How to prepare for your subgroup meetings

Attendance - Attendance at all subgroup meetings (that you belong to) is mandatory.

Meeting Length It is imperative that meetings move as quickly as possible. This means that you will be provided three (3) minutes (or less) for presentation and five (5) minutes (or less) for discussion. The overall goal of these meetings is to spend as much group time as possible moving your papers forward and helping you get them ready for submission. You will need to prepare and organize your thoughts and materials before each meeting.

Meeting Type. There are two types of subgroup meetings and attendance at both are mandatory. We meet every week and alternate between the two types. Since the goals and aims of each meeting type are different you will need to prepare differently and specifically for each meeting. If you have missed a meeting you should be prepared to present for both meeting types. What is required for each meeting is explained in more detail below.

1) Paper in progress meetings - The meeting will focus on papers in progress, not all the work you have done. We are interested in seeing a “packet” of your work presented as a meaningful and cohesive “story” that will be published as a paper. If you are new to the group and do not have data. please present a “paper in conception” i.e. a paper that you are planning. The presentation format below will be same whether or not you have data.

A) Help you focus on what needs to be accomplished to get your paper published.

B) Help the group understand where they may be able to contribute to your project. This will hopefully lead to stronger papers, with less revisions and potentially more of them.

C) Help to prevent you from having to repeat work in order to satisfy reviewer comments.

D) Involve other lab members in assessing your work.

Presentation - SHORTER IS BETTER !

Please start your talk with a BRIEF review of the project (1 minute). This helps the group to focus on the goals of your work and helps us to think of tests and other experiments that may be of relevance. PowerPoint style slides can be printed out 1 slide per page. Make sure we can see what is on them.

Overview Slide (1 slide 1 minutes or less)

• • • Title of paper

    • Overview / Background / Impact

      • Why are you doing this work ?

      • Why is it important ?

      • To whom will it be of interest ?

    • What is the hypothesis and purpose

Figures usually 5

Present the results as figures - MAX 1 minute per figure.

• • • Include a figure legend and use this to present the figure.

Some points to consider when presenting your figures -

• • • Where is the quantitative data ? If you have a graph please show the image (if possible) from which the data was obtained ?

      • What are the control(s) ? Why are they valid and where are they on your graphs / data ?

      • Show statistical significance and variance on graphs

    • Why is each figure is important to developing the "idea" of the paper.

      • What does this figure actually show ?

      • What are the weaknesses ?

      • Why is the result valid ?

    • Does it support your hypothesis, should you reconsider your hypothesis ?

2) Problems and solutions meetings -

You may not have any problems to discuss (and that is fine) but you must attend the meeting to help other people with theirs.

Print out slides (1-2) to explain your problem and why you have not been able to resolve it.

Clearly and concisely state the problem (2 mins max)

• • What tests have you done to determine that what you believe is the actual source of the problem really is the source ?

  • What steps have you taken to resolve these problems ?

    • Literature search

    • Discussion with experts

    • Discussion with equipment service people

    • Discussion with colleagues

    • Discussion with past lab members

    • Other ?

  • What is your plan for moving forward and solving this problem.

  • When can we expect it to be resolved.

  • If applicable, what will you do to share this information with other lab members.

Finally, we wish you all the best with you papers and welcome any comments that you have regarding this format and please feel free to discuss them with me.