Some Notes Re: Paper Submission for
the EQRE Conference Publication
Michael W. Firmin, Ph.D.
Proceedings Editor
Following are some notes that may be useful for presenters wishing to have their papers considered for publication in the EQRE proceedings. Note that ALL papers receive equal attention, and the published article will not indicate whether an EQRE paper was presented via oral or poster venues.
The book will be hard-bound in a professionally type-set text, published by Cambridge Scholars Press. Last year’s publication was 217 pages. A copy of the June 2006 edition will be available to peruse at the conference. You also may purchase a copy at the Cambridge Scholar Press Web site (scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "Add to shopping basket" button).
Each published paper will be a separate chapter in the book. Consequently, the citation in APA form will read as a chapter in an edited book. This is stated since some conference presenters are on tenure-track and these types of details obviously are important at this stage in your careers. EQRE is a (peer-reviewed) juried conference and the publication also is peer-reviewed by experts in qualitative research methodology.
All EQRE presenters are expected to distribute copies of their papers at the conference. The number of copies that you need to bring obviously will depend on how popular your topic is relative to conference participants. Likely, around 15 or so papers should suffice—although there may be more than that amount of people in some sessions. There will be 103 presentations, with many session-papers having multiple authors/presenters. So, you can approximate the math from this base. Often when giving conference presentations, personally I prefer to landscape/reduce (to half-size) the distributed papers in order to save on printing costs.
Presenting a paper at EQRE does not obligate you to submit it for potential publication in the proceedings. Some presenters last year, for example, submitted their papers directly to journals for potential publication rather than the conference proceedings. Of over 60 papers presented at last year’s conference, we selected for publication less than 20—so that might provide a general sense re: acceptance rates in the proceedings—although there is no magic number of acceptances/rejections. If your paper is not accepted for publication in the conference proceedings, then you will be notified and are free subsequently to submit the paper to a journal, another edited book, or other similar venues.
There is no “science” regarding the protocol for how papers are accepted. However, we do begin with proper APA form. That is, having your paper in flawless APA style does not guarantee its publication, but having incorrect form in places makes its selection unlikely. Be sure to have others read and critique your work, checking it for form and style, prior to submitting it for professional review. The editors will wish to engage content issues, not make APA corrections.
Annette Hemmings, the EQRE keynote speaker, will be addressing some of the necessary rigors of good qualitative research. This should serve as an apt reminder to ensure your write-up reflects excellence in qualitative research methodology. Internal validity issues need explicit attention. Including components such as items from your field notes, describing participant observations, validation of conclusions from triangulated sources, member checking, and other validity rigors will strengthen the conclusions you are making in the paper. I will be presenting an EQRE session on external validity in qualitative research, by the way. In sum, address this construct in your paper via a forthright manner.
For example, if you have, say, six in your sample—what is your justification for this? How will information regarding these six people make a difference in the educational world? Small sample sizes obviously are not inherently poor, but you will need to convince the reader as to the study’s merits in the grander context of the construct being studied. Saying, for example, that such a small sample allowed for generating “thick descriptions” only states the obvious. Why would educational researchers want to know such detailed accounts of these people’s experiences?
A number of papers were not accepted last year due to failure in providing an apt rationale for their data analysis. For example, suppose you state something like the following: “We analyzed the transcripts using a constructivist model as our guide....” The reader is left with many questions as to why you selected that paradigm and why other theories were not chosen. For example, did you consider other models, such as, say, feminist theory or a completely inductive (atheoretical) interpretive approach? You will find the proceedings editors to be very open to a variety of perspectives—but authors must be clear and convincing in their rationale for why they adopted particular methods and analysis paradigms.
Avoid jargon. The book will be housed in libraries (literally) around the world. As such, readers may not be familiar with particular phrases or the nuances of meanings you use via idioms. Although I am relatively knowledgeable vis-à-vis qualitative research, I simply am unsure how one writer meant (in context) the following: “alternative-deconstructionist perspective.” Rather than using ambiguous “lingo,” write straightforwardly so that the widest array of readers can benefit form your work.
The phrase “grounded theory” often is misused or abused. In fact, Raffanti is addressing this problematic issue in one of the EQRE sessions. The point is that if you are going to use this phrase, then be sure to do so accurately and in the appropriate context relative to classical and current qualitative research language.
State your conclusions in a forthright manner. Upon completion of its reading, the reader needs to be able to set down your paper, close his/her eyes, and clearly enumerate your results. Whether or not you actually “number” your findings is not the point (although often that is not a bad idea). The meaning rather is that the reader should be able to explain to another colleague just what it is you concluded from the research study. Avoid vague or fuzzy writing in this section of the paper, in particular. The results section should not contain discussion and the discussion section should not be reporting new findings.
Please include a rationale for your sample. A paper generally does not start with a good review when the writer states something such as the following: “We selected 13 individuals from a local elementary class....” Provide a rationale for the sample. A study truly does rise or fall on its sample selection. For the rest of your paper, the reader will be matching your conclusions with the sample selection. Begin strong by convincing the reader that you had apt reasons for selecting these particular individuals—they were not selected simply because they were convenient—and the participant selection strengthened your qualitative methodology rigor.
Due to the limited space in the book, papers will need to be limited to 15 pages of actual text. The total pages (including references, abstract, and the like) should not exceed 20 full pages. Use only Times New Roman, 12 point font. In some cases this means you may need to focus only on particular aspects of your research project. Last year we had some theses/dissertations and this is particularly the case for such studies. The literature review, obviously, will need to be modest in order to stay within the necessary space parameters.
I am looking forward to reading the papers in June. This will be an excellent time for professional development, learning, and interaction together. Making your personal acquaintance, particularly, will be a pleasure.