The first rule of Journal Club

The first rule of Journal Club is... you talk about your journal article. Duh.

I walked into 20.109 M2D6, immediately piled snacks on my plate, and took out my presentation notes, which were wrinkled from all the nervous clutching I did during practice runs. I hadn't practiced in front of anyone yet, and I had edited the slides so much the night before that I had barely rehearsed the final version at all. I sent up a quick plea of help to the communications gods (maybe the comm lab would hear me and take mercy in grading), and prepared myself at the front of the classroom.

Despite the odd fumble with my notes, running 30 sec over time, and a tough question from Josephine, I survived my Mod2 Journal Club presentation. Here's how you can too:

 Step 1: Eat. Take full advantage of the snacks the instructors buy from Trader Joe's. You don't get this stuff everyday.
Step 2: Pray. Or meditate, depending on personal preference. In any case, calm down and quiet yourself. Hydrate. Feel your feet on the ground. Your slides aren't ugly. You look fine. Relax.
Step 3: Present. swoosh Just do it TM

 Ok. Now for some real advice:
  • Start with questions. Answer the questions with maybes. Turn those maybes into definites as your presentation goes on. One awesome thing I saw from Joe's presentation was keeping the big questions posted at the top of the slide to remind everybody about the paper's goals. Genius.
  • Less is more. Most of the paper cannot go in the presentation. Cut content with no remorse; the data won't hold it against you. I'm sorry if you spent 30 minutes making that graph remotely legible, if it's not integral to the narrative, cut it. You'll make better use of the time thoroughly explaining the stuff you keep.
  • Methods isn't madness. You need to be able to explain the methods such that the data becomes understandable. Your audience cannot by itself figure out what the x-axis, y-axis, dot size, colors, and other dimensions mean. The data can't support your argument if the audience doesn't understand how or why the data works.
  • Q&A is A-OK. One of the instructors will ask you a question you don't know the answer to. Admit you don't know but give your own estimate/opinion and say you'll get back to them later with details.
And there you have it. Go forward with confidence and crush your presentations. Speak loudly and remember that you have a laser pointer available so you don't embarrass yourself by gesturing wildly at the slides.
Happy Researching,
Melody
Have a fresh new meme



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