Greetings all. Jeremy has sent out the conference submission site while I tried to figure out why my emails to the list were not getting through. I hope thanks to Charles Breindahl's help the problem has been solved. I wanted to add a note with a suggestion about what should be in submissions. Often people do not know what to put in an abstract. As a reviewer, I thought I'd share what I look for -- perhaps others can also add their ideas on what makes a good abstract, panel submission, etc. So, my personal view ... Submissions for the conference are more like a *proposal* than a final paper. You need to win the reviewer over by convincing them the work is important, new, groundbreaking, and doable. As a reviewer, I like to see: -- a clear description of what the paper / presentation / panel will be about -- why this work is important -- why the topic warrants all the work that goes into the final version -- what kind of paper it is -- a literature review, a report of a study, a proposal of a theory? -- the goal of the paper: e.g., to describe the state of the art in area x, to review the historical background to area x, to solve problem x by doing a study, to suggest a theoretical resolution to conflicting results, to outline a research agenda to explore issues extant in area x. -- how the goal will be accomplished, e.g., reviewing literature, asking key informants, reading archives, conducting a study -- what what will have been added to the world's stock of knowledge when you are done, why the effort will have been worthwhile -- a project of a manageable scope -- i.e., something that can be completed in the 3 months or so between acceptance and time of presentation /Caroline ---------------------------------------------------------------- Caroline Haythornthwaite (haythorn@uiuc.edu) Associate Professor Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 501 East Daniel St., Champaign, IL, 61820 phone: 217-244-7453 fax: 217-244-3302 www.lis.uiuc.edu/~haythorn