By Ms. Mentor

Question (from "Hypatia"): This will be my first year on the tenure track, and I'm poring over conference postings, wondering where to send proposals for papers or presentations. There are a few biggies that everyone in my world attends, but beyond those, how do you choose?

For sorting out journals, there are Web sites like Eigenfactor.org, but there doesn't seem to be anything similar to tell me if there's some hierarchy of "good" conferences versus "meh" conferences. Which small ones are mighty? Are international ones better? Are these things that "everybody knows," and how do I get in on the secrets to success? I realize I'm being a total résumé whore, but with scarce resources, I need to be judicious. Thoughts?

Answer: Ms. Mentor can tell you that the pinnacle is to be a Nobel Prize winner, giving an invited and well-paid keynote address at an international conference in, say, Berlin or Beijing, after which you dine with the country's royalty, major industrialists, or political honchos. (Ms. Mentor once did something like that in Bangkok.)

But you want to know how to get there, and it's not enough to have a detailed, um, promiscuous vita. You need guides, and this is a job for (drum roll)—Your Mentors.

"Waaahhhhh, I don't have a mentor," you object. "I was hired for my individual merit, my already-stellar vita, and I just want to keep burnishing it." Of course you do, but every burnisher needs boosters.

You may have been assigned an official mentor, but even the most jovial and generous senior colleague is not omniscient. Your mentor-of-record may be in another subfield, may have enemies or past feuds you don't know about, or may have forgotten how vulnerable and ignorant a newbie can feel. And so the wise newbie, without announcing it to anyone, mentally auditions the people she meets, and selects the wisest for her mentoring team.

Those advisers needn't know each other, but all of them should have at least one area of expertise—in teaching and committee work, publishing and grant getting, nurturing and encouraging, or knowing what "counts" for tenure. Department busybodies, the ones who know all the gossip, are especially useful. So are secretaries and staff members. Hypatia can soak up information, spongelike, from all of her team members, and she can also check their stories against one another ("The provost is the best we've ever had" versus "The provost is a half-wit").

Hypatia should visit her senior colleagues in their offices or labs. Personal visits are flattering, and even crusty misanthropes warm up when they're asked for advice by someone who's clearly of inferior status. Invite them to have coffee or lunch with you, pay for their snacks, and tell them some polite version of this: "I want to know as much as possible about my field, and I hope you'll tell me what I need to know about conferences. I want to learn, and I want to make the department and university proud of me. Which conferences will be most productive professionally?" Write down their answers. Most people love to see their words inscribed. If they could provide parchment, they would.

You'll learn that in most fields, there's a major conference that "everyone" attends. Often it includes job interviews as well as prestigious papers, and it's huge. The biggest one of all, the Modern Language Association, has some 9,000 attendees every year, with more than 800 panels. Many conference proposals are rejected, few are chosen, and "giving a paper at MLA" is considered a top honor.

Most publishing scholars also attend at least one other meeting a year in their specialties—such as the American Studies Association, World History Association, National Women's Studies Association, Popular Culture Association. In STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), there are thousands of conferences a year, and you need your mentors to tell you which ones to visit, and which ones to flee.

Sometimes there are festive one-time-only international events, such as the hundreds of conferences inspired by Charles Darwin's 200th birthday in 2009. Some were legitimate, some were marginal, and some were arranged by crackpots who don't believe in evolution.

"Prestige" and "visibility" are the things to seek when choosing conferences. You want to share knowledge, but you also want to impress others. Attend receptions and cocktail parties, and sign up for any scheduled lunches or dinners, especially ones giving out awards. People may think you know the award winners, and, of course, you do know their most acclaimed work. The chicken may be cold and the speeches soporific, but if you look bright and alert, everyone will be grateful. Introduce yourself to the Big Scholars and ask them intelligent questions. If you're the rare academic who can make lively small talk, you'll be cherished. Always wear your name tag and say your name. You want to be remembered.

Networking can lead to fame, money, and opportunities. You become part of a "scholarly community," meaning that you know people who'll collaborate on research and writing with you, or be on a panel with you, or invite you to give a talk, or write grant recommendations, or say, "Yes, I've met her and admire her work. Let's hire her!" There's no better way to feel that you're "part of the conversation" (and knowing expressions like "part of the conversation" also makes you part of the in-group).

Conferences also regenerate the mind. You have three days with your intellectual peers, a blessed retreat to think about your subject matter. Your ideas do flow, and your imagination soars. Many a ground-down assistant professor returns home with new energy and ambition—as well as, sometimes, secrets to keep.

There has always been gossip, but the topic was officially discussed in a 2008 MLA paper called "Eight Types of Conference Sex." According to the presenter, Jennifer Drouin, an Allegheny College professor, the possibilities include experiments ("conference quickies," "bi-curious," and "down low"), "the conference-sex get-out-of-jail free card" (what happens at MLA stays at MLA), ongoing years-long flirtations, sex as social networking or career building—and "monogamous sex among academic couples" who live apart for their jobs but get together at meetings.

All good scholars should know about those things, opines Ms. Mentor.

And once Hypatia returns from a conference, she should get her paper listed in the departmental newsletter and on its Web site. If it's especially newsworthy to the general public, the college public-relations office will be interested. Hypatia should also thank her mentors for their support and tell them about the meeting, unless there's something she doesn't want to tell. Conferences can make cowards of us all.

Question: I'm outraged that my paper was rejected for our field's big national conference. My mentor says to lick my wounds silently, and that if I do what I want to do (find out just who turned me down and what was wrong, and keep pushing for feedback even if I have to personally call the organization's executive director), I'll get a reputation as a high-maintenance, demanding, self-centered, unprofessional whiner, and that'll hurt my chances of getting a tenure-track job. Who's right?

Answer: Mentor.

Sage readers: As always, Ms. Mentor welcomes rants, queries, reading suggestions, and insider advice and humor, especially for newbies. Ms. Mentor reminds readers that she can rarely answer letters personally and never immediately, though many will come up in later columns. She always disguises identifying details and often has no idea who her correspondents truly are. Confidentiality is guaranteed.

(c) Emily Toth

Ms. Mentor, who never leaves her ivory tower, channels her mail via Emily Toth in the English department of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. She is the author of the recently published Ms. Mentor's New and Ever More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia (University of Pennsylvania Press). Her e-mail address is ms.mentor@chronicle.com.