FACULTY: Prof. James Murray is the coordinator and the instructor of record for the course. Please email him ASAP so he can add you to the email list. Other faculty will be giving tutorials each week (see below), and your faculty mentor should assist you in guiding your progress.
GOAL:
The goal of this course is to help our graduate students succeed in
academia by providing them opportunities to explore the tools of the
trade,
and to pick up tips from former grad students (i.e. faculty).
SCHEDULE:
The class will meet once a week, Wednesday, 1-150pm, in various places
(usually LSC149). Class will consist of a 10-20 minute tutorial,
followed by practice exercises for the students.
WORKLOAD:
The course will require class participation and discussion.
Homework
will involve ~2-3 hours of weekly exercises designed to help the
student
learn necessary skills.
REFERENCES: Books and links that you may
find
useful.
| WEEK | TITLE | FACULTY | GOALS | OUTSIDE OF CLASS |
| WEEK1 | How to be a graduate student | Hamilton | Tips on professionalism, responsibilities as a grad student, networking with fellow students and colleagues. | Look these web sites on being a grad student over. |
| WEEK2 | Active Learning and the Teachable Moment in a Lab Activity | Hirrell | How a GA can help one's own undergraduate students maximize learning in the lab. | Apply the "TRICK" to one lab class and not to the other. |
| WEEK3 | How to search scientific literature
(*revisit effectiveness of previous class) |
Hamilton, Murray
(Hirrell) |
Strategies for finding specific articles, and for comprehensive searches. Use of computerized databases. How to obtain reprints and copies of articles. | UCA science
databases
Biomednet.com BIOSIS previews (via dialogweb) do not use IE for Mac PubMed tutorial Highwire full text access How to download to manager |
| WEEK4 | Scientific writing: how to write an abstract | Dussourd, Murray | Write an abstract for a paper and compare it to the one written by the author. | Scrutiny
of the abstract
Day (1983) Ch. 2, 5. |
| WEEK5 | Scientific writing: how to synthesize & describe research results | Waggoner, Hamilton | Write a brief synthesis of the results of three related papers from your literature search. |
Day (1983) Ch. 6, 9 Writing a review |
| WEEK6 | Scientific writing: how to critique & improve writing | Murray, Waggoner | How to give and accept scientific criticism. Critical thinking. | |
| WEEK7 | Digital imaging | Murray, Dussourd | How to use slide and flat scanners, and digital cameras. How to edit images for publication and presentation. Printing images to paper and 2x2 slides. (also, how to use the Macintosh operating system). | Exercises with Adobe Photoshop. |
| WEEK8 | How to use Micrsoft Excel and PowerPoint to make graphs and figures | Clancy, Murray | Analyze and plot data in Excel. Create flow charts and concept diagrams using PowerPoint drawing tools. Effective communication via graphical information. | Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Ch.4 Revise a figure found in paper to make clearer. |
| WEEK9 | How to make a PowerPoint presentation | Murray, Clancy, Waggoner | Learning the features of PowerPoint and effective design of slides. | Edward Tufte, Ch.9. Apply what you learn to the design
of a slide.
Powerpoint tutorials Power point advice |
| WEEK10 | How to give an oral presentation | McDonald, Hamilton | How to communicate effectively and engage audience. | |
| WEEK11 | more practice of talks or writing? | |||
| WEEK12 | Poster design & printing | Clancy, Murray | Make a research poster using Powerpoint & Adobe Illustrator. | |
| WEEK13 | How to make web pages | Waggoner, Murray | How to present material (pictures, text, etc) on the web using HTML, and web editors such as Netscape Composer and FrontPage. | Make a web page with figures & weblinks from your research. |
| WEEK14 | more practice of talks or writing? |
modified 1-10-04