Writing highly-scored abstracts for conferences

[Lydia Tackett]

Here is a nice blog post about the lack of gender parity in oral presentations at SVP this year, and while women may be submitting fewer abstracts for consideration as oral presentations, there may be an issue with writing abstracts that receive high scores that allow them to be selected to oral presentations. The author is considering a workshop for writing abstracts to address this problem:

Your Project is Good Enough for a Talk

[Michelle Barboza]

Hi @lydia-tackett, thank you for sharing, this is a great post. I think the author calls out an important point – it is not only gender bias that affects the acceptance of scientific papers/abstracts/presentations, but many women’s own self doubt. From other blog posts and personal conversations with women in science, the imposter syndrome is strong, and affects women even at the height of their careers.

So what is to be done? The author does not point fingers, but calls out both men and women. Women – don’t wait on men, invite yourselves. Men – don’t be blind, and take action in seeking diversity.

The post “Presentations without representation” was embedded in the article shared, and it has some concrete suggestions for increasing diversity in symposiums. It’s not only worth a look for the people frequenting this forum, but should be presented to the members of our paleo societies, for serious consideration in our upcoming meetings.

Comments, thoughts? @egardner @llundgren @taorminalepore @sboessenecker @jeanette-pirlo @jbauer @tmorgan @jessie-matheny @bmacfadden

 

 

 

[Eleanor Gardner]

@lydia-tackett, @michelle-barboza – I think a workshop on writing higher-impact abstracts would be great!  I also appreciate the article that Michelle linked to. Impostor syndrome is incredibly strong among female scientists.  But a question I have is – why is giving a poster considered second rate?  I personally prefer the intimacy of conversation that happens at posters compared to oral presentations. I’ve made some great connections at my poster presentations. Just my two cents!

[Author]

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