[Air-L] Let's talk about AoIR.

[Dave Karpf]

I'll add my $.02.  Like others, I found the 1,200 word limit a bit... odd.
 Abstracts are 250-500 words.  Articles are 6,000-8,000 words.  1,200 words
is part of the netherspace in between.  1,200 is basically a lengthy blog
post.

I, for one, have two home disciplines, each with its own conference norms.
 In political science (APSA), they just ask for an abstract, and they don't
use peer reviewers.  That puts a lot of authority in the hands of the
elected leadership.  It also lets authors propose a research puzzle that
they expect to complete over the next 8-10 months.  In communication (ICA),
they ask for a full paper, and they do use peer reviewers.  That puts power
in the hands of the active membership.  It ensures well-done research, and
opens up the opportunity for conference proceedings, but also limits the
pieces that can be contributed.

For this year's AoIR, I basically took a powerpoint talk that I've given a
few places and turned it into a 1,200 word short-paper.  It was good to get
it down on paper, but also felt underdeveloped compared to the papers I'm
used to writing.  Like Luis, I think this was embedded in the word limit,
rather than the style template.

I'm still new enough to AoIR that I can't say for sure what I think the
community *should* be.  I'm still acclimating and forming impressions of
the community.  But, FWIW, I much prefer the APSA model.  I like
conferences to be an opportunity to interact with works-in-progress.  And
if I have a piece that's already polished and complete, I'd rather send it
to a journal than a conference.

Looking forward to Denver,
Dave


On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 5:49 PM, Rhiannon Bury <bury417 at yahoo.ca> wrote:

> Joining in for a  kick at the can.
>
> Like some others who have commented, I  have been around AoIR for years
> and have been accepted at every IR to which I made a submission, including
> this year. I happen to have a large research project (for one scholar) on
> the go with  lot of survey and interview data collected and analyzed over
> the past couple of years. Although it was time consuming, I was able to
> formulate an argument, demonstrate its merits, describe the methods and
> discuss the findings in 1200 words. In fact, when I finished, I realized
> that I had effectively written the 15-minute presentation (our panel has
> four presenters).   But what if these  guidelines had been in place in
> 2005, or 2008 or even 2012? In February of those years, I had ideas, I had
> an argument (sort of), I might even have had some raw data or was in the
> process of collecting some. There's not a chance in hell I would have been
> able to come up with a short paper that would pass muster. To this end I
> would like
>  to pick up and quote from one of Terri's posts in the thread:
>
> Conclusions? Findings? In a paper proposed in January and delivered in
> October? You don't need to be a Foucault scholar to understand how that
> forecloses all sorts of projects, including ones that are activist,
> performance-oriented, involve collaboration with communities in flux, and
> so forth.
>
>
> It seems to me that the short paper format is neither fish nor fowl. You
> either accept abstracts and take some chances on ideas in progress. Sure
> some papers will fizzle but others will soar. Or you ask for full papers
> and those you accept get published in an Annual Proceedings. If AoIR found
> that very few full papers were being submitted, then the solution is to get
> rid of the full paper submission.
>
> As for the disciplinary focus, if it has been decided that IR conferences
> are going to be traditional social science conferences that accept only
> empirical research, then say so and drop the claim to interdisciplinarity.
> If not, then these guidelines needs to be revisited and revised.
>
> best
>
> Rhiannon
>
> Rhiannon Bury
> Associate Professor
> Women's and Gender Studies
> Athabasca University
> rbury at athabascau.ca
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-- 
Dave Karpf, PhD

Assistant Professor
George Washington University
School of Media and Public Affairs

www.davidkarpf.com
davekarpf at gmail.com

Author of *The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American
Political Advocacy<http://www.amazon.com/The-MoveOn-Effect-Unexpected-Transformation/dp/0199898383/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_1>
 *(Oxford University Press)