Attend an international conference during PhD? How to know I'm ready (or not) to attend/answer a call for paper? I am currently a Ph.D. candidate (1st year). I am still reviewing literature and thinking about the design of my research to begin the empirical part within 4–6 months (social sciences, qualitative research).
There is an international conference organizing different seminars about themes I precisely deal with. Though I still did not start the empirical part, I would like to know if it is of any interest to answer a call for contribution to discuss the theoretical framework I contemplate to build upon?
My supervisor seems not knowing yet that this conference is organized (his research interests are quite far from that of the conference). I fear it might sounds being fiercely ambitious, though I consider this meeting as an opportunity to meet people sharing my research interests/challenging my first assumptions.
From my experience, it's much more useful and rewarding (even for people following your talk) to present a non-finished work than a completed one. As you said, people may come with an interesting opinion or fact you didn't think about and that may improve your study. Moreover, I found much easy and stimulating to talk with someone asking for suggestions rather than presenting a finished work. In this case, they're probably not interested in my opinion anyway.
I attended couple of big international conference and the talk I remember the most was from a guy who didn't even went to the field site to collect samples yet :)
That said, if you think some people may be interested in copying your work and publish it before you, that's a big no-no.