This post on the topic To Read or Not To Read at College Composition and Communications Conference is part of an electronic conversation that is taking place on PRE/TEXT List and other sites. For the list of posts in the discussion, go to CCCC.

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Sender: Pre/Text issues discussion [PTISSUES@MIAMIU.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU]
Subject: sd: to read or not to read
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i have to agree with meaghan roberts and cynthia haynes that longer papers are more conducive to the the kind of "reflective listening" and engaging with a presenter's ideas that result in a critical exchange of ideas. it should go without saying--but apparently doesn't--among teachers and rhetoricians that delivery counts. i usually make a point to insert brackets into the paper i'm reading at places where i feel confident enough to speak extemporaneously about an idea or give an explanation, or even just to remind myself to look up and engage with the audience for a moment: [tell joke about prolepsis]. of course you have to take into consideration the time element and not get carried away. this discussion is good for reminding ourselves that a conference paper is a unique rhetorical situation with its own demands.

_____is there some way to gracefully pass these insights on to future conference presenters?

a few words from a different perspective: as a hopeful petitioner to this year's conference, i was of course delighted to receive word in october that my proposal had been accepted and began fleshing out my abstract into a more detailed and fully developed argument. then in december, i received the cccc packet, telling me that i was "presenter 2" of 8 presenters! in an hour-and-15-minute session, this means that i will not get to do much more than read the abstract i sent in as a proposal. i'm disappointed, even a little angry. of course, the alternative may have been that i didn't get on the program at all. but i'd go, even so, as i did for many years as a grad student living on loans, before i had the courage to put in my first proposal.

if this is the price of getting more people on the program so they can get travel money and pump up their vitae, i think we may need to have a general discussion of our priorities and their consequences.

_____what say you?

susan dobra
california state university, chico

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