The purpose of the Journal Club is to help junior scientists develop critical thinking skills, to broaden their exposure to modern research examining a number of different biological phenomena, and to provide a forum to gain research public speaking experience.

The CTBP Journal Club meets on MONDAY at 1:00 pm in Urey Hall 7130. Discussions will be most fruitful if the participants have read the paper. Therefore, presenters are required to submit their title and citation at least one week in advance so that the information can be posted. Participants and presenters should discuss any scheduling/technical logistics issues with Christopher Smith. Electronic announcements and reminders for CTBP events including seminars, journal club meetings, and colloquia are sent on a weekly basis during the academic year to all CTBP members. Others who would like to receive these messages should contact Christopher Smith.

The meetings are intended to be informal, participatory, and broadly accessible. Discussions will be most successful if all participants read the paper to be discussed before each meeting. Refreshments will be served.

Presentations should focus on a current research paper, i.e. an article that has been published in the last 12 months. Articles older than 12 months are strongly discouraged.
The selected article should present significant results, methods and/or provide unique insight to a biological question. In addition, the article and its subject material should vary significantly from material that has been covered in the last six Journal Club presentations. Please consult the schedule to ensure that your intended paper is significantly different from recent presentations.
Research reviews are not appropriate.
The selected article may be related to, but should NOT have a direct relationship to the presenter's research. For example, articles published by the presenter or someone in the presenter's laboratory as well as articles from other CTBP laboratories are generally discouraged. The exceptions are for presenters who are close to their thesis defense and would like some peer feedback on their research dissertation/publications.
Only ONE article should be presented at any given Journal Club event unless the research article is part of a series.
Typically, presentations are approximately 40 minutes and are followed by a 10-20 minute discussion period.
Due to the heterogeneous backgrounds of the participants, it is highly recommended that the speaker begin with a general introduction of the presentation/paper topic.
Speakers are not required to give a paper title when they are added to the schedule, BUT they are required to provide a paper title/citation at least a week before their presentation.