Call for Abstracts
Abstract submission is
currently closed. Notification of acceptance has been provided.
Abstract review process
After submission closed the abstracts were sorted into subfields:
semantics, syntax, bilingualism, sociolinguistics etc. They were then
matched to reviewers with similar expertise. All of our reviewers are current
PhD students (mostly at UoE). The reviewers ranked each abstract out of 5 for
relevance, clarity, novelty, and research competence giving a total score out
of 20. The reviewers were also able to recommend the abstract for a talk or a
poster. Some reviewers chose to give comments on abstracts, but most were for
administrative purposes.
The abstracts then went to the conference committee who made the final
decisions. The abstracts were ranked based on their final score out of 20 but
this was not the factor in the decision making process. When taking into
consideration whether to give an abstract a talk we prioritised for
well-formed abstracts that seemed like they would be engaging for a general
linguistics audience. As well as presenting interesting and competent
research these abstracts provided a widely comprehensible context for their
research questions. More niche abstracts were assigned as posters if they
seemed like they would benefit from the sort of precise 1:1 discussion that
is possible with a poster but not a talk. Our main reason for rejecting
abstracts was irrelevance i.e., the abstract would be better suited to an
education or psychology conference rather than a linguistics one.
The final factor that guided our talk vs. poster decision was the overall
composition of the conference. As a general linguistics conference, we did
not want any one sub-field to be overrepresented in the talks. There were
many close calls between posters and talks, we are lucky to have an
odd-numbered committee!
Relevance
Is this a linguistics abstract? This is a general linguistics conference so
I would expect that the majority of submitted abstracts will be relevant.
However, there may be some that are only tangentially related to linguistics
for example, they may discuss language policy without engaging in any actual
linguistics or review literature rather than language.
Clarity
Is enough background information given to make the research aims
comprehensible in context and is enough context given to make this suitable
for a general linguistics conference?
Novelty
Does this abstract add anything to our understanding of linguistics? And
does it explain its importance?
Research competence
Does this abstract have a clear methodology. Are research questions
presented and answered? Does the literature presented match the aims and
methodology of the paper. If data is presented is it done so well? Are things
appropriately cited? Are results in line with data - does the analysis seem
feasible or have things been over extrapolated?
Talk suitability
A topic that would benefit from some longer discussion and that can be
presented such that it may be followed by the majority of the audience. Very
niche topics may still be suitable for a talk if the abstract clearly
outlines the context and seems accessible to those outside of the
subfield.
Poster suitability
A topic that is more data forward that would benefit from 1:1 discussion.
Niche topics that may not be widely accessible for a general linguistics
conference. Abstracts that may not developed enough for a talk but show
potential.
