Call for papers

Rules

There is a ‘one role just once, up to four roles altogether’ rule at ASA conferences:

• A delegate may present one paper
• Be a convenor of one panel
• Be a chair in one panel
• Be a discussant in one panel (participation in a roundtable is considered being a discussant)

Authors may only propose as 'presenting' author once, and as roundtable discussants once. Authors may be listed as 'non-presenting' or 'attending' co-authors more than once, but another author must be marked as 'presenting' author in order for the system to accept this.

Roundtables

Note that there are also roundtables in the ‘All panels’ list. Not all the roundtables are open (there will be no link for proposing a paper on a closed panel's page), but some do take in contributions for short provocations.

Do pay attention to the format of the panel you are proposing a contribution to. If in doubt of what is expected of you, email the panel convenors from the panel page.

Proposing a paper

Paper proposals must consist of:

• a paper title
• the name/s and email address/es of author/s
• a short abstract of fewer than 300 characters
• a long abstract of fewer than 250 words

All proposals must be made via the online form, not by email. There is a 'Propose paper' button in the title section of each open panel. Navigate to the panel you are interested in and click on this button to propose directly to that panel. If you then decide you’d like to propose to another panel, first click ‘Cancel’ on the proposal form, before returning to the panel explorer (otherwise you’ll remain locked into that panel).

On submission of the proposal, all authors will receive an automated email confirming receipt/their role. If you do not receive this email, please first check the login environment via the link in the toolbar above, to see if your proposal is there. If it is, it simply means your confirmation email got spammed/lost; if it is not, you will need to re-submit, as for some reason the process was not completed. Co-authors can be added or removed, but papers cannot be withdrawn by the proposers themselves – for that, please email conference(at)theasa.org

Proposals will be marked as pending until the end of the Call for Papers (18/11/2024). Convenors will then be asked to make their decisions over the papers proposed to their panel by 02/12/2024 and to communicate those to the proposers, marking them up within the login environment.

Possible strategic advice

You may notice that alongside the 'Propose paper' button for each panel there is a statement as to how many papers have been proposed to that panel to-date. If you are proposing early, this statement will not be very instructive. However if you propose within the last 48hrs of the call, you might factor these statements into your consideration of where best to target your paper. If weighing up between two panels where one is heavily oversubscribed, you may have a higher chance of acceptance within the panel with fewer proposals. Obviously that's not guaranteed, but it's worth considering these statements.

Good proposals not accepted in their original destination may be entered into a transfer process (see below) which affords a second and third attempt to house your paper.

Transfer process

Papers which are neither accepted nor rejected, but marked for 'transfer', will be given the opportunity to be rehoused into other panels. The conference organisers will contact the authors of the ‘transfer’ proposals asking them to modify their abstracts to fit another panel of their choosing from a list of those with space for additional papers (panels with fewer than the allowed maximum of eight papers).

The authors will then inform us of two panels they wish to apply to (in order of preference). We then forward the title, short and long abstracts to the panel convenors asking them to consider the proposal. If rejected by the first panel, we contact the second choice. Transfers rejected by both panels will then be set to 'rejected'.

If the proposal is accepted by either panel, we will inform the authors and ask them to edit the proposal on the system to match the edited abstract sent to the convenors; this is not done automatically.

We aim to resolve this by the end of January.

Useful information for later in this process

Editing your paper
Paper authors can use the login link in the toolbar above to edit their proposals.

Pre-circulation of papers
ASA has no rule about this, but many convenors are keen to pre-circulate completed papers. To facilitate this and save on email traffic, if requested by convenors, authors can upload PDFs of their papers within the online system, which will then show as downloadable files beneath the abstract on the public panel page on the site. There is currently no option to restrict this to panelists/delegates (although this feature is in the development pipeline).

Timing of presentations
Each panel/workshop session slot will be 90 minutes long, accommodating a maximum of four presenters. Convenors should allot each presenter a maximum of 15 +5 mins for panels of four papers.

Communication between authors/convenors
Convenor/author email addresses are not shown on the panel pages for privacy/anti-spam reasons. However there is an in-built secure email messaging system which has been updated to give more reliable delivery. If you cannot work that, please email conference(at)theasa.org to obtain relevant email addresses.

Any queries with the above please email conference(at)theasa.org.

More details on general conference information can be found on the conference info page.