Project Summaries
Project summaries are a useful way to start a project, with the goal of outlining the following aspects of each project:
1. running Title [OPTIONAL]
2. Background information: what's already known? what has been done before? what's important to remember as you start your own work?
try to include a FIGURE in this section
update with background on any new material that becomes relevant to review as your proceed
3. major Questions: 2-3 (or more) outstanding questions that you hope to answer with your own research
include both seemingly minor or ground-breakingly major questions here
update with new questions that arise as your proceed through your research
4. Preliminary results: a summary of results from either your own work or other work that enticed you into this project - what's interesting, lacking, curious?
5. Approaches: how are you going to tackle these questions - as much detail as possible regarding your experimental and/or computational approach [INCLUDE TECHNIQUES]
try to include expectations for the results of each analyses, with FIGURES for expected results when possible
as you complete/progress through one approach, include the results/conclusions from that approach/experiment, including the actual FIGURE showing results
update with the next step - new approach - that you are using to tackle the new questions that might have arisen from your previous result
6. References: important citations/references that you collect over time and will come in handy for publication!
include older review papers and relevant primary literature as you find them
update with newly published material as you go
as much as possible - annotate this reference list with an explanation of what in the paper makes it relevant to the current work
The intent of a project summary is to keep a running document that will help you keep track of the big picture of the project, while constantly updating it with your own results. This summary can be helpful in prioritizing what experiments/analyses are important - what data need to be unassailable - and which aspects are less important.
Very important - don't let your outline constrain your curiosity and creativity - the most interesting result is often the one we weren't looking for.
Likewise, don't let your outline cloud your judgement - if your data is telling you something that is totally contradictory to the expectation - embrace it and revise the outline. Data is sacred - outlines are cheap.
Keep an updated version of your outline in your project folder on Benchling at all times, it's version controlled, so we can always go back to a previous version if you decide to change the material at any time. This will serve as a valuable reference for how our thought process changed over time - and can serve as a valuable guide for new students.
If you are diligent about the above, it will be very easy for you and Athma to put together a paper describing the results when appropriate.
Resources to help as you're making your first outline/project summary:
George Whitesides' Paper Writing Guide describing how to construct an outline (chemistry-focused, but broad strokes are still applicable to our research!)
A few example project summaries on RNA processing coordination & Single Cell splicing analyses & Measuring Cleavage Rates (all at early stages)