Your peak presentation to a professional audience is shaped within this 50-minute NASP presentation ― both at the conference site and at the on-campus meeting. This is the enduring image that is remembered as your peak-performance by SPSY faculty and by your cohort. That’s why the core faculty in SPSY attend the on-campus presentations of the Integrating Experience topics.  It becomes a sort of ‘presentation portfolio’ for your individual preparedness as a neophyte leader. It <is> a 'big deal.'

Your topic should be focused, relatively narrow, and explicitly limited to a 'small slice' of a larger topic. There are two main reasons why you should focus on these three descriptive elements as you: (1) select a topic, (2) develop a proposal, and (3) prepare to present:

1. The proposal you create is intended for established professionals who take the opportunity ~ typically at a significant financial cost they themselves support ~ to attend a national conference. Thus, they are not 'run of the mill' folk. They are usually MORE knowledgeable than are the typical professionals you meet in your work and others you see employed locally. They are the cream of the NASP crop. They are disproportionately representative of leaders rather than grunts, have established credibility, and to have a history of seeking out Continuing Professional Development opportunities ― of which NASP Convention is a prime example. Consequently, your presentation needs to match the base-knowledge and skills they bring to the presentation. This means your presentation is NEVER a ‘beginner’s guide’ or a ‘survey' to INTRODUCE them to a topic. Most attendees select presentations IN WHICH THEY ALREADY HAVE SIGNIFICANT BASE KNOWLEDGE. This should be no surprise. If they merely wanted a beginner’s guide they have multiple always-available printed introductions (including reading the 'Best Practices' series. Rather, they attend your presentation seeking the something-extra that comes from hearing an expert elaborate on neat-twists to old problems.  Thus, your presentation needs to BUILD UPON THE BASE KNOWLEDGE THEY ARE LIKELY BRING TO YOUR PRESENTATION. Many draft proposals I see are fairly basic in content level. It's important to remember that the folks who attend NASP are experienced, committed, and generally more knowledgeable that the typical SPSY professional. Thus, you need to be able to ADD SIGNIFICANTLY to their knowledge-base. This should generally cannot be done with an introductory-level lecture format.

2. The time you’re allotted for the NASP presentation is FINITE and relatively BRIEF (50-minutes).  At NASP you cannot build an argument that is all-encompassing regarding a broad topic ― for there is not sufficient time to do so. That’s left for the presenters of the All-Day Mini-skills Workshops. The 50-minutes streaks past. So, instead, you should select a small slice of a topic and develop that to the point of providing value-added information to an already fairly sophisticated audience. Your ability to match a topic to the ‘presumed knowledge-needs’ of a professional audience is another way we judge your preparedness for a leadership role in school psychology.
3. I need to emphasize that to have a reasonable chance of success you must study the details carefully. Deviation from the prescribed format will simply crush your chances of being included in the ‘winner’s circle’ at NASP. Devotion-to-detail gets Proposals accepted. Even the best-and-brightest have their Proposals refused if they fail to follow the directions.

   There ALWAYS is a problem with trying to send your submission electronically at the last-minute since so many other procrastinators wait till the last minute that it often crashes the NASP server-system for periods of time. So, anticipate that you MUST get it to NASP with enough time to be sure that you have your e-mailed ‘acknowledgement of receipt’ prior to the deadline. If you follow this plan and don’t get a confirmation then you’ll have chance to e-mail the Convention Program Coordinator to get confirmation another way or simply resubmit.

   I will be able to help with refining these proposals through to the last minute. However, since R&F starts in mid-June my degrees-of-freedom are less once we get to Summer I. For all this ~~ I’m highly committed to getting a strong showing at NASP from the specialist level intern cohort. In past years we’ve had from 85% to 100% acceptance rate at NASP Conventions (with an average hovering around 90%). After the submission phase is over I’ll work with you on the handouts and presentation style & related information.

   So, (1) Get your fingers flying across the keyboard, (2) ‘Tighten’ your writing (remove colloquialisms, emphasize brevity, make verbs and tense match the subject, remove ambiguity, check spelling, stay consistent in tense/verb usage, etc.). This will ‘save’ lines and provide you with the space needed to make it action-packed.  (3) Include pithy statements that show you have CONTENT to teach the audience. (4) Make the items brief but practical. (5) Emphasize SKILLS ~~ most early proposals I see are a little too heavy on teaching INFORMATION (i.e., sharing knowledge) and have too little on the HOW-TO components that SPSY people attend NASP to learn ~ that is, they fail to include sufficient SKILLS-EMPHASIS  (6) And, finalize your proposal with a closing statement that ties it all together.

These thoughts are the essence of the reasoning behind why we have this culminating, ‘peak’, capstone activity ― and why it has long been a central thread to the KSU SPSY program that has been mentioned since Day One of ‘Role & Function.’  It is the equivalent of the thesis or research option taken by students at other Ohio universities preparing school psychologists. To see it entirely in context, it may help you if you think of the Integrating Experience as a Thesis-equivalent.

We want you to find balance in your life while embedding this important activity into your schedule throughout the program. It should never be far from your mind.  It is like no other part of the KSU SPSY program.  It is, perhaps, the sole place within the program where your ability to engage and establish the confidence of co-professionals is best evaluated. Its importance, therefore, should never be underestimated.

Practical Considerations as you Prepare Your Proposal:

The guidelines for the NASP Proposal (i.e., the recipe for responding to the ‘call for papers’) for YOUR year may not yet be available. They never get posted until after the current year NASP Convention and sometimes only the very general information is available right up until the online-submission-portal is actually open.  However, that shouldn’t in any way restrict you getting ahead with this activity for the format, year by year, changes very little indeed. The most recent ‘call for papers’ may already have been removed from the NASP website. When available, the instructions can be viewed at the NASP website under the CONVENTIONS banner.

A few observations based on past reviews of draft proposals. You should anticipate that this is a fair representation of what you need to respond to … :

1.  NASP gives you exact word length for the Abstract and Summary. If you use less than this space then you send a message that everything that could be said about your topic is said in a space less than they allotted. My experience as a past NASP Conference Program Committee Chair and as a long-time Reviewer of Proposals supports the contention that accepted presentations disproportionately are those which use every inch of space, and jam-pack that space with examples, clarifications, citations and similar EVIDENCE of the expertise of the writer. Those which are ‘skimpy’ (i.e., they left space unused and didn't offer examples to illustrate what they wrote) ALWAYS caused a question as to whether the writer had run out of ideas even while crafting the proposal. And, if the writer didn’t know enough to fill approximately 3-pages then, the reviewer always wondered aloud: “Would they run out of ideas if given the chance to present for 50-minutes?”

2. The three reviewers of your proposal each spend only 5-minutes (maximum) with each proposal. They do this online. You need to point out to them the locations where they can allocate the points for each section. That’s why you need to use section sub-headings and exactly follow the order prescribed in the instructions.

3. If you have only one or two sentences for a required section (e.g., 'Skills', compared with one full page for ‘Purpose’) then they will likely allocate fewer points wherever the information isn’t fairly equivalent. If you're heavy on providing INFORMATION but skimpy in DEMONSTRATING & ILLUSTRATING SKILLS then similarly you'll be dinged!

4. Make sure that you know the difference between KNOWLEDGE that you're teaching and SKILLS that you're displaying/illustrating/demonstrating. It is crucial that you understand the need to have practice-oriented skill-building included ~ in addition to sharing KNOWLEDGE. If you provide no SKILLS (just INFORMATION) then you'll simply not get the points from the reviewers allocated for SKILLS!

5. They tell you in the submission guidelines an exact number of words for the title, for the Abstract and for the Summary ~ as a maximum. Don’t think that one more word won't be noticed. They will disqualify your proposal on that issue alone ― It states very clearly that submissions that are over-length do not get reviewed!

6. It is a NASP requirement that you identify within the proposal the research-base, the theory, or the empirical sources that you're citing as foundations for your proposal. Many draft-proposals come across my desk that make a presumption that to mention in the text that you'll address the theories is enough to satisfy the reviewers. However ... the reviewers want to know which theory you plan to illustrate or which approach you find most cogent based on the extant evidence.
7. Unless you cite studies then the list of References at the end comprise no more than a Bibliography. NASP wants citations/references not a global listing from within which one could browse. This is because proposals are expected to be evidence-based.
8. Most if not all of the objectives and skill-based items (i.e., the items in the bulleted/numbered lists) need to have a few words of explanation inside parentheses that illustrate to the Proposal Reviewers that you know what it is you're going to share. The reviewers don't want a great deal ~ but, they need to know that you do have content-knowledge about the topic your presenting on.
9. Unfortunately, when reviewing first-drafts of proposals I have routinely needed to make the comment that the sender needs to read NASP's instructions, review what I've already shared in e-mails AND review this web-page. It is very frustrating to have to ask folks to look at the instructions and, for example, note that the Abstract is limited in length.

The ‘proposal submission outline’ explicitly identifies that you <must> detail the: (1) PURPOSE, (2) CONTENT, and (3) EXPECTED OUTCOMES FOR PARTICIPANTS. It’s critical that you add subheading for these three sections that NASP says MUST be included ~ or otherwise reviewers could simply gloss over these sections of your proposal.  Many first-time proposal writers seem to forget the third element: 'EXPECTED OUTCOMES FOR PARTICIPANTS.' At the very least you won’t get all the points that should be coming your way if you miss one of three vital components. If the reviewers cannot immediately find the information they are expecting to see, then they won't bother to dig deeper. They simply don't have the time or inclination to do so...

Even after reading several summaries twice (which is all you can ever expect a reviewer to do…) I have not always been sure exactly where the three sections started and ended in proposals that didn't offer subheads to guide the reader.  Reviewers simply expect the information in that order and to be immediately discernible within the text. This is an explicitly stated instruction in the proposal guidelines.

Thus, your three sections should be identified with subheadings each followed by text (“Objectives”; “Specific Skills to be Taught”; and "Expected Learning Outcomes”).  If these sections are not immediately identifiable by the reviewers then you have a far less certain chance of earning the points that are available for each. No points are given for ‘overall impression’ gained by the reviewer ― points are only explicitly available for these three sections. I suggest that you frame the information into the required sections before you send any summaries to me for editing since I try to read your work with the ‘eyes’ of a reviewer.

After reviewing about half of the the most recent Proposals (for the 2009 Convention) I messaged the prospective NASP presenters with the following information ~~ which might be helpful to review:

I'm returning your file with embedded edits, renamed as 'EDITED_your name.' In each case I embed “Comments” within the ‘balloons’ in the right-margins that Word allows. You'll only see the 'Comments' feature if you turn ON 'Comments.'  It may already be ON by default in your version of MSWord. These include important additions to the word-changes that I embed in the edited text (always provided in RED text).

 I’ve noticed from those draft proposals I’ve seen:  

1.    Most draft proposals are at the point where the subtle changes I'm suggest will make the difference in the all-important points you can earn in the competition for places at the NASP Convention.  Rarely do they relate to CONTENT ~~ generally,  they detail ways of making a point stronger, aligning with the expected format, or making sure that the lead sentence matches the tense/style of numbered items within a list.

2.   The most typical suggestion I’ve made is the need to add more SKILLS (and relatively fewer items of KNOWLEDGE). NASP's emphasis is on presenters passing to attendees a means for practically implementing suggestions that you make, rather than simply ‘telling’ the participants what they could do.

3.   Skills are best framed in DIRECT or ENACTIVE terms (“participants will learn two ways to conduct a needs-assessment”), rather than “participants will learn about the importance of needs assessment”). This more DIRECT format emphasizes the SKILL element of the instruction you provide in your presentation. Usually you need to offer a brief statement, within parentheses, to show that you have examples at hand to illustrate (for example) that you do know "2 ways to conduct a needs assessment"). Try to more directly demonstrate WHAT THEY LEARN AS ATTENDEES rather than WHAT YOU’LL TEACH THEM. This may be subtle in difference but is critically important to NASP reviewers.

Make sure that your file-title includes your name when you e-mail it to me. If you’re sending a second revision, for example, then include that fact in the title so I recognize that it's a revision and not a duplicate of an earlier version.