Be a great discussant at an academic conference! A few thoughts:
1. It's not about you and your work and your brilliance. Place the papers front and center. It's helpful to the presenters and the audience if you can ID some common themes or put them in dialogue with each other.
1. It's not about you and your work and your brilliance. Place the papers front and center. It's helpful to the presenters and the audience if you can ID some common themes or put them in dialogue with each other.
2. For a grad student, it's a great chance to see how someone outside the bubble of the committee reads the project. React to the ideas and the evidence. Don't dwell on the organization or presentation style.
3. Go ahead and point the person toward relevant literatures not addressed but don't use your time to present a full bibliography. That should be an email afterward.
4. You can almost always find something to admire about any paper. Find it and say it!
5. A hard one for me -- don't take up too much time. Save time for the audience; cut down your remarks if the presenters have gone long.
6. Most of all, do volunteer to do this work. Sure, it's time consuming and doesn't have a huge immediate payoff, but it can be a great opportunity to meet new people and learn about great new work.
7. And last -- it can be really helpful to the authors if you email your detailed comments after the conference. That way the authors can listen and think while you're talking instead of scribbling frantically.
