Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Welke and Ledford on Putting Together a Successful Conference Proposal

Barbara Welke, University of Minnesota, and Kenneth Ledford, Case Western Reserve University, the able co-chairs of the Program Committee for the 2010 annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History, have posted a guide to submitting a successful conference proposal. While their principal focus is the ASLH meeting, their guide is intended to be helpful to scholars submitting proposals for any conference. Hat tip: H-Law.

The inspiration for Welke and Ledford's effort is Linda Kerber's widely circulated Conference Rules: Everything You Need to Know about Presenting a Scholarly Paper in Public. This new guide, focusing on how to get to the podium in the first place, is also destined to be a classic.

Along with much good advice, the authors have included two successful panel proposals from the 2009 meeting, complete with paper abstracts. You can find it all here.