One of the main things we learn how to do in graduate school is how to read. A quick Google search of "how to read a scientific paper" will come up with about 135,000,000 results (I just tried it, that's the actual number that came out). That number is so huge because reading scientific literature is famously difficult to do. The effort that goes into writing these articles is borderline insane. Authors must work together to ensure that every word of every sentence contributes valuable meaning to the paper. Figures have to be eye-catching but also informative and as accurate as possible. Even the structure of the article itself is carefully crafted to fit each journal's publishing preferences. Each of these factors almost always leads to a level of conciseness that requires you to read several other papers just to understand what's going on in the first one! |
All of the above examples are reasons why journal clubs exist. To broadly define it, a journal club is a regular gathering of people to discuss and critically evaluate academic literature in depth. A few journal clubs happen online, through Twitter or some similar kind of outlet (click button above for more info). Most of the journal clubs I've encountered are formal or informal weekly in-person meetings where one or more papers are chosen for discussion a few days in advance. I stressed that last bit because the entire point of journal club is to contribute and share opinions and ideas about the article, from methods design to statistical validity to figure construction and everything in between. The system doesn't work so well if 1) people don't read the articles or 2) if they read them too generally, as depicted in the comic and gif below:
Christina Bergey (one of the super cool post-docs currently working in the Perry lab) has had experience with multiple flavors of journal club. Christina is currently facilitating our lab's biweekly informal, one paper journal club - she's created a comfortable place to chat about what's happening lately in the world of population genetics. The discussion space/atmosphere is one of the main differences in types of journal clubs, as written out in this table below. I've also listed out for you some other pros and cons for each kind of club (which was actually Christina's idea, because she's brilliant like that):
| I've personally encountered and participated in both kinds of the one paper journal clubs. Biology graduate students take one semester of BIOL 592: Critical Evaluation of Literature in Biology (ie, journal club). Each of the graduate students and faculty advisors took a turn presenting a relatively recent article from one of the big journals. You'll find my presentation for a pretty neat coyote paper on the left - we were encouraged to keep these short and sweet :) |
I've also participated in the formal BioAnth journal clubs through the Anthropology department, just to keep up my presentation practice. You'll notice this presentation about macaques is a bit longer, and that my style had evolved quite a bit since my first journal club. Maybe for my next Teaching post I'll talk about how I make my PPTs now...I'll think on it. I hope you enjoy any journal clubs (or similar meetings) that you might be participating in this week and in the future. No matter what style the clubs are, they are so under appreciated and super useful. Until next Wednesday, cheers! | |