Conference promotes student research work

The research papers one writes in college have the chance to serve a bigger purpose than the letter grade one receives.

All Troy undergraduate and graduate students are invited to showcase their research work at an interdisciplinary seminar next week.

The second Troy University Student Research Conference will be held on April 7 and 8 in Hawkins-Adams-Long Hall, and students from all fields of studies can participate.

According to English professor Ben Robertson, who began the conference last year, the idea behind it is to promote the vast amount of scholarly work that students do, which most of the time does not go past the viewing of a professor.

“This is kind of a chance for students to get out and share some of their work beyond the classroom, beyond the professor, and get some experience with presenting their work,” Robertson said.

Each participant will be required to do a 15-minute presentation on his or her paper, which should be shorter than eight double-spaced pages in Times New Roman, 12-point font.

Last year, 19 different topics, ranging from language acquisition, to politics and history, to workplace and classroom diversity, were discussed at the conference.

“It gives you practice defending your work because you get to know what your audience members think about it,” Robertson said. “And sometimes the questions they ask will let you know where you have flaws in your work and maybe show you the good things as well.”

Robertson said he encourages all students to participate for the experience of exhibiting scholarly materials and improving communication by showcasing it to a group of unfamiliar people.

“It’s good for any student, but especially if you are planning to go to graduate school,” he said. “A lot of time graduate schools will require students to do these kinds of things.”

To present at the conference, students are required to upload an abstract and a biographical note including name, classification, home campus, major and field of study at the following link, by Friday, April 1: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tusrc2016.

Further questions can be directed to Robertson at tusrc2016@easychair.org.