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[jtsmr]

I noticed in the thread 'things that bug you about conferences'  someone suggested people who read their papers. So: reading papers - always a no-no, or is it ever acceptable (e.g. in certain disciplines/situations)?

I confess, I am a reader. I hate giving papers (I tend to find the process extremely anxiety-inducing), so I like to have the whole thing in front of me, in case my mind goes blank. Any other readers?

Axisdenied, cool moniker first of all, rambling, summarizing, condensing even abridging conference papers is viewed, at least in my discipline, as shoddy, disrespectful, unprepared, unprofessional, wasteful and non-scholarly.  Though reading conference papers can risk being boring, it doesn't have to be. Paper presentations also involve, forgive the cliches, "style," "personality" and "originality."  Although, you're not graded on these.

Avoid mechanical reading at conferences.

[fiona]

OK, but I still wish Shrek would acknowledge my existence. We've been in 3 movies together, after all.

The Fiona, miffed

Sometimes an Ogre just needs a little personal space.

I did get an answer from Shrek to my PM. He likes Shrek 3 (which I still haven't seen), but doesn't care much for the Cat, who is the creature I most adore in Shrek 2. I think we are not soulmates.

The Fiona

[shrek]

The Cat wasn't so bad in Shrek 3. Snow White was awesome.

[fiona]

The Cat wasn't so bad in Shrek 3. Snow White was awesome.

Ha. We're coming to more of a meeting of the ogres.

We've also thoroughly hijacked this thread. I'll report on another thread after I've seen the movie.

The Fiona

[epistephiliac]

I'm in a field that doesn't read papers, although I have seen it done well. I just returned from a conference, and a professor in another subfield who came to my session acknowledged (only a little grudgingly) that although she wasn't very interested in the subject matter, people in my subfield certainly tend to be engaging and entertaining speakers/presenters.

I'd say that's typically true, although I also find that reading one's PowerPoint is essentially equivalent to the bad kind of reading one's paper. Unfortunately, it's also something one sees fairly frequently, even in my performance-aware subdiscipline. I've personally moved away from using a lot of text in my slides, and tend to use an adapted version of the suggestions in Beyond Bullet Points to ensure a narrative flow and visual interest. It works better for me, and also keeps me engaged with my audience.