|
CALL FOR PAPERS
51st Annual Parapsychological Association Convention
held in conjunction
with the Society for Psychical Research
The University of Winchester West Downs Centre, Winchester, UK
August 13-17, 2008
Program Information
The 2008 Annual PA convention
will be a joint convention held in conjunction with the Society for
Psychical Research, and be held at the University of Winchester West
Downs Centre, Winchester, UK, from August 13-17, 2008. Information
regarding registration and accommodation will be available in due course
from the PA or SPR websites.
The convention will be divided
up into separate PA and SPR sessions and each organization will have its
own separate Program Committee for considering conference submissions
and each Committee has its own submission requirements (see below). The
PA Program Chair will be Dr Simon Sherwood; the SPR Program Chair will
be Prof. Bernard Carr.
In deciding whether to submit
to the PA or the SPR Program Committee, the following criteria should be
borne in mind: (1) people who would usually submit papers to both
the PA and the SPR should submit via the PA (when the meetings are
separate, it is possible to offer the same talk); (2) on no account
should a paper be submitted to both program committees; (3) because PA
conferences last longer than SPR ones, PA presentations will cover the
whole period of the meeting, while the SPR ones will be scheduled
between 2pm Friday and 12 noon Sunday. All delegates are encouraged to
attend the entire conference, so the SPR and PA sessions will be
interspersed as much as possible, with the relative number being
determined by the number of papers submitted to each committee.
PA
submission guidelines
Papers: Anyone may
submit a paper for consideration by the PA Program Committee. Papers may
be clinical, experimental, historical, methodological, philosophical, or
theoretical, or may report field work or case studies of any relevant
kind, and of sufficient interest to the community, and of sufficient
depth to be amenable to a 20 to 25 minute presentation time with further
discussion. The Program Committee will not consider, in this category,
proposals for research which has not yet been carried out, analyses of
work in progress, nor will the Committee consider papers published in
English prior to the Convention. However, recent papers that have been
previously published in a language other than English are acceptable in
this category, provided the paper has been translated into English for
the purpose of submission to the Program Committee. Papers submitted for
floor presentation should be the equivalent of full-length journal
articles. A detailed description on the preparation of manuscripts can
be found below.
Posters:
Posters are papers or other materials presented on poster board in an
installation separate from the convention floor. Poster sessions are
especially appropriate for short papers, those that are particularly
amenable to visual displays (e.g., demonstration of equipment or
techniques) and highly technical papers that cannot be communicated
effectively in a brief lecture format to a general scientific audience.
Authors who want their papers presented in a poster session should
indicate this at the time of submission, with particular attention paid
to a description of the visual materials that will make up the content
of the presentation. In addition, the Program Committee may, at its
discretion, designate other accepted papers for presentation in a poster
session. Poster session papers will be included in the convention
proceedings. Proposals for posters should be prepared according to the
instructions for full papers listed above. Photocopies of photographs to
be used in visual presentations are acceptable with the submission.
Research Briefs:
Research briefs are short papers (1500 words) reporting recently
completed work or research in progress, of sufficient interest to the
community, but able to be adequately summarized in a 5 to 10 minute
presentation. Submitted research briefs must include detailed
descriptions of the design and planned analyses and may include
supplemental descriptions, beyond the 1500-word brief, when it might be
helpful to the Program Committee in making a decision. The Program
Committee may, at its discretion, designate other accepted papers for
presentation as a research brief. Research briefs should be prepared
according to the instructions for full papers listed below, but without
the 500 word abstract.
Symposia/Panel
Discussions/Workshops:
Only Members and Associates of the Parapsychological Association may
propose a symposium, panel discussion, or workshop.
Symposia:
Symposia are formal presentations by participants on related topics.
Proposals for symposia must include a summary sheet indicating title,
chairperson, participants, order of presentation, and proposed time
allotments, up to a total of 90 minutes, including discussion periods.
Symposia submissions must include full papers from each of the
participants included in the symposium and be prepared per the
instructions listed below.
Panel discussions:
Panel discussions are informal roundtable discussions intended to
maximize spontaneous interactions of panelists and the audience. A total
of 90 minutes, including discussion period, is allocated for panel
discussions. A minimum of four participants should be proposed, with
time apportioned among them and a substantial discussion period.
Proposals for panel discussions should include a summary sheet that
lists the panel title, chairperson, panelists, order of presentation,
and time allotments as well as abstracts of 500 words from each
panelist. Panel discussion proposals should be prepared per the
instructions listed below
Workshops:
Workshops are informal discussions of specific topics. Proposals for
workshops should include a summary sheet listing the title, chairperson,
other presenting participants, type of activity, and a description of
the intended content of the workshop, not exceeding 500 words. Workshop
proposals should be prepared per the instructions listed below.
Preparation of Manuscripts
A standardized template has been developed into which submissions for
this year's convention may be entered. Authors are strongly encouraged
to use this standardized style template in MS Word or RTF format. The
template can be downloaded from the URL
http://www.parapsych.org/PA_2008_Submission_Template.doc
(RIGHT-CLICK on this URL
and do "SAVE TARGET AS" in Internet Explorer or "SAVE LINK TARGET AS" in
Netscape. Save the file to your local disk.) After downloading this file
to their computer, authors can double-click on the file to open a new
document in the standardized format. Authors can then replace the text
entered as an example with their own text but are cautioned not to
change the predefined formats. Tables and figures should be inserted
into the text, must be numbered and must have a title or legend but can
be of any format that suits the authors' needs.
Authors who are not using MS
Word are asked to download a PDF file of the template which is available
from the URL
http://www.parapsych.org/PA_2008_Submission_Template.pdf
and to use it as an example of
the suggested format. The number and titles of headings and subheadings
may be adapted and altered to suit the authors' needs. If authors find
it impossible or difficult to use the standardized template, please
contact the Program Chairperson for assistance and advice. It is hoped
that the template will help to produce a proceedings booklet with a
uniform format as well as to simplify the job of the referees who will
review each submission.
Full papers for floor
presentation, full papers for poster presentation and full papers being
submitted as part of a symposium should follow the template as closely
as possible, should be the equivalent of a full-length journal article,
and should contain a 500 word abstract that will be published in the
Journal of Parapsychology and placed on the PA's website. The text
of the paper (including abstracts, tables, references, figures and
illustrations) should not exceed 7000 words in total. If not otherwise
specified, authors are requested to adhere to the style of the
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, or the
format used by the British Journal of Psychology, especially for
quotations and references.
Manuscript Submission
Manuscripts for all types of submissions to the PA Program Committee
should be submitted electronically using MS Word for Windows. Authors
who do not use this program should contact the Program Chairperson for
assistance and advice. By seeking inclusions in the PA Convention
Program, submitters of any type of presentation which requires an
abstract, are agreeing that the abstract they produce will be up-loaded
after the convention to the Parapsychological Association’s website (www.parapsych.org),
where it will be maintained indefinitely. Persons who are unwilling for
their abstracts to be so archived are urged not to submit. The
submission deadline is Tuesday 15th April, 2008. Authors
should be aware that any papers received after the deadline, even if
accepted, may not be included in the printed Proceedings of Presented
Papers. Please send all submissions and other correspondence about the
PA program to:
Dr Simon Sherwood
Simon.Sherwood@northampton.ac.uk
The Division of Psychology
The University of Northampton
Boughton Green Road
Northampton
NN2 7AL
UK
Telephone: +44 (0)1604 892623 (Voicemail available)
SPR submission guidelines
Summaries of proposed SPR papers should reach the SPR Program Committee
before 15th
April 2008 (somewhat earlier than usual to allow coordination with PA
submissions). These summaries should be single-spaced and have a length
of 500 to 1000 words (at most two pages). There will also be a number of
SPR invited talks and the Program Committee would welcome suggestions
for SPR symposia or round-table discussions. Electronic submissions are
preferred and should be e-mailed to the Secretary with "SPR conference"
indicated in the subject heading. Otherwise, summaries should be posted
and marked “SPR conference”. Authors whose SPR contributions are
accepted will be informed by 15 June.
The provisional conference program will be distributed with the July
issue of the SPR Journal; it will also be available from the
SPR office and website (www.spr.ac.uk)
from early July.
Please send all submissions and
any other correspondence about the SPR program to:
The Secretary
UKSociety@aol.com
The Society for Psychical Research
49 Marloes Road, Kensington, London
W8 6LA UK
Telephone and fax: +44 (0)20
7937 8984 |
Become a
Member of the PA