INVITATION TO 69th SEDAAG MEETING
The Department of Geography at the University of Georgia welcomes the SEDAAG membership to Athens, Georgia, for the 69th meeting of the Division. The meeting will be held November 23-25, 2014, at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education on the campus of UGA. Room rates per night are $104 for a single, $134 for a double, and $169-409 for a suite, using the 83138 group code. Participants can call 1-800-884-1381 or book a room at the Georgia Center online at http://www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/uga-hotel. Rooms are blocked for the conference until October 23, 2014. (Reservations made after that date will be subject to availability.) Conference registration information is available at http://geography.uga.edu/sedaag-2014. Thomas Mote is the local arrangements coordinator and can be contacted at tmote@uga.edu. NOTE: People presenting papers or posters at the annual meeting must be a current member of SEDAAG. If you are not a SEDAAG member, please join before registering for the meeting. Go to the SEDAAG website at http://www.sedaag.org/membership to apply for membership. If you do not wish to join SEDAAG, please pay the non-member registration fee, which is the equivalent of the regular registration fee plus membership dues. It is the hope of the Executive Committee that all meeting participants will choose to join SEDAAG and enjoy the benefits of membership, which include a subscription to the Southeastern Geographer.
CALL FOR PAPERS AND POSTERS
69th SEDAAG Meeting
Athens, GA
November 23-25, 2014
All are invited to attend, submit a paper or poster, and participate in the program at the upcoming 69th SEDAAG Meeting in Athens, Georgia. Both graduate and undergraduate students are strongly encouraged to participate the meeting. Graduate students are encouraged to submit a paper for the Student Honors Competition. Undergraduate students are encouraged to submit a poster for the competition sponsored by the education committee (a separate announcement will be sent a later date about this competition). Special sessions organized thematically around specific research areas, methodological approaches, or regions are welcome. Please see the sections below for further information on special sessions. The Program Chair for the 2014 meeting is Susan Walcott from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. All submissions should be submitted via the online submission form. Please note that all paper/poster presenters and session chairs must be members of SEDAAG (membership information can be found at www.SEDAAG.org). SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.
I. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS
Submit via the online submission form (click here)
The deadlines: For all paper and poster submissions is Friday, September 5, 2014. SUBMISSIONS ARE CLOSED.
Submissions received after the deadlines will not be accepted. All papers and poster descriptions received by the deadline will be reviewed by the Program Committee in a blind review process. Inclusion on the program is subject to acceptance following review. Notify the Program Chair immediately if confirmation of material receipt is not received within one week.
**NOTE NEW PROCEDURE**:
ALL material will now be submitted via the SEDAAG webpage. Papers will be in the form of a 1,000 – 1,500 word version, plus Abstract. Fill in all the information required in the online submission form. This is critical to ensure that presentations/posters are organized into the correct categories.
Document Format for All Material Descriptions.
The author’s name, address, or affiliation must NOT appear anywhere in the paper or poster submitted for review. All papers must be between 1,000 and 1,500 words total. DO NOT include Tables, Figures, other graphics in your paper (does not display well in online submission). If the paper description or abstract contains more than one paragraph, leave two spaces between paragraphs. Short abstracts (250 words) for each paper should be submitted as a file on the online submission form. The abstract for each accepted paper will be published on the web. Authors are responsible for editing and proofreading their own abstracts; they will be posted as submitted.
Paper Submissions: Additional Guidelines
Accepted papers must be presented in fifteen minutes or less. Each room used for paper sessions will have an LCD projector for Power Point presentations. To avoid delays associated with setup time, it is extremely important that presenters using digital projectors bring presentation on a jump drive at least 15 minutes before the session begins and upload it to the PC.
Poster Description Submissions: Additional Guidelines
Detail the purpose, research design, related literature, and findings of the poster. Poster set-up: Stands for presenting posters will be provided by SEDAAG. Poster dimensions will be 36” x 48”. Materials should be of professional quality and legible from a distance of three feet. Text should be confined to brief statements. Submit as a low res PDF (or jpg if PDF not possible); this is for review, not necessarily as your final format.
II. ORGANIZING A SPECIAL SESSION
Special sessions are a valuable contribution to SEDAAG meetings, providing a topical or thematic focus for paper presentations. Organizers of special sessions should adhere to the following guidelines: Special session plans should be submitted by Monday, August 25th, 2014.
Due date of September 5 for all materials for the special session still applies. Submit plan with title and participants by Monday, August 25th. Organizers should provide a draft special-session plan to the program chair that includes the session title, session chair, intended paper titles, authors’ names (and discussants, if appropriate), and institutional affiliations. All papers submitted are subject to the regular submission and review process. Organizers of special sessions should collect and send all material to the Program Chair. It is the responsibility of the session organizer to see that all material is submitted on time and in its completed form. Note: Please send your proposed special sessions to the Program Chair in a Word attachment including: 1) the session name; 2) participants with their affiliations, e-mail address, and names of their papers; and 3) the order in which you want the papers to be presented. Session organizers are welcome to assign discussants, either for the entire session or for individual papers (though it is no longer necessary). If discussants are used, it is the organizer’s responsibility to arrange for discussants before submitting the proposed session. Time and space constraints dictate that a special session should have a minimum of four papers. The program chair reserves the right to add papers to the session or to merge papers into other sessions, especially if three or fewer papers survive the review process.
III. GUIDELINES FOR THE STUDENT HONORS COMPETITION
The Student Honors competitions consist of paper competitions for both the Master’s and Doctoral level and one combined poster competition for Master’s and Doctoral levels. Eligibility: To be eligible to participate in the Student Honors competition, the graduate student must have been enrolled in a geography program and in residence at the sponsoring department at the time his or her research was done. The sponsoring department must be located within the SEDAAG region. Ph.D. students must still be enrolled as a student at the time his or her paper is presented. Master’s students who have graduated since doing their research may present their papers at the first SEDAAG meeting following graduation. Papers should represent original research. Maps, illustrations, and other audiovisual materials should be designed or constructed by the author. No multiple-authored papers will be accepted.
Departmental Responsibilities: Sponsoring departments should verify the eligibility of graduate students for the Honors competition and conduct preliminary screening of papers to ensure that those submitted are quality products. To the extent possible, departments should ensure that authors accepted in the Honors competition will be able to attend the 2014 meeting and be present at the awards ceremony.
Awards: Normally, one Master’s-level paper award, one Doctoral-level paper award, and one Master’s/Doctoral poster award are presented each year, but decisions regarding the Honors award are left entirely to the discretion of the Honors Committee. The Ph.D. paper award will be for $1,000, the Master’s paper award will be for $500, and the Master’s/Ph.D. poster award will be for $500. Each award includes a year’s paid membership in the Association of American Geographers (AAG) and a plaque. Presentation of awards will be made at the Honors banquet. All students who have papers accepted in the final competition will have their annual meeting registration fee and Honors banquet fees waived.
Topics: Papers and posters on any geographic topic may be entered into the Honors competition. Every paper, poster and oral presentation will receive a critical and impartial evaluation.
Evaluation Procedures: Papers and posters submitted for the Honors competition will undergo preliminary screening by the Honors Committee. Those accepted for the competition will be referred to the Program Committee for inclusion in one of the student honors competition sessions. Papers and posters not included in the competition but accepted for the program will be placed in appropriate sessions elsewhere in the program. Each paper submitted to the Honors competition will be evaluated for its quality as a written report on original research undertaken by the author, and for its oral presentation and defense. The written and oral evaluations will be weighted 60 percent and 40 percent, respectively. Each poster submitted to the Honors competition will be evaluated for its quality as a written report on original research undertaken by the author, for its oral presentation and defense, and for its visual presentation of the poster. The written, oral, and visual evaluations will be weighted 30 percent, 30 percent, and 40 percent respectively. Content will be the primary general criterion in the written evaluation, but the author should use proper English as well as appropriate illustrations and documentation. The paper should be prepared as if it were to be published, although draft copies of maps and figures for the written review will be accepted. A primary criterion will be a well-defined research objective and a research procedure appropriate to achieving it. The paper should focus on one or more research questions and present at least a tentative answer, or they will be scored lower.
The evaluation of the oral presentation will be independent of the evaluation of the written paper, and will focus on the professional quality of the presentation and the adequacy with which questions are answered. It is important that the oral presentations be lively and well-illustrated. Appropriate modifications of the written paper should be incorporated into the oral presentation wherever suitable, although major alterations of the written paper are discouraged. The quality, appropriateness, and visual appeal of any maps, figures, and illustrations will be an important part of the evaluation. All visual aids should be intelligible from the back of the room. In order to leave adequate time for questions, each oral presentation should adhere strictly to the time limits (usually about 15 minutes) for delivery specified by the person chairing the session. The evaluation of the visual presentation of the poster will include quality, appropriateness, and visual appeal of any maps, figures, and illustrations and their relevance to the topic of the research. Materials should be of professional quality and legible from a distance of one meter (~3.3 ft.). Text should be confined to brief statements. Stands for posters will be provided by SEDAAG. Maximum poster dimensions are 36” x 48” (91cm x 122 cm).
Voting. No Honors Committee member shall vote on a paper by a student from his or her institution or to whom they are related, although this restriction shall not discourage or prevent that member’s participation in the discussion preceding the formal Committee vote.
Submission of Honors’ Papers and Posters: All Honors submission 8 page papers/posters are to be sent to the Honors Committee Chair, Dr. Sharon Cobb, at scobb@unf.edu, as well as complete the webpage information in case the submission is not accepted for the competition and returns to the general pool to be assigned to a regular session. A paper or poster submitted for the Honors competition must be accompanied by a letter or email from the student’s advisor or head of the sponsoring department verifying the status and eligibility of the student and indicating whether it is for the M.A./M.S. paper, PhD paper, or Master’s/PhD poster competition. Papers submitted for the Honors competition must conform to the Submission Instructions for All Participants for procedures and formatting of papers and abstracts. Indicate on the webpage whether the paper is for the Master’s or Doctoral level competition. Poster descriptions submitted for the Honors competition must conform to the Submission Instructions for All Participants. If submitting a paper, indicate whether it is for the Master’s or Doctoral level competition