How to write and publish a scientific paper - Barbara Gastel, Robert A. Day 2022

Definition
How to write a conference report
Conference communications

Conference: a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together decide that nothing can be done.

—Fred Allen

Definition

A conference report can be of many kinds. However, let us make a few assumptions and, from these, try to devise a picture of what a more-or-less typical conference report should look like.

It all starts, of course, when you are invited to participate in a conference (congress, symposium, workshop, panel discussion, seminar, or colloquium), the proceedings of which will be published. At that early time, you should stop to ask yourself, and the conference convener or editor, exactly what is involved in the publication.

The biggest question, yet one that is often left cloudy, is whether the proceedings volume will be defined as a primary publication. If you or other participants present previously unpublished data, the question arises (or at least it should) as to whether data published in the proceedings are validly published, thus precluding later republication in a primary journal.

The clear trend, it seems, is to define conference reports as not validly published primary data. This is seemingly in recognition of three important considerations: (1) Most conference proceedings are one-shot, ephemeral publications, not purchased widely by science libraries around the world; thus, because of their limited circulation and availability, they fail one of the fundamental tests of valid publication. Or if the proceedings are posted online, they might not be permanently accessible. (2) Most conference reports either are essentially review papers, which do not qualify as primary publication, or are preliminary reports presenting data and concepts that may still be tentative or inconclusive and that the scientist would not yet dare to contribute to a primary publication. (3) Conference reports are normally not subjected to peer review or to more than minimal editing; therefore, because of the lack of any real quality control, many reputable publishers now define proceedings volumes as nonprimary. (There are, of course, exceptions. Some conference proceedings are peer-reviewed and rigorously edited, and their prestige is the equal of primary journals. Indeed, some conference proceedings appear as issues of journals.)

This is important to you because you can determine whether your data will be buried in an obscure proceedings volume. It also answers in large measure how you should write the report. If the proceedings volume is adjudged as primary, you should (and the editor will no doubt so indicate) prepare your manuscript in journal style. You should give full experimental detail, and you should present both your data and your discussion of the data as circumspectly as you would in a prestigious journal.

If, on the other hand, you are contributing to a proceedings volume that is not a primary publication, your style of writing may (and should) be quite different. The fundamental requirement of reproducibility, inherent in a primary publication, may now be ignored. You need not, and probably should not, have a materials and methods section. Certainly, you need not provide the intricate detail that might be required for a peer to reproduce the experiments.

Nor is it necessary to provide the usual literature review. Your later journal article will carefully fit your results into the preexisting fabric of science; your conference report should be designed to give the news and the speculation on the data for today’s audiences. Only the primary journal need serve as the official repository.