Planning to Go to a Conference

Finding out about the most useful meetings is not always easy. Keep your eye on the relevant pages in journals and check with friends who already are on the "conference circuit" (a few are never off it). Some conferences come up at regular intervals. As soon as you know about the meeting, write to the organizers for details and an application form. It is useful but not essential to have a piece of research to display. It need not be a large or expensive project, but if it is targeted to interest the scientific organizers and is accepted for presentation it gives you a legitimate reason to participate. Many departments will only support you or grant you leave if you are presenting a paper or a poster.

1. preparing your abstract.

Acceptance to make a presentation will depend on your abstract, and clear writing is a skill that should be cultivated. It must impress the selection committee as being scientifically sound and of interest. Check the main thrust of the meeting and its subsections. The conference application form will usually have a special page with a template and an example of how the abstract should be set out.

b) registration and booking travel and accommodation.

Early registration is usually more economic, but it is often not possible to get permission and support quickly. Book in at the nearest and best hotel you can afford. If the meeting is to be held in a hotel try to book in there; you do not want to spend precious time travelling in an unfamiliar city in commuter traffic or expensive taxis. Find out about the city and country before you travel. For most places there are good illustrated books with maps and practical tips.

c) at the conference.

Always arrive early, preferably a day ahead. You need to be reasonably rested from your journey before facing the rigours of the conference. The scientific sessions may last from 8 am to 6 pm, sometimes with "working breakfasts" and always with social programs in the evenings. Get the final conference program and abstract book as soon as possible. It will take time to understand the plan of the program, especially if it has various parallel sessions and is on several sites.

d) plan your strategy

Only careful review of the program and abstracts will enable you to make the best use of the time. Define your main objectives for the meeting. Which sessions are you going to attend and which will you deliberately miss out? Most big conferences have parallel sessions for part of each day. This is to permit different subspecialties to have their own sections and to give more people the opportunity of presenting material. Decisions about what to attend may be difficult, so be sensible; do not try to go to every session that interests you, that is impossible. There are ceremonial sessions at most conferences. They may be considered a boring waste of time, but they do permit you to identify some of the key people on the platform.

Application Process

An application to participate in this Interuniversity student Conference should consist of a completed application form (attached), and a proposal to write a paper and make a presentation on the subject of the Interuniversity student Conference. The working language of the Interuniversity student Conference will be English, and the proposal must be in English. The proposal should not exceed 1,000 words, and may be less. Please be sure to include the title of your proposal.

Completed applications must be submitted in electronic format on the address forlang@asta.edu.ua (or on the postal address: Department for Modern European Languages, Ukrainian National University of State Tax Service, 31 Karl Marx Str., Irpin, Kyiv region) no later than 12:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 15^th, 2010. Late and/or incomplete applications will NOT be considered.