Sorry I'm late on the scene here, but I've been involved in organising several academic conferences, including the production of the proceedings. No matter which way you use it, referring directly to the volume as "proceedings" is going to seem awkward. But I think that there's very little doubt that if you are going to, then "these proceedings" is the only sensible way of doing so. I have a number of volumes from various conferences, and find that whenever I've composed the non-academic content such as the introduction I've simply avoided using the term at all, even though I never really thought about it before.

So I believe that Martin would be safest doing what he suggests, and so similarly avoid the problem altogether.


The idiot also known as Capfka ...