SLE Annual Meetings comprise three types of sessions: Workshop sessions, General sessions, and Poster sessions. There are usually 12-15 Workshop and General sessions running in parallel. The Poster sessions have one or two fixed slots in the programme. The topics of the workshops vary from year to year, depending on concrete proposals by workshop convenors.
A. TYPES OF PAPERS
1) What kind of abstract can I submit for a SLE Annual Meeting?
One can submit a Workshop abstract, a General session abstract, or a Poster abstract.
2) General rules applying to abstracts for all sessions.
Abstracts should clearly state research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results. They should not contain the names of the presenters, nor their affiliations or addresses, or any other information that may reveal their authorship. They should not exceed 500 words (including examples, excluding references). Abstracts should have the same title as the entry submitted via Easychair (see below).
3) How to submit a General session abstract.
General session abstracts are submitted directly via the Internet site “Easychair”. The start of abstract submission is announced in the Second Call for Papers, which contains a link to Easychair. This call usually goes out around mid-October; the deadline is 15 January. When submitting an abstract for the General sessions in Easychair, one specifies “General session paper” in the “Type of paper” section.
4) How to submit a Poster Session abstract.
Poster Session abstracts are submitted in the same way as General session abstracts; see above under 3). However, one should specify “Poster” in the “Type of paper” selection.
5) How to submit a workshop abstract.
The procedure of submitting a workshop abstract is quite complex and it consists of several steps.
a. In October-November, workshop convenors announce their proposals on the conference website (“Workshop proposals” tab) as well as on the Linguist-List, in order to invite potential participants. If one wishes to submit an abstract to a workshop, one has to check the list of the workshop proposals during this period (October-November), in order to see whether one’s intended work fits in a particular workshop topic.
b. If so, one should contact the workshop convenors in question directly, and send them a short (300 words) abstract before the deadline of the submission of workshop proposals, i.e. 20 November. Workshop convenors usually set an earlier deadline for these short abstracts, which may vary from workshop to workshop. Convenors make a selection of the abstracts received, and inform the senders about acceptance or rejection of the abstracts for the workshop they would like to organize.
c. Workshop convenors then submit their proposal for evaluation to the workshop session chair (the address is indicated in the Call for papers). Convenors are notified about the acceptance or non-acceptance of a workshop as a whole by 15 December. If the workshop proposal is accepted, workshop convenors will inform all workshop participants, and invite them to now submit their abstracts of 500 words in Easychair before 15 January.
d. When submitting an abstract in Easychair, one should indicate the workshop it belongs to in the selection of “Type of paper”. One specifies “Workshop paper” and then the corresponding workshop.
e. If an abstract is not accepted by workshop convenors, or if a workshop as such is not accepted for the forthcoming SLE Annual Meeting, one can submit one’s abstract for the General session before 15 January. (see above under 3)).
To sum up: For workshop abstracts, there are two submission procedures with two different deadlines. One short 300-word abstract is to be submitted to the workshop convenor in question before 15 November. In case the workshop proposal as such is accepted, one long 500-word abstract is to be submitted in Easychair before 15 January. The long abstract should conform to the general rules for abstracts, as described above under 2).
6) Is it possible to submit an abstract to a workshop in December/January?
Yes, it is possible to submit a paper to a workshop later, without passing through the preliminary selection as described under 5b) above. However, it is not guaranteed that an abstract will then be accepted by the workshop convenors. Most likely, one will serve as a substitute, in case there is a vacant position in the workshop. When submitting your paper to Easychair, as under 5c), one selects “Workshop paper” and then the particular workshop which you are applying for.
7) What is the “No preference” category?
The “No preference” category means that you have no preference between a general session and a poster presentation.
8) I would like to organize a workshop at an SLE Annual Meeting; what should I do?
As a workshop convenor, you first prepare a workshop proposal. It should contain a description of the topic and the research questions (between 900 and 1.100 words). A call for workshop proposals comes in the First Call for Papers (September), which contains detailed information about the modalities, but it is recommended to start your preparations earlier. You publish your workshop proposal – apart from your own mailing, it is recommended to post it on the SLE website and on the Linguistlist – so that you attract your workshop participants. In your call for workshop abstracts, you ask potential participants to send you their provisional short abstracts (max. 300 words per abstract) by the beginning of November. As the deadline for submitting your workshop proposal is 20 November, you can fix a deadline for submission of the short workshop abstracts earlier, for example, 10 November. You collect the provisional abstracts, you pre-select them, you inform submitters about the provisional acceptance or rejection for your workshop. For a short workshop, you will need at least 8 abstracts, for a long workshop, at least 13 abstract; however, it is wise to count with withdrawals and accept 2-3 more. Then you submit your workshop proposal – the description of the topic and research questions accompanied with the provisional abstracts – to the workshop chair, whose address is indicated in the Second Call for Papers, before 20 November. By 15 December, you will receive notification about acceptance or rejection of your workshop as well as further instructions.
B. EASYCHAIR AND SUBMISSIONS
9) I cannot find the link to Easychair to submit my abstract.
The link to Easychair is in the Call for papers (go to the “Call for papers” tab) available during the whole period for which Easychair is open to submissions (1 October – 15 December). You will need to use this link for the first time in order to get to Easychair SLE 2023 and identify yourself with this conference. When this is done, next time you can access Easychair from Google, log in, and select “SLE 2023”.
10) I do not manage to log in to Easychair or to access my Easychair data.
If you have an Easychair account and you cannot log in to Easychair, it is likely that you are using another e-mail address than the one you originally identified yourself with. In this case, try to remember which e-mail address you were using before and log in with that address. In Other > My Account you can change your main e-mail address or add an alternative e-mail address.
11) My abstract should be anonymous but what does that mean, exactly?
The abstract you submit in Easychair should not contain your name, affiliation, and e-mail. Please remove these indications before submitting your abstract.
Furthermore, your abstract should not contain your name in file properties.
a) How to check whether your name appears the file properties:
– pdf files: open your pdf file, go to “file” and then to “properties”. If your name appears in the line “author”, you have to remove it (if you do not manage to remove it from pdf, you can do it in your original .doc(x) file). If the line is empty, it is OK.
– doc(x) files: in the Explorer, right click on the file and select “properties”. Go to the “details” tab and check whether the line “author” displays your name. If yes, you should remove it.
b) How to remove your name from your .doc(x) file:
A solution for removing personal information from Word 2010 (.docx files) can be found here; for Word 2007 and Mac Word 2011, please see here. If you have another version, please try to google the solution yourself.
Dont’s:
Please avoid any reference to yourself.
Do not put, for example, AUTHOR (2016) in the text and then, in the references, AUTHOR (2016) followed by the title and details about your article or book. Such an indication is retrievable with Google and your submission can be disqualified as not being anonymous.
12) I have submitted my abstract but I would like to modify it. Is it possible?
Yes, that is possible. Just log in to Easychair, go to the “submission number tab”, click on “update file” and upload the new version of your abstract. You can modify your submission until the deadline, i.e. 15 January.
13) Is it possible to add a co-author to an already submitted abstract?
Yes, that is possible before acceptance of an abstract. To do so, please log in to Easychair and update information about the authors. However, it will not be possible to add a new author to an already accepted abstract. The same holds true for accepted workshops.
14) How many abstracts can I submit for the forthcoming SLE Annual Meeting?
In order to guarantee diversity, one person may be the first author of only one submission of any kind (workshop paper, general session paper, poster, or workshop proposal). Nobody is allowed to present or co-present more than two papers at an SLE conference, including workshops. You can co-author more than two papers but you cannot figure among the co-presenters at the conference. I.e. if you co-author more than two papers, you will have to play a background role.
Multiple submissions pose serious problems for scheduling. If you submit multiple papers you should be aware of it. The only thing that the programme manager can guarantee is that your first-authored and co-authored papers will not be scheduled in the same time slot.
C. BEST PRESENTATION and BEST POSTER AWARDS
15) I would like to apply for “Best presentation” or “Best poster” award.
At SLE conferences there are awards for the following categories:
- best oral presentation by a PhD student,
- best oral presentation by a Postdoc, and
- best Poster.
If you wish to apply for the first two categories, please check whether you are eligible: PhD students (i) should not have completed their PhD before the conference. Postdocs (ii) should have completed their PhD not earlier three years before the year of the conference (for example 2016 for the SLE 2019 conference). All posters may be eligible for the best poster prize.
Applicants should mark the option for each of the award categories in Easychair upon abstract submission.
16) May a paper applying for “Best presentation” be co-authored?
Yes, it may be co-authored. However, the applicant should act as the first author and as the presenter of the paper at the conference.
17) What are the prizes?
The first the prize in each of the three categories is €500. On top of this, the winners of the first prizes in the PhD and Postdoc categories may present a 20+10 mins. plenary talk at the next SLE conference. In that case, the €500 is available for travel and hotel costs. No conference fee is charged.
The 2nd and 3rd prizes are granted a three-year SLE membership.
D. ACCEPTED PAPERS
18) My abstract has been accepted for the forthcoming SLE Annual Meeting. What should I do next?
Firstly, congratulations: SLE applies strict criteria for the acceptance of abstracts! The next step will be registration: the deadline for author registration is 31 May. Details are indicated in the “registration” tab, please check also “important dates”. The same deadline applies to updates of your abstract in Easychair. You will receive further instructions about this.
19) I am a co-author of an accepted paper but, unfortunately, I cannot participate in the conference. Can our paper be presented only by one author?
Yes, one registration per paper is sufficient … but one person cannot present more than two papers (see point 14 above).
We hope to see you at the next conference!