Webinars are such an amazing educational opportunity, and a great way to gather useful tips and insight on new (or new to you) lab techniques. Here are some links to a few I've watched, and some I hope to watch sometime soon. What a great resource, I am so enamoured with webinars!
If you have others to suggest, please let me know, this is a work in progress.
AAAS/Science: AAAS has put up a variety of webinars, definitely leaning toward biomedical interests from what I can see, but there are still a few useful ones for the geomicrobiologically inclined. I watched the webinar on the qPCR MIQE guidelines a few months ago. It was really well put together, the presentations were by experts in the field, with practical suggestions, and a chance for feedback from those watching the presentations. Plus you can view them anytime after the presentation on the AAAS/Science website: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/marketing/webinar/
Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma and co have put up a barrage of webinars. I've watched a few on qPCR and I thought they were great, they range from beginner to expert level. They also offer webinars on topics such as HPLC, proteomics, and synthetic chemistry. Hopefully more webinars are coming? Hint hint Sigma! I found their sign up and log in procedure for the qPCR seminars was a bit maddening but worth the time (I think if you bookmark each seminar you can skip the hassle of signing in too!)
NACE webinars: corrosion themed, one to explore http://events.nace.org/webinars/OnDemand/upcoming.asp
APECS webinars - weekly career development webinars from the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists. Easy sign up, user friendly interface with chat, the speaker will address viewers chat comments in real time. Small enough groups that during the Q&A session your questions will get answered! Past webinars are archived and can be watched on demand. More info here: http://apecs.is/webinars
to be continued....
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Writing for the peer reviewed literature - get that first draft moving!
A few weeks ago I discovered a new weapon to add to my writing arsenal. Whatever your scientific discipline, I think you (or your students) might find this exercise helpful for writing papers for peer reviewed publication. The tool is the Applied and Environmental Microbiology (AEM) short form article: http://aem.asm.org/misc/journal-ita_org.dtl#04
Whether or not you plan to actually submit a paper to AEM in this format, writing a short form paper draft can be a useful method to tackle a manuscript, especially if you have trouble getting started.
The basic format is:
Title (keep it short)
Running Title (54 characters and spaces max)
Abstract (50 words max)
Body (1000 words max, no section breaks, combine methods, results and discussion)
Figures and tables (kept to a minimum)
References
The beauty of the short form AEM paper is it is SHORT. so you have to distill your thoughts down to the essential. The strict word limit really force you to focus your presentation. For example: 50 word abstract (!!). Initially, I misread the title requirements and though the running title limit was the character limit on the title - this is actually a great exercise too, it is very hard to compose a 54 character title! Maybe a bit too hard - but it does force you to be as succinct and relevant as possible.
Within a few hours you can have a rough draft in your hands. If you are unsure about the direction you want the paper to take, you can write another one. Why not try out different ways to present your work and determine the most appropriate and relevant way to present your results? The AEM short draft format is probably not the format you'll stick with for your second draft or onwards. Chances are your final product will need to be much longer and divided into sections (intro, methods, results, discussion). Thus, it is much easier to explore the presentation approach for your work at the first draft stage where the manuscript is short and easy to follow, then in later drafts where you can get lost in the forest of information presented.
If nothing else, using this method can help you get that first draft on the table to work from - better to start from somewhere than nowhere!
Whether or not you plan to actually submit a paper to AEM in this format, writing a short form paper draft can be a useful method to tackle a manuscript, especially if you have trouble getting started.
The basic format is:
Title (keep it short)
Running Title (54 characters and spaces max)
Abstract (50 words max)
Body (1000 words max, no section breaks, combine methods, results and discussion)
Figures and tables (kept to a minimum)
References
The beauty of the short form AEM paper is it is SHORT. so you have to distill your thoughts down to the essential. The strict word limit really force you to focus your presentation. For example: 50 word abstract (!!). Initially, I misread the title requirements and though the running title limit was the character limit on the title - this is actually a great exercise too, it is very hard to compose a 54 character title! Maybe a bit too hard - but it does force you to be as succinct and relevant as possible.
Within a few hours you can have a rough draft in your hands. If you are unsure about the direction you want the paper to take, you can write another one. Why not try out different ways to present your work and determine the most appropriate and relevant way to present your results? The AEM short draft format is probably not the format you'll stick with for your second draft or onwards. Chances are your final product will need to be much longer and divided into sections (intro, methods, results, discussion). Thus, it is much easier to explore the presentation approach for your work at the first draft stage where the manuscript is short and easy to follow, then in later drafts where you can get lost in the forest of information presented.
If nothing else, using this method can help you get that first draft on the table to work from - better to start from somewhere than nowhere!
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