Reflections on Reviewing Conference Proposals

It occurred to me while peer reviewing conference proposals how complicated it is and how difficult it can be for someone to end up presenting at a conference that receives many more proposals than it has slots for.Think about it.

You may be a great teacher or practitioner, but you may not be able to identify the most attractive or innovative aspect of what you do in order to present it.

Or you may know what’s worth presenting about and not write the proposal very clearly or attractively.

Or you may be capable of writing an attractive proposal but not be able to fit that into the conference’s proposal format for writing a proposal or running a session

Or you may not find the particular focus area in that particular conference that is most affordable or convenient to you this year.

Someone can be really good at writing conference proposals but not necessarily be good at what they will present about. Or they can good at it but not be good at presenting it.

Or you know, maybe the reviewers just don’t know the very cutting edge topic you are planning to talk about and don’t think participants want to hear about it.

And that’s just sad