Academic conferences are a highlight of graduate student life; they offer a chance to gauge the state of your field while networking with peers and mentors. Most attendees at presentations are thoughtful people in the fullest sense of the word: reflective scholars who think about both the substance of what they are hearing and the appropriateness of their behavior as members of an academic audience.

At the same time, however, conferences provide us opportunities to observe three species of academicians who give the rest of us a bad reputation: the Ingratiating Sycophant (IS), the Self Promoter (SP) and the Queen Bee (QB). In preparing for your next conference, you may wish to peruse the following field guide of people to avoid, particularly if you are presenting.

Often spotted in the front row with shining eyes and an imitative style of dress is the Ingratiating Sycophant. Conferences can feel like the Oscars of academia, particularly when the presenters are authors cited in one’s own research. At times, I even have been forced to suppress the urge to have lecturers autograph a cocktail napkin or dog-eared program. It can be difficult to maintain the requisite polite silence of a “proper” audience member when a rock star of the field is on stage. The IS does not suppress this urge. Instead, with each word from the speaker’s mouth his or her enthusiasm grows. This is initially demonstrated through vigorous head nodding at every point the speaker makes. This head nodding becomes increasingly animated until the entire body undulates in agreement and in a few instances the IS begins moaning or coughing to the point of audience-wide distraction. It is vaguely reminiscent of a tent revival scene without the shouts of “amen.”

Another embodiment of who not to be is the Self Promoter. This type is best identified by his or her formulaic approach to every presentation. When a presenter concludes, the SP secures the presenter’s attention and begins with the statement, “I have two questions.” The first question will be based on a gross misunderstanding of the presentation, most likely because the SP was busily crafting his or her question rather than listening. The second question will begin with, “In light of your findings, what would you say about …” and then devolve into a description of an obscure point from the SP’s own research having nothing to do with the presenter’s findings. The presenter is then forced to grapple with an irrelevant topic he or she may know nothing about, while being prevented from entertaining relevant questions from other members of the audience. Concluding his or her moment of stealing the spotlight, the SP usually offers unsolicited third and fourth questions in a verbal barrage upon the presenter before the moderator intervenes because the presenter’s time has expired.

Important in any field guide is a nod to the Queen Bee. This position tends to be limited to tenured professors whose publications everyone has read — or at least pretends to have read — and who do, in fact, know everything. The right to behave as a QB must be earned through an encyclopedic knowledge of one’s field and importance within it. That said, it is important to note that many professors possess this knowledge without being QBs themselves. During the presentations of colleagues, QBs interrupt, question, correct and amplify. They do not raise their hands. One cannot avoid their questions because they are too important to be ignored, but many tremble or sigh outwardly as a moderator chooses a QB’s question from the audience. The most obnoxious characteristic of the QB is that he or she is usually right in content if not in style. I suspect that, between perusals of dusty archives and the writings of important monographs, they make a study of Hugh Laurie’s performance as Dr. Greg House on TV. Answer their questions, accept their thoughts with humility and dignity and know that someday you might relish in being one of them.

While it is often impossible to avoid the IS, SP and QB at conferences, you and your friends may deal with such obnoxious behavior by discreetly playing competitive “Who-not-to-be Bingo” with a card full of rude attributes. A word of caution, however: Remember that shouting, “Bingo!” after someone exhibits these behaviors may qualify you for inclusion in yet another category of boorishness that everybody else will roll their eyes about.

[Reach columnist Elizabeth Brady at features@thedaily.washington.edu.]