Historians Abandon 'Precirculated Papers'

Many attendees of large scholarly gatherings complain that sessions in which long papers are read aloud rarely excite the audience. One solution is the "precirculated paper," in which scholars give out the paper in advance and spend less time reading aloud at the actual meeting, and more time in discussion. The American Historical Association has been encouraging this option for its annual meeting, but announced this week that it was suspending the practice. Among the problems: those who signed up for the option didn't submit their papers on time, those papers that were circulated weren't read in advance, and not enough attendees understood the concept.