I am writing my first conference proposal and I am struggling with how much detail to include. I know the proposal needs a clear argument and an explanation of how I am going to develop it, but I have also seen advice saying not to give too much away before the actual presentation. How specific should I be? Do I need to explain my evidence and references, or is it better to leave some of the argument for the conference?
How much should you reveal in a conference proposal?
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I think you may be worrying about this more than you need to. If you are comfortable presenting the basic idea to a room of people in your field, it is usually reasonable to put that same basic idea in the proposal. The proposal needs enough information for reviewers to understand what the paper is actually about.
I think of the abstract as a preview rather than the whole paper. Give the research question, your main direction or argument, and enough detail to make the topic interesting. You do not need to walk the reader through every piece of evidence or reveal exactly how the paper ends.
The amount of detail probably depends a lot on the discipline and the specific conference. Some calls ask for a fairly detailed proposal and may even request references. Others really are just asking for an abstract. I would follow the conference's submission instructions first.
I would not leave out the central argument just because you are worried someone might use the idea. Reviewers need to know what your contribution is. You can describe the argument and approach without including every example, quotation, finding, or part of the final analysis.
References are one of those things where there does not seem to be a universal rule. In some humanities fields they may be part of the submission even if they do not appear in the published conference program. In other conferences, you may only submit an abstract and references are not expected at all.
Another way to think about it is that the proposal has two jobs: convince the reviewers that the paper belongs at the conference and give them a clear idea of what you will actually discuss. If someone could read your proposal and still not understand your research question or planned argument, it probably needs more detail.
Ask someone in your department who has submitted to that particular conference or one in the same field. Conference conventions can be surprisingly different. Something that is considered normal in one discipline may seem completely unnecessary in another.