[Air-l] IR 6.0 Submissions -- content recommendations

[Caroline Haythornthwaite]

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
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Caroline Haythornthwaite (haythorn at 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