Hi, can someone please give me some advice.

I managed to have one paper published, and since then I have been receiving invitations to submit abstract/attend conferences.

What do I do about funding? Am I supposed to approach my boss and ask if they can send me (but if I were to write another abstract for a poster/oral presentation or conference paper) that work for conference is outside my work field, do you know what I'm trying to say.

Or, do I say ok I send an abstract, and then I start looking for funding elsewhere.

What if the abstract really gets accepted and I have no money to buy my ticket, what happens then, do I just leave it at that?

I have to admit I already have a lot of work now on my shoulders, if I were to suggest more research papers to my boss, it would feel as if I am asking for more work and then I'd have to keep my word and produce more, and I'll be subjecting myself to more pressure, more deadlines.

Can anyone sort me out for today's questions :-)

thanks very much for any advice
love satchi

Hi Satchi :-)

First of all, congratulations on getting your paper published!! Was it your first peer-reviewed article? If so then twice as much congratulations!!!! It's just a big relief and joy to see your 'baby' in its final form, isn't it? :-)

About the conferences: my advice would be first of all to think about what is good for you in this moment, independently from funding. Giving a conference paper requires some preparation time, we usually calculate internally a ca. 30-40hrs work plus the days of the conference.

Conferences are extremely important for academics [:-)] and therefore it is often so, that you can ask your school to cover the costs if you present something - depending on the kind of contract you have. Of course you have to discuss with your head of research which conferences you want to attend - i.e. you have to select and pick out the ones that can bring you the most in terms of network and visibility of your research (and weight the costs as well: 2 intercontinental conferences within a few months would be hard to get funded anywhere I guess..)

If the paper is about the research you published, it should not take too long to put together a presentation. However, I'd discuss it with your boss, not in terms of asking for money (!), rather in terms of planning your work schedule (network belongs to it) wisely and efficiently. :-)

Then, once the abstract is sent, you can of course also try to get some fund yourself. If you get it, your school will be double as happy when you go back and say - 'btw, I actually managed to get this scholarship/fund/award, so I only need so much more to cover the costs'...!

In any case: you can withdraw after the abstract is accepted. There may be lots of reasons why one cannot make it to the conference at the end, that's no problem - as long as it is the exception and not the rule.

Hope this help :-)
xxxW

Just a note of caution - are these conferences that you recognise/know to be legitimate? There can be some slightly random events that 'cold-call' people with publications on a particular topic, which are not always the best conferences in your field. So make sure they are worth attending by checking with other people in your department before you commit yourself!

Double post deleted

hi wanderingbit, hazyjane
thank you for your replies! I didn't know that we could withdraw from a conference! but will that mean that their booklet (you know those big conference books) with abstracts in them, will the abstract be published?

oh yes hazyjane good point about the conference legitimacy. I will find out more. Before this, I also received emails from someone asking to publish my thesis, but then I found out it was a money-making type of publisher, rather than a publisher-publisher... I don't know the right words for it.

Another challenge I have is time management, as my research work seems to be piling up, and once I have managed to tick off some tasks off my list, suddenly I find I haven't completed Task 4 or only done half of Task 7. it is as if, once I have written off say a research proposal, there's always something lagging behind. how can i keep up?

Does any one have tips for me.

My biggest challenge now is getting time to write my own papers, as I have so much departmental work that I can't seem to fit it in anywhere. I tried to write on Sundays, but then I found myself either falling asleep or watching Youtube instead.

please help! Really desperate
thanks love satchi