the most.
"I've heard that there are many different types of conferences or even sessions within those
conferences. Can you give us some examples? What are some of those?" Okay yeah, there's various
types really including plenary, keynote, panel sessions, there's oral presentation sessions,
poster sessions, and workshops. So a conference could be just one of those
or it could contain several of them or even all of them. "There's a long list there,
wow could you give us some more detail about each of those different types of
sessions?" Of course okay. So first off, the plenary session it typically involves
all of the conference delegates and it's usually used to open the event. It sets the
tone for the program and enables them to share important information about the conference.
Then there's the keynote sessions. These feature speakers who are often well-known figures within
the field. So they're a major draw for conference delegates. These also set the tone for the whole
conference and foster a sense of collective academic endeavor. Next up there's panel sessions,
these usually involve multiple researchers discussing, or perhaps debating one topic.
So often a panelist will deliver prepared statements and then answer questions from
the session chair or audience. I think next I said was oral presentation sessions. So this is where
multiple presenters give talks on their work around common themes or topics. Each presenter
is allotted an amount of time to speak, it's usually around 10 minutes, with additional
time for Q&A at the end with the audience. Poster sessions are when attendees create a physical or
often a digital poster that's displayed in the halls at an academic conference. So posters are
usually presented at the same time over several hours in the same room and these allow more time
for a detailed discussion with the presenter than the oral sessions would normally allow.
And then finally the workshops um are often held on subjects like science communication, or to give
advice on getting published in top journals. These are often geared towards researchers who
are beginning their careers and can act as a good opportunity for them to meet each other.
"Sounds like there's a lot going on wow. What are the main reasons researchers might attend
an academic conference?" Okay so the main reason to attend a conference is to present your research
and share your ideas with other experts in your field and by doing so you can
invite questions and comments that will ultimately help to strengthen your work,
but presenting is not all of it, it's only part of the reason why you would go.
"Could you be more specific? Could you give us more info on why else you might attend?"
Okay so because research submitted to an academic journal is often redrafted many times over,
it it's usually many months between the first draft being submitted and the date
of publication. But with a conference, the findings being presented tend to be more recent.
So attending conferences is a great way to keep up with the emerging trends in your field.
"Sounds like a great way to keep up with like the cutting edge research that's happening in
the world." Definitely yes. And also you get information from the presentations
to work out which of the speakers you saw, who you want to keep up to date with.
"Any other reasons why you might attend?" Oh yes, probably actually the most valuable reason
to attend a conference is meeting other researchers through chance conversations.
So a chance conversation means a conversation that's not planned beforehand. And in fact,
attendees who follow up presenters who caught their attention, tend to get the most value
from attending conferences. So you can do this either by approaching the speaker in the hall,
or you could contact them by the conference app, and set up a meeting over tea or coffee
to discuss their work in depth. "Oh wow sounds like an incredible networking opportunity."
Absolutely yes. Another reason that makes it worthwhile is that you know all of the attendees
receive a hard copy, or digital proceedings, as an official record of the conference.
So these these proceedings usually contain an abstract and sometimes the full paper
of every presentation given at the event. These make an invaluable collection of the latest
research in your field. So you can use them when you get home to explore further research ideas.
And you can also use them as a point of conversation through which to introduce
yourself via LinkedIn, or some other platform, to those presenters you didn't get a chance to
meet in person. "Wow Jenny, that's a lot of good reasons to attend a conference."
Please yeah. "Thank you so much for taking this time to answer my questions Jenny."
Thank you. "Yeah appreciate it. Thank you to our listeners for joining us.
We hope that this has been of use to you. Please don't forget to click like below and
to join us here at uni-edit for our next video on attending academic conferences. Be well.