Transcript How to Give a Journal Club Talk

How to Give a Journal Club Talk
BIO425
Randal Voss
January 30, 2008
Journal Club Presentations
• In graduate school (or some other life venue)
you will be asked to give a presentation on a
specific topic.
• Remember that the primary goal of any talk is
learning: you must gauge your audience and
present information in a way that motivates
interest and participation.
• So how do you accomplish the primary goal?
Gauging Your Audience
•
In BIO425, you can assume that students will
have a general knowledge of biological concepts
(e.g. concepts from the core courses). However,
because students take different elective courses,
your talk should provide sufficient background
information and you should deliver that
information without using a lot of technical jargon.
Preparation
• Be prepared! Practice your talk before
giving it the first time. It may help to write
the complete talk out, however you should
be able to give the talk with minimal notes.
• If you are prepared, you will have
confidence and be able to relax. It also
helps to remind yourself that you are the
expert and members of your audience are
ignorant (but want to learn).
Pace of the Presentation
• There is no rule of thumb on the pace of a
presentation. Some people are effective
fast-talkers, while others articulate points
better at slower speeds. Most people can
cover approximately 25-30 slides in a 3040 minute talk.
Presentation Media
• Most people will give a computer
presentation using powerpoint or pdf.
Have a general sense of the layout of the
slides in your presentation so that you will
anticipate transitions in your presentation.
Please email me your presentation before
class or bring me a copy on CD or
flashdrive.
Presentation Style (cont.)
• Reverse video (light on dark) is
sometimes effective for Powerpoint
and tends to be easier to read.
Presentation Content
• You have been assigned 1 review paper.
• Use the review paper (and references within
the review paper) to develop your talk. You
can develop one or all areas in your review
paper. I will be looking to see how you bring
in other information to augment the review
paper. For example, you could bring in data
from papers that are cited in the review
paper.
Presentation Content
• I am hoping that you spend some time in the
literature developing your talk. In other words,
I am hoping that you identify some points
raised in the review paper that need
clarification or would be interesting to see in
terms of the data and results in the cited
paper.
• It might turn out that some of the points raised
in a review paper are not well supported by
the literature cited.
Delivery of Information
• For each major section of your talk, tell the
audience what you will talk about on an
introductory slide. Next, give that section
of the talk. Finally, summarize what you
just talked about. This strategy makes the
logic clearer in scientific talks.
Delivery of Information
• For each slide, it helps to first introduce
the main idea of the slide or to state simply
what the slide shows. After carefully
describing all aspects of the slide (e.g.
axes on graphs), you should make a short
summary statement to help transition to
the next slide.
Delivery of Information
• Each slide should convey only one major
idea or point. The moment you put a new
slide up, everyone will stop listening to you
and read the slide. If your slide contains
small text, is hard to understand, or
contains a lot of material, you will lose your
audience until they have figured it out.
Delivery of Information
• However, sometimes you have to show a
complex slide. You can keep control of
your audience by revealing part of the
slide, talking about it, and then revealing
the rest. Do it with a simple hide/show. Do
not use goofy effects.
Delivery of Information
• Use the actual figures from papers. Figure
legends are usually not suitable for slides.
Remove them, and write your own in large
text that is simple and clear. Sometimes it
is preferable to retype tables too, if the text
is small and cluttered.
Presentation Grade
Presentations represent 40% of your grade! If you
need help on any aspect of your presentation,
please contact me well ahead of your scheduled
presentation. I am here to help.
You will be graded on the presentation of
material, the content of the presentation, and your
ability to answer questions.
I will likely reward students with bonus points
throughout the semester for asking GOOD
questions.