Hi guys, I'm new here but I've been reading the archived posts for a while whenever I have a truly stupid or humiliating query I can't get anyone else to answer!

My question is about writing a proposal for my first conference paper. I've chosen the conference quite carefully (it's a grad conference at the university where I studied for my MA) but I'm really worried about my proposal. I'm going to submit it as an email attachment, and my question is whether I should write a kind of covering letter in the body of the email explaining my research in general and my background, or whether I should just send like a courtesy "Please find attached my conference proposal".

My proposal is in the present tense, rather than the future (so "this paper investigates" not "this paper will investigate"). Is this conventional?

ta v much xx

I think that sounds fine. I always write my conference papers in the present tense (seems more concrete). I think this is the norm, although I have seen some in the future tense. I have never written a cover letter for a conference, just a short note saying 'please find my abstract for conference X attached' etc. Good luck!