Hey everyone!
I am in my third year of PhD in the area of Social Sciences.

I'd like to send some paper proposals to at least three conferences soon (two of them are in my country). The thing is: it is ok to repeat the material in two of the conferences? I am recently thinking about this... Since I cannot produce new ideas all the time - and I'm still in the beginning of my writing, I would have to - at least partially - repeat myself.
What do you think of this?
What are your suggestions?
Thank you!

Hi. The two papers should present different things. They may have somehow the same theory but lead to different results. Or you may have a concept and the concept is verified by two different experiments. I would not recommmend repeating most of the paper in two conferences.

My answer is it depends on the conferences.

Firstly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with submitting more or less the same thing to multiple conferences (I say more or less because you should tailor your abstracts to what the conference is for) - After all, there is no guarantee you'll get accepted for all of them.

Only once you're accepted do you need to start worrying about whether you can present or not. I typically look at a) have you been accepted for an oral or a poster, b) whether I can present some different results, c) who is the audience for the conference? - Are different people likely to attend. d) what do they say in their rules?

I had a case a few years ago where the same abstract got accepted as a poster at 2 different conferences - The audience was fairly similar although one was European and the other International. I just emailed them and asked and there was no problem. I also presented the same work at national conference - However this I put a focus on the novel methodology rather that the results of the study.

Make them ever so different and you will be fine. Like, talk more about the methodology in one conference and the other talk more about the implications.

There are people who keep presenting the exact same work for a few years because that is all they have. No one will call you out for it, so don't worry.

So true, I've seen seasoned academics regurgitate the same paper at different conferences, so you're fine. Usually the conference has a theme, so if you can slightly tailor it (like rewt suggested, at the implications or highlight the methods) to match it'll be more impactful.

If the conferences ask to publish the papers however, you need to choose just one, of course.

Lol - I've done that (present the same thing over and over - in divisional meetings that is - not conferences) and it gets kinda embarrassing! What you're talking about is different though. I've seen work talked about multiple times - people practically know their presentations off by heart through doing them so many times. I don't think it is a problem. But be careful if there are published conference proceedings - I think that can make it a problem as you can only publish the same piece once (unless it is sufficiently different).