Course Overview:

The aim of the course is to help improve one’s scientific dissemination abilities, including writing, poster presentations, and oral presentations, by introducing rules of style to communicate in a concise, clear, and convincing way and rules for effective slide and poster preparation and speech delivery. The course is based on similar ones by Peter Kramer, Stuart Anstis, and Ed Hubbard and incorporates advice by Philip Bourne.

The first part of the course (Days 1 and 2) will be frontal lectures, while the second part (Days 3 and 4) will require active participation from the attendees for a poster and oral presentation.

Requirements:

The course is open to anyone interested in practicing scientific writing and communication. Attendance is highly encouraged for first and second-year students.

A presentation of one poster and one oral slide deck is required. With your advisor’s approval, use data from your main project. If you can't find any data, please choose a topic that interests you and present real or simulated data on the topic.

Assignments:

Prepare a digital version of a poster on your topic of interest and bring it to class on Feb 20.

Prepare a digital version of a slide deck on your topic of interest for a talk lasting max 5 mins and bring it to class on Feb 21.

Update the poster following the suggestions reviewed in class and present it on Feb 23.

Update the slide deck for a talk lasting no more than 5 minutes following the suggestions reviewed in class and present it on Feb 23.