The Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Society for Text & Discourse is in Chicago, Illinois from Monday through Wednesday, August 16-18, 2010.

The final short program is now available for download!

The conference registration page is still open or you can register on site. All presenters and attendees must register for the conference, except for undergraduates who are students at one of our sponsoring institutions.  Interested undergraduates should email jwiley@uic.edu to be added to the complementary registration list.

The regular conference program begins at 2:30pm on Monday, August 16th and runs through 4:55pm on Wednesday, August 18th. 

We are very proud of the strong program including 46 spoken paper presentations and 77 posters, 5 plenary and awardee addresses, and 2 special sessions:

• Judith F. Kroll, Reading and speaking in two languages: What bilinguals tell us about language processing


• Martha Alibali, Gesture and Meaning


• Morton Ann Gernsbacher, Do most language researchers believe in mirror neurons?


• Art Graesser, 2010 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, Society, Text, and Discourse in the Digital Age


• Michael Kaschak, 2009 Young Investigator Award, Timing, Time and Quantity: Some Observations on the Role of the Motor System in Language Comprehension

Reflections on 20 Years of Text & Discourse: A retrospective panel of some long time members (including Dick Anderson, Bruce Britton, Herb Clark, Walter Kinstch, Herre van Oostendorp, and our current and past chairs, Morton Gernsbacher, Susan Goldman and Art Graesser)

A Symposium on Comprehension Assessment including P. David Pearson, Jean Francois Rouet, Eduardo Vidal Abarca, Susan Goldman, and Paul van den Broek, with a discussion by Walter Kintsch

Preconference Workshop
The schedule will start at 8:30am on Monday morning with breakfast and registration before the Pre-conference Workshop organized by Anne Britt and Panayiota Kendeou on Methodological Paradigms in Discourse Processes

Workshop Speakers include:

• Conversation Paradigms, Sid Horton (Northwestern University)
• Reading Time Paradigms, David N. Rapp (Northwestern University) & Ed O'Brien (University of New Hampshire)
• Eye-Tracking Paradigms, Johanna Kaakinen (University of Turku, Finland)
• Think-aloud Paradigms, Panayiota Kendeou (Neapolis University of Pafos, Cyprus)
• Mixed-methods Paradigms, Joe Magliano (Northern Illinois University) 

Hotel Information
The conference is located at the Palmer House hotel which is located at 17 E. Monroe St in downtown Chicago (between State and Wabash).  A special hotel rate of $169 per night has been negotiated for conference participants, and rooms are reserved for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  To reserve your hotel rooms at this rate, please use this LINK or call 1-877-865-5321 to book by referencing the group code STE.

Transit to Hotel
The Palmer House is easily accessible from either O'Hare or Midway Airport by the "L" train (One-way Fare: $2.25). In the airport, follow signs for "CTA Trains" or "Trains to City" from the Baggage Claim.  You will need to purchase a farecard by the entrance.  The trains go only one direction from the airport: toward downtown.  The closest El stop to the hotel is Adams and Wabash on the Orange Line from Midway and the Monroe stop on the Blue Line from O’Hare.  For more information and maps see
http://www.transitchicago.com/riding_cta/airports.aspx

The El is generally the recommended way to get downtown.  However, the Orange line to Midway (MDW) only runs between 4am and 1am on weekdays, 5am -1am on Saturdays, and 6am - 11:30pm on Sundays.  Outside of those hours, one needs to take a cab from Midway. 

The Blue line to OHare (ORD) does not have restricted hours, but after 10 at night, you may prefer to take a cab into town. 

For approximate taxi fares, parking costs, and driving directions, see more travel information at the Palmer House website.

Presenter Info
Poster size is 36 x 48. For more info, see here.
Spoken Presentation info is posted here.

Roommate Matchmaker and Conference FAQ
We have created a message board where ST&D 2010 attendees can post notices (for instance to find roommates).  Local representatives will also post answers to questions about the conference, presentation formats, and travelling to Chicago. To join the message boards follow this link: http://stdconference2010.proboards.com/

You will need to click "register" and create a username and password. You will then get an e-mail and be asked to activate your account. If you have any questions about how to register for the message board, you may contact Scott Hinze: at scott.hinze@gmail.com

Additional Travel Information
Some things to do in Chicago
Restaurant Finders: yelp.com, chicagoreader.com

Program Committee
Susan Goldman and Jennifer Wiley are serving as the Co-Chairs for the meeting, with help from a Program Committee that capitalizes on the strong tradition of text and discourse research in the greater Chicago area, including: David Allbritton, Anne Britt, Bobbi Corrigan, John Dunlosky, Darren Gergle, Thomas Griffin, Peter Hastings, Scott Hinze, Sid Horton, Chris Kurby, Joe Magliano, Keith Millis, Mitch Nathan, Helga Noice, Tony Noice, David Rapp, Katherine Rawson, John Surber, Sandy Virtue and Mike Wolfe.  Special thanks to Anne Britt and Panayiota Kendeou for organizing the preconference workshop and to Katie McCarthy and Allison Jaeger for their help as grad student "volunteers" on the program and many many details!

Sponsors of ST&D 2010
The Society deeply appreciates the support of the following institutions:

Future Meetings
2011 Poitiers, France, July 11-13, 2011
    See the Poitiers 2011 Flyer!
2012 Montreal, Canada, July 10-12, 2012, with IGEL and SSSR