Presentation Format

Starting in the Fall 2017, Organic Journal Club will no longer take the form of literature presentations, but rather topic talks and research summaries. Each presentation should be 15-20 minutes long. If needed, see below for information on each presentation type.

Topic Talks

These presentations can be about any topic you would like. Because the presentation should be only 15-20 minutes long, it is bettter not to go to far into the intricate details but focus on giving your audience an overview of the big ideas and recent advances in the topic area. An example of a topic talk on benzyne chemistry can be found here.

Suggested Topics

A certain class or type of reactions (e.g. allylic oxidations, cross couplings, metal-free XXX, enamine catalysis, etc.)

A certain class or type of chemical compounds (e.g. benzynes, N-oxides, chiral pool molecules, etc.)

A certain class or type of reagents (e.g. similar catalysts, chiral auxiliaries, reagents in green chemistry, etc.)

A particular laboratory or analytical technique (eg. microwave reactions, column chromatography, specialized glassware, specialized instrumentation, etc.)

Speaker Summaries

In addition to topic talks, on weeks that there are seminar speakers, someone will be giving an overview of the independent career of that speaker. These presentations should also be 15-20 minutes long. This presentation should be a general overview of their career and not a detailed summary of their last few published papers. An example of a speaker overview of JT Mohr can be found here.

Research Summaries

The last type of presentation is a research summary. The purpose of this presentation is to give other people outside your group an idea of what you are doing in the lab. Because the presentation should be 15-20 minutes long, it is not possible, especially for more senior students, to go into detail of all your work. This presentation should a summary of your most recent work, enough to give others an idea of what your are doing and maybe offer suggestions or new ideas.