The annual meetings of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion have a rich tradition of offering engaging sessions with plenty of time for discussion and reflection. The following guidelines will introduce persons new to COV&R meetings to processes that are typically common to our sessions.
Arrive at the room 10 minutes early in order to meet the moderator and the other presenters. The moderator will discuss the preferred session format with you (e.g., whether discussions will be held seriatim, or, more commonly, held until all presentations are complete), including how he/she will notify you that your speaking time is coming to an end.
Concurrent presentations this year are scheduled for 90 minutes, with 3 contributors each. As COV&R is explicitly a “Colloquium,” it is important that sessions include substantial time for discussion. Your presentation should be concluded in 20 minutes (or less), leaving a total of 30 minutes for questions and conversation within the session. The moderator will field questions for you during the discussion period. (Pre-designed approved panels with selected respondents may choose to operate by different rules.)
Because many COV&R presenters come from humanities disciplines, they often read their papers (with eye contact as is possible) during their presentation. If you come from a social science background, in which presenters typically speak more extemporaneously, please feel free to do so at this conference. We welcome diverse modes of presentation.
If you are reading your paper and wonder how many pages can be read in 20 minutes, a general rule for an understandable pace in English is two and a half minutes per double-spaced, 12-point font page with one inch margins (i.e., ~4000 words, or 8 pages maximum). Moderators will closely regulate the 20-minute time limit.
Regis Tech tips for presenters.