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Journal Club Tips

The document provides tips for giving an effective journal club presentation, including selecting a clear paper on an important concept, explaining techniques without assumptions, focusing on relevant data to answer the research question, and concluding by restating the question and key findings so that the audience understands the take home message. Presenters are advised to make figures large and easy to understand, and not to take criticism of the presented paper personally.

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Radhika Choudhary
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67 views

Journal Club Tips

The document provides tips for giving an effective journal club presentation, including selecting a clear paper on an important concept, explaining techniques without assumptions, focusing on relevant data to answer the research question, and concluding by restating the question and key findings so that the audience understands the take home message. Presenters are advised to make figures large and easy to understand, and not to take criticism of the presented paper personally.

Uploaded by

Radhika Choudhary
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Journal Club Tips

How to Give a Good Journal Club Presentation

Paper Selection

Step 1: pick a good paper. What makes a "good" J. Club paper? Papers that present an important
concept in a clear manner. Many excellent papers are published but the data does not lend itself well to
a clear presentation. Overall features:

 should clearly state WHY doing the problem in the first place (significance) – find in
introduction, should be well referenced, shouldn't have to go to additional sources unless need
to check specifics.
 should clearly state WHAT is the problem to be solved – see introduction.
 should clearly state HOW the problem is to be solved – see Experimental Procedures.
 should clearly state the CONCLUSIONS of the paper – see Discussion.

If you have been assigned a mentor for journal club, consult the mentor at least 2 weeks in advance and
choose a paper that is interesting to your mentor. Before you prepare your JC presentation, read a good
recent review on the topic.

General Presentation Tips

Never Assume...

 Never assume the audience understands the technique – always explain how each experiment is
done and the limitations of the technique.
 Never assume the audience is thinking – always explain what question the experiment is going
to answer, explain the conclusion of each experiment, the limits of interpretation and if the
experiment answers the question.
 Never assume the audience is listening – at the end of your presentation, again present the
problem or question, the minimum relevant pieces of data that answered the question, the
conclusion and if the data supports the conclusion.
 If the paper focusses on a specific protein, it is important to look up some basic aspects of this
protein family. You will invariably get questions about the functional domains, orthologs and
homologs.

Make figures large enough to read. Re-label if necessary.

Organizational Tips

Identify the problem and place it in scientific context

 Present overall model that is being addressed and identify which part of the model the paper you
are going to present is addressing (in other words, you are presenting the introduction to the
paper even before you tell them what paper you are going to be presenting).
 Present background, but only enough so that audience can understand the question
 Identify the paper title, authors and Journal.
 Present only relevant data that supports model and present that data thoroughly.
 You do not need to present every experiment in a paper. Once again, majority of the
experiments are controls, you need to know how to identify the controls and present them as
data that supports the relevant data. Eliminate any obviously redundant or irrelevant
experiments.
 If paper being presented is using a number of mutants, rename mutants so that they are easier
to remember, color code them so they are easier to remember.
Take Home Message!

At the end of J. Club everyone in the room should be able to answer three simple questions:

 What was the question the authors were trying to answer?


 What was the most significant piece of data the authors presented to answer the question?
 Did the data conclusively answer the authors’ question?

If they can, you have given a good J. Club.

Figure Presentation Tips

Only present one experiment/slide. Make sure that the figure is LARGE enough to be seen from the
back of the room. When you present the relevant data, remember:

 to have all parts of the figured labeled clearly (use color)


 Define abbreviations, and avoid too much jargon
 to state what technique is being used
 to explain clearly what this technique measures
 to clearly explain the results
 AND, last but not least, explain how the experiment answers the overall question, what limits
there are on the interpretation of the result and how any limits were addressed in the paper
(additional experiments, controls, etc.)

Some Psychological aspects for those who will be presenting for the first time to the
department

Presenting these journal clubs can be a stressful experience – especially, if this is your first presentation
to the entire department. There are a few things to keep in mind.

 The attending faculty members are not there to judge you – they are there because they find the
paper or the topic interesting.
 You are not expected to be an expert in this area but you are expected to put in a sincere and
determined effort.
 When you are confronted with critical comments about the paper, don’t take it personally. It is
not your work – you are merely presenting it.
 An active discussion (including criticisms about the results and conclusions) means that the
audience is engaged and you are doing your job.
 You should feel free to play the devil’s advocate and defend the authors but you are not obliged
to.
 If you feel extremely nervous before the presentation, take a moment and tell the audience that
you are nervous and it will take a few minutes before you settle down.

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