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[bibliothecula]

Hi all--

I'm helping with a seminar on writing a good proposal and would love to have some bad examples to dissect, preferable from the humanities and social sciences. Everything would be, of course, anonymous. So if you have any that you've seen or received and want to share, post away.

Cheers,
Bib

[snape]

Most of the bad prosopals I have seen are those which do not meet the aims and objectives of the conference. E.g. the conference is called 'Issues in Teaching Underwater Basketweaving to Undergraduates' and someone submits a research paper called 'Developments in underwater basketweaving in the Middle Ages'.

[seniorscholar]

Most of the proposals I have rejected for reasons other than the very common "64 proposals for a panel which has time for a maximum of 4 papers" [which is standard for the regular -- not special topic -- panels at MLA] have one of two flaws:

Proposal written in extremely dense prose laden with very long words -- even the 250-word proposal puts me to sleep. Now it's possible that the presenter will actually put the paper together in language that can be comprehended when listening, rather than reading, but I'm not willing to take the chance.

Proposal with so many elements that it's evident it will be "condensed" from a 35-page article or dissertation proposal, which often guarantees a presentation read at great speed which nevertheless has to be cut off by the moderator about halfway through. Again, it's possible that a decent job of recasting will be done, but I always tell my grad students: "the chapter has five sections -- turn ONE of the sections into a conference proposal and let me see it before you send it off."

(When reading manuscripts for journals there's another sure miss: the "article" that does little more than summarize a novel, making a few comments along the way. But I can't remember getting that one as a conference proposal, though it may well have happened.)

[englitprof]

Proposals that essentially paraphrase the call for papers, without indicating a substantive idea/argument of the writer's own.

[bacardiandlime]

I saw one recently that was ACCEPTED.

Theme of conference: Fishing in Antarctica

Paper title: Fishing in Antarctica

Abstract: This paper will discuss fishing in Antarctica. The role of fishing in Antarctica is ver y important. Antarctica is a very important field for study, this is an important discussion of fishing in Antarctica.... etc.

[tenured_cat]

I once got a ten page paper from a student like that; this one was "Agriculture in Africa." And then it went on for ten pages, indeed assuring the reader that agriculture was indeed practiced in Africa. The paper received an "F."

This is the main reason why I reject proposals for the conference for which I review. The topic is too large and general. Having only 15 to 20 minutes, you can cover a few very specific points and tie them in somewhat with a general theme (even when discussing theory, the more specific, the better). Students (even advanced graduate students) are often too inexperienced to know that 15/20 minutes are such a very, very short span of time and it is only when they time themselves speaking aloud that they realize how little one actually gets to say.

[ea15792]

Number one reason I've rejected proposals is because they fail to be direct and concise, the proposal doesn't address the items that the RFP  specifies, or the proposal was poorly retooled from a prior submission that was not accepted.

And unfortunately, we regularly get proposals from people outside of our discipline who haven't taken the time to research our discipline.  Those proposals usually get rejected as well.   

And personally, it drives me nuts when I get a proposal that hasn't been broken down into seperate sections of background, methods, results/conclusions.   I see far too many proposals that are long paragraphs.  It drives me nuts, although some of our reviewers don't seem to mind.

[magistra]

Do you have a word limit?  I often see word limits for abstracts, and they can sometimes be frustratingly short.  I can see why the person reading thousands of abstracts would want one, but if you've got an odd topic that takes some explaining, it's tough.

You might want to try having your students write their abstracts in, say, 75 words or fewer.

[bibliothecula]

Do you have a word limit?  I often see word limits for abstracts, and they can sometimes be frustratingly short.  I can see why the person reading thousands of abstracts would want one, but if you've got an odd topic that takes some explaining, it's tough.

You might want to try having your students write their abstracts in, say, 75 words or fewer.

One thing I've seen recently is abstracts of 3 short sentences, when the limit is 250 or even 500 words. I don't know why some people don't use all of that available space to explain their proposal more fully.

[empyrean_aisles]

OK. I can't resist posting this one. Disciplinary focus changed to protect the incoherent.

Basket weaving is a complex and problematic activity, not to be simply considered as proficiency. Baskets, i.e. containers, decorations and hampers, have, for example, the dynamic potential of credibility, whether reflecting reality or emotions or relationships.

Searching for the basket is a creative process - not only attached to adolescence, but to life itself.
Basket weaving as a quest of the self and of identity, is a quest of crossover, of emotional and philosophical or ethical perspectives, already known by Aristotle and today discussed by philosophers and basket weavers in various schools and traditions.

Searching for baskets in the world of globalization is attached to the sense of place and time. Baskets in this sort of meaning take part as cultural identity. This might be a very important question in the close future as a kind of value: The ability to distinguish in purpose of understanding other basket weaving traditions.
 
‘Basket weaving’ is not opposing crisis but will be seen as related to hermeneutic tradition. This position, facing the human condition of how to make sense, is a quest of seeking and finding meaning. Baskets are the focus and arena for shared experiences, observations and ethical as well as aesthetical values.

This person's first language is not English. But still -- if you can't write in English, don't go submitting to a conference where we'll all be talking in English!

[scheherazade]

OK. I can't resist posting this one. Disciplinary focus changed to protect the incoherent.

Basket weaving is a complex and problematic activity, not to be simply considered as proficiency. Baskets, i.e. containers, decorations and hampers, have, for example, the dynamic potential of credibility, whether reflecting reality or emotions or relationships.

Searching for the basket is a creative process - not only attached to adolescence, but to life itself.
Basket weaving as a quest of the self and of identity, is a quest of crossover, of emotional and philosophical or ethical perspectives, already known by Aristotle and today discussed by philosophers and basket weavers in various schools and traditions.

Searching for baskets in the world of globalization is attached to the sense of place and time. Baskets in this sort of meaning take part as cultural identity. This might be a very important question in the close future as a kind of value: The ability to distinguish in purpose of understanding other basket weaving traditions.
 
‘Basket weaving’ is not opposing crisis but will be seen as related to hermeneutic tradition. This position, facing the human condition of how to make sense, is a quest of seeking and finding meaning. Baskets are the focus and arena for shared experiences, observations and ethical as well as aesthetical values.

This person's first language is not English. But still -- if you can't write in English, don't go submitting to a conference where we'll all be talking in English!

Sounds like it was written while hunting in the mountains.  Sheesh.

[magistra]

Do you have a word limit?  I often see word limits for abstracts, and they can sometimes be frustratingly short.  I can see why the person reading thousands of abstracts would want one, but if you've got an odd topic that takes some explaining, it's tough.

You might want to try having your students write their abstracts in, say, 75 words or fewer.

One thing I've seen recently is abstracts of 3 short sentences, when the limit is 250 or even 500 words. I don't know why some people don't use all of that available space to explain their proposal more fully.

Yeah, that's just stupid.  What can you say of interest in 3 short sentences?  How can you explain what you're going to do?  It indicates to me that you don't know and don't care. 

But I did have one proposal that had a very low limit, and since my topic was in a subfield and used a lot of funny words pretty much no-one would know, I had to put in a lot of explanatory information.  This ate up my limit in a hurry, though, and I wound up having an abstract that was still fairly unintelligible.  Again, all this made sense if you were in the subfield (or going to that panel), but not to normal people.

It's like those stupid new one-size-fits-all university application systems, where you have to put your cover letter in a pre-approved format.  I once had a character limit (try to guess how many characters are in your cover letter!) that put me well under a page.

I suppose you could have your students write the same abstract twice, at two different word-limits!