Quick Tour: Session Proposal Form
Introduction
This tour is a visual guide to help you navigate the session proposal form and understand what information you will need to complete your proposal using the Convention Program Forms interface.
Navigate through the main menu to the link to begin your session proposal.
If you have already begun a submission, use the ID and password assigned to you to log in. An ID and a password are automatically generated whenever you begin a new submission.
When completing the actual proposal form, each section must be completed before you can reach the subsequent page. You will be able to view and edit all the sections before making your submission. If you need to leave the form, you can return later using the ID and password assigned to you.
Steps to Complete a Session Proposal:
Title and Submitter E-mail. Enter the session title as you want it to appear in the Program (100 character max.) and the e-mail for the person who is the main contact about the proposal.
Session Type, Session Options, Room Setup Request, Expected Attendance, and AV Equipment. Select the appropriate format (panel with formal presentation titles, roundtable with no formal presentations, workshop, or innovative format), desired room setup (theater style, classroom style, crescent style, or interactive demonstrations), online or in-person session preference (whether you prefer that your session take place in person, online, or either), recording agreement, expected attendance, and audiovisual equipment needs for your session. All audiovisual equipment needed for the session must be requested on this form. Workshop sessions are either preconference (3 hours, usually starting at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday morning) or regular (75 minutes scheduled during the convention).
Presidential Theme. Each year the MLA president selects a theme that is the focus of the Presidential Plenary and the Presidential Address and invites session organizers to organize sessions around this theme. If you want your proposal considered as part of this group, check the box. Sessions selected as part of the presidential theme are listed on the MLA website.
Access and Engagement. To provide more opportunity for discussion, we encourage you to provide a URL or link to MLA Commons where your speakers can share papers, abstracts, slides, outlines, and talking points to make them available to potential session attendees before the convention. Doing so will enable all attendees to participate more fully and extend session engagement. We suggest putting papers or abstracts on MLA Commons or CORE.
Scheduling Conflicts. Many factors (audiovisual needs, organizational conflicts, participant conflicts, attendance size, etc.) affect the scheduling of sessions, making it difficult to guarantee any scheduling requests. If, however, you have a particular scheduling request that affects a panelist’s ability to participate in the session, please enter that request in the Scheduling Requests box. We cannot guarantee that any specific request will be met, but we will take note of all requests. See Scheduling Convention Sessions for more information.
Click Save to proceed to the next page.
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Select the subject that most closely relates to your session and click Submit to continue. Click on a subject bar for a drop-down list of additional choices. For more general subjects (e.g., children’s literature, electronic technology, literary criticism, prose fiction), click the Genre, Theory, Method bar.
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Provide up to five keywords (one per box) that best describe your session.
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Select the option that most closely relates to your session and click Submit to continue. This determines which group of Program Committee members reviews your proposal.
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Provide a brief précis (up to 400 characters) of the session. This information appears in the Program and tells attendees about the session and its objectives. Formal sessions list presentation titles that provide information about the session, so they do not have this page. This section is limited to 200 characters for innovative sessions that include presentation titles.
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Sessions with innovative formats should use this space to provide a brief description of the innovative format of the session, what roles the attendees and participants will have, and how the session will operate within the 75-minute session time for the Program Committee to review.
CloseSession Participants
Last Name. Enter the last name, select the appropriate role for the participant, and then click Search. You will revisit this page for each session participant.
Roles. Select Organizer to enter contact details for the primary contact person for the session. Select Zoom cohost for the person who will handle the technical aspects of your session if it takes place online. The names of the organizer and Zoom cohost do not appear in the Program unless they are also participating in another role in that session. Select Presider for the person who moderates the session and enforces time limits during the session at the convention. If the Organizer is also the Presider, Zoom cohost, Speaker, or Respondent, complete this step twice for that person (one time per role). If you selected Roundtable or Workshop as the session format, you won’t see Respondent as an option.
Presentation Title. When you select Speaker for a Formal session or an Innovative session with presentation titles, a new box appears for entering that person’s presentation title as it should appear in the Program (no more than 100 characters).
Search Results
If the name you entered is one that the system recognizes, you will reach the Search Results page. Select the appropriate name from the list or Not Found if there are no matches and click Select. If the name is correct but the e-mail or affiliation is not, click Select and Edit. If the system does not recognize the name you entered, it will take you straight to the Participant Information page.
Participant Information
The heading on this page and some information will change based on the participant’s role (organizer, Zoom cohost, presider, respondent, panelist).
Local Time Zone. Provide the time zone where the participant is located. If the session takes place online, this information will be used for session scheduling purposes.
Full Name and E-mail. Enter the first name, last name, and e-mail address of the participant. E-mail addresses are for session communication only and do not appear in the Program.
Expertise and Scholarship. Enter up to 100 words on that participant’s expertise and scholarship, particularly as they apply to the session. This is your chance to demonstrate why you selected this participant and how their presence on your panel enhances the session. See Information on Panelists' and Presider's Scholarship Examples for examples. This section is required for all participants on nonguaranteed sessions and for those with waiver requests on guaranteed sessions.
Accessibility for this Participant. If your participant has any accessibility requirements for the session, select the appropriate assistance needed. For accessibility questions, contact Stacey Courtney.
Waiver Request. If your panelist or respondent is not an MLA member and is a nonscholar or a scholar from a discipline other than language and literature, click the Request a Membership Waiver button. This option does not apply to session organizers or presiders, who must be MLA members.
Affiliation. Enter the participant’s affiliation as it should appear in the Program. List only one affiliation per person.
Click Save and Continue.
Add/Edit People
Use this page to add or edit participants on your session, review presentation titles, reorder panelists and presentations, add copresenters, and review how your panel will appear in the Program if your proposal is accepted.
Click Add New Person to return to the Session Participants page to enter information for a new participant.
Click on a presentation title or participant’s name to edit those details. Use the arrows in the Move column to reorder participants. Click the Add Copresenter link below a panelist’s name to add a copresenter for that presentation.
Click the Description button to proceed to the next page.
A note on membership: A participant’s membership status is noted in the Membership column. Yes appears if the participant is a current member, No if the participant is not a current member, and Waiver Requested if a waiver of membership has been requested. Note that membership renewals are not processed immediately; please check back for updates.
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Program Committee members pay close attention to the session description when reviewing session proposals. Committee members have to review a large number of sessions in a short amount of time, and they may not be specialists in your field. The information in this section should be clearly articulated so that an intelligent person who is not a specialist can appreciate the rationale behind your proposal.
This section should be written in English even if the papers in the session will be read in another language.
The detailed description (between 500 and 750 words) should explain the topic and how it will be treated, provide a rationale for organizing the session that explains how the topic relates to existing scholarship, and provide brief descriptions of the individual presentations and how they relate to the topic of the session. Roundtable proposals should illustrate the questions that will be addressed and how engagement between panelists and attendees will be fostered. Panel proposals should explain how the session will function within the allotted time and still guarantee at least fifteen minutes of unstructured discussion. See Detailed Description Examples for examples.
The Program Committee tends to accept only those proposals that are supported by a strong written description and not solely because of a timely subject, a worthwhile cause, or a prestigious speaker.
Click Continue to proceed to the next page.
CloseConclude Submission (proposal review page)
NOTE: This is a review page of your session proposal. Please review your proposal and make sure it is complete before clicking the Submit button at the bottom of the page. If you wish to make changes to the proposal, refer to the tabs across the top and click the one that relates to the section of the form you wish to edit.
Review the proposal and print a copy for your records.
If the proposal is complete, click Submit at the bottom of the page to submit your proposal.
Confirmation (your proposal has been submitted)
After you have submitted your proposal, you should reach the confirmation page that shows the complete session proposal and your ID and password for this proposal. Print a copy of this page.
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