Advertisement

How to Prepare an Outstanding Journal Club Presentation

  • Request Permissions

Rishi Sawhney; How to Prepare an Outstanding Journal Club Presentation. The Hematologist 2006; 3 (1): No Pagination Specified. doi: https://doi.org/10.1182/hem.V3.1.1308

Download citation file:

  • Ris (Zotero)
  • Reference Manager

Dr. Sawhney is a member of the ASH Trainee Council and a Fellow at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Journal club presentations provide a forum through which hematology trainees keep abreast of new developments in hematology and engage in informal discussion and interaction. Furthermore, honing presentation skills and mastering the ability to critically appraise the evidence add to our armamentarium as clinicians. Outlined here is a systematic approach to preparing a journal club presentation, with emphasis on key elements of the talk and references for electronic resources. Use of these tools and techniques will contribute to the success of your presentation.

I. ARTICLE SELECTION:

The foundation of an outstanding journal club presentation rests on the choice of an interesting and well-written paper for discussion. Several resources are available to help you select important and timely research, including the American College of Physicians (ACP) Journal Club and the Diffusion section of The Hematologist . McMaster University has created the McMaster Online Rating of Evidence (MORE) system to identify the highest-quality published research. In fact, the ACP Journal Club uses the MORE system to select their articles 1 . Specific inclusion criteria have been delineated in order to distinguish papers with the highest scientific merit 2 . Articles that have passed this screening are then rated by clinicians on their clinical relevance and newsworthiness, using a graded scale 3 . With the help of your mentors and colleagues, you can use these criteria and the rating scale as informal guidelines to ensure that your chosen article merits presentation.

II. ARTICLE PRESENTATION:

Study Background: This section provides your audience with the necessary information and context for a thoughtful and critical evaluation of the article's significance. The goals are 1) to describe the rationale for and clinical relevance of the study question, and 2) to highlight the preclinical and clinical research that led to the current trial. Review the papers referenced in the study's "Background" section as well as previous work by the study's authors. It also may be helpful to discuss data supporting the current standard of care against which the study intervention is being measured.

Study Methodology and Results: Clearly describe the study population, including inclusion/exclusion criteria. A diagrammatic schema is easy to construct using PowerPoint software and will help to clearly illustrate treatment arms in complex trials. Explain the statistical methods, obtaining assistance from a statistician if needed. Take this opportunity to verbally and graphically highlight key results from the study, with plans to expand on their significance later in your presentation.

Author's Discussion: Present the authors' conclusions and their perspective on the study results, including explanations of inconsistent or unexpected results. Consider whether the conclusions drawn are supported by the data presented.

III. ARTICLE CRITIQUE:

This component of your presentation will define the success of your journal club. A useful and widely accepted approach to this analysis has been published in JAMA's series "User's guide to the medical literature." The Centre for Health Evidence in Canada has made the complete full-text set of these user's guides available online 4 . This site offers review guidelines for a menu of article types, and it is an excellent, comprehensive resource to focus your study critique. A practical, user-friendly approach to literature evaluation that includes a worksheet is also available on the ASH Web site for your use 5 .

While a comprehensive discussion of scientific literature appraisal is beyond the scope of this discussion, several helpful tips warrant mention here. In assessing the validity of the study, it is important to assess for potential sources of bias, including the funding sources and authors' affiliations. It is also helpful to look for accompanying editorial commentary, which can provide a unique perspective on the article and highlight controversial issues. You should plan to discuss the trade-offs between potential benefits of the study intervention versus potential risks and the cost. By utilizing the concept of number needed to treat (NNT), one can assess the true impact of the study intervention on clinical practice. Furthermore, by incorporating the incidence rates of clinically significant toxicities with the financial costs into the NNT, you can generate a rather sophisticated analysis of the study's impact on practice.

IV. CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS:

Restate the authors' take-home message followed by your own interpretation of the study. Provide a personal perspective, detailing why you find this paper interesting or important. Then, look forward and use this opportunity to "think outside the box." Do you envision these study results changing the landscape of clinical practice or redirecting research in this field? If so, how? In articles about therapy, future directions may include moving the therapy up to first-line setting, assessing the drug in combination regimens or other disease states, or developing same-class novel compounds in the pipeline. Searching for related clinical trials on the NIH Web site 6  can prove helpful, as can consultation with an expert in this field.

Good journal club discussions are integral to the educational experience of hematology trainees. Following the above approach, while utilizing the resources available, will lay the groundwork for an outstanding presentation.

WEB BASED REFERENCES

www.acpjc.org

hiru.mcmaster.ca/more/InclusionCriteria.htm

hiru.mcmaster.ca/more/RatingFormSample.htm

www.cche.net/main.asp

www.hematology.org/Trainees

www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials

  • Previous Article
  • Next Article

Email alerts

Affiliations.

  • Current Issue
  • About The Hematologist
  • Advertising in The Hematologist
  • Editorial Board
  • Permissions
  • Submissions
  • Email Alerts
  • ASH Publications App

American Society of Hematology

  • 2021 L Street NW, Suite 900
  • Washington, DC 20036
  • TEL +1 202-776-0544
  • FAX +1 202-776-0545

ASH Publications

  • Blood Advances
  • Hematology, ASH Education Program
  • ASH Clinical News
  • The Hematologist
  • Publications
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms of Use

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Journal Club: How to Prepare Effectively and Smash Your Presentation

A man covered in notes and paper indicating under preparedness for journal club

Journal club. It’s so much more than orally dictating a paper to your peers.

It’s an opportunity to get a bunch of intelligent people in one place to share ideas. It’s a means to expand the scientific vocabulary of you and the audience. It’s a way to stimulate inventive research design.

But there are so many ways it can go wrong.

Poorly explained papers dictated blandly to an unengaged audience. Confusing heaps of data shoehorned into long presentations. Everybody stood awkwardly outside a meeting room you thought would be free.

Whether you are unsure what journal club is, are thinking of starting one, or simply want to up your presentation game—you’ve landed on the ultimate journal club guide.

The whats, the whys, and the hows, all in one place.

What Is a Journal Club in Science?

A journal club is a series of meetings in which somebody is elected to present a research paper, its methods, and findings to a group of colleagues.

The broad goal is to stimulate discussion and ideas that the attendees may apply to their own work. Alternatively, someone may choose a paper because it’s particularly impactful or ingenious.

Usually, the presenter alternates per a rota, and attendance may be optional or compulsory.

The presenter is expected to choose, analyze, and present the paper to the attendees with accompanying slides.

The presentation is then followed by a discussion of the paper by the attendees. This is usually in the form of a series of questions and answers directed toward the presenter. Ergo , the presenter is expected to know and understand the paper and subject area to a moderate extent.

Why Have a Journal Club?

I get it. You’re a busy person. There’s a difficult research problem standing between you and your next tenure.

Why bother spending the time and energy participating in a series of meetings that don’t get you closer to achieving your scientific goals?

The answer: journal club does get you closer to achieving your scientific goals!

But it does this in indirect ways that subtly make you a better scientist. For example:

  • It probably takes you out of your comfort zone.
  • It makes you a better communicator.
  • It makes you better at analyzing data.
  • It improves your ability to critique research.
  • It makes you survey relevant literature.
  • It exposes you and your audience to new concepts.
  • It exposes your audience to relevant literature.
  • It improves the reading habits of you and your audience.
  • It gets clever people talking to each other.
  • It gives people a break from practical science.

It also provides a platform for people to share ideas based on their collective scientific experience. And every participant has a unique set of skills. So every participant has the potential to provide valuable insight.

This is what a good journal club should illicit.

Think of journal club as reading a book. It’s going to enrich you and add beneficially to the sum of your mental furniture, but you won’t know how until you’ve read it.

Need empirical evidence to convince you? Okay!

In 1988 a group of medical interns was split into two groups. One received journal club teaching and the other received a series of seminars. Approximately 86% of the journal club group reported improved reading habits. This compares to 0% in the group who received seminar-based teaching. [1]

Journal Club Template Structure

So now you know what journal club is, you might wonder, “how is it organized and structured?”

That’s what the rest of this article delves into. If you’re in a rush and need to head back to the lab, here’s a graphical summary (Figure 1).

A summary of how to organize, prepare, and present journal club.

Nobody likes meetings that flounder around and run over time. And while I have no data to prove it, I reckon people take less away from such meetings. Here’s a basic journal club template that assumes you are the presenter.

Introduce the Paper, Topic, Journal, and Authors

Let your audience know what you will be talking about before diving right in. Remember that repetition (of the important bits) can be a good thing.

Introducing the journal in which the paper is published will give your audience a rough idea of the prestige of the work.

And introducing the authors and their respective institutes gives your audience the option of stowing this information away and following it up with further reading in their own time.

Provide a Reason Why You Chose the Paper

Have the authors managed to circumvent sacrificing animals to achieve a goal that traditionally necessitated animal harm? Have the authors repurposed a method and applied it to a problem it’s not traditionally associated with? Is it simply a monumental feat of work and success?

People are probably more likely to listen and engage with you if they know why, in all politeness, you have chosen to use their time to talk about a given paper.

It also helps them focus on the relevant bits of your presentation and form cogent questions.

Orally Present Key Findings and Methods of the Paper

Simple. Read the paper. Understand it. Make some slides. Present.

Okay, there are a lot of ways you can get this wrong and make a hash of it. We’ll tell you how to avoid these pitfalls later on.

But for now, acknowledge that a journal club meeting starts with a presentation that sets up the main bit of it—the discussion.

Invite Your Audience to Participate in a Discussion

The discussion is the primary and arguably most beneficial component of journal club since it gives the audience a platform to share ideas. Ideas formulated by their previous experience.

And I’ve said already that these contributions are unique and have the potential to be valuable to your work.

That’s why the discussion element is important.

Their questions might concur and elaborate on the contents of the paper and your presentation of it.

Alternatively, they might disagree with the methods and/or conclusions. They might even disagree with your presentation of technical topics.

Try not to be daunted, however, as all of this ultimately adds to your knowledge, and it should all be conducted in a constructive spirit.

Summarize the Meeting and Thank Your Audience for Attending

There’s no particularly enlightening reason as to why to do these things. Summarizing helps people come away from the meeting feeling like it was a positive and rewarding thing to attend.

And thanking people for their time is a simple courtesy.

How Do You Organize It?

Basic steps if you are the organizer.

Okay, we’ve just learned what goes into speaking at the journal club. But presenter or not, the responsibility of organizing it might fall to you.

So, logistically , how do you prepare a journal club? Simply follow these 5 steps:

  • Distribute copies of the research article to potential participants.
  • Arrange a meeting time and location.
  • Organize a speaker.
  • Hold the journal club.
  • Seek feedback on the quality of the meeting.

Apart from point 5, these are fairly self-explanatory. Regarding point 5, feedback is essential to growing as a scientist and presenter. The easiest way to seek feedback is simply to ask.

Alternatively, you could create a form for all the meetings in the series and ask the audience to complete and return it to you.

Basic Steps If You Are the Speaker

If somebody has done all the logistics for you, great! Don’t get complacent, however.

Why not use the time to elevate your presentation to make your journal club contribution memorable and beneficial?

Don’t worry about the “hows” because we’re going to elaborate on these points, but here are 5 things you can do to ace your presentation:

  • Don’t leave it to the last minute.
  • Know your audience.
  • Keep your presentation slides simple.
  • Keep your audience engaged.
  • Be open to questions and critiques.

Regarding point 1, giving yourself sufficient time to thoroughly read the article you have chosen to present ensures you are familiar with the material in it. This is essential because you will be asked questions about it. A confident reply is the foundation of an enlightening discussion.

Regarding point 3, we’re going to tell you exactly how to prepare effective slides in its own section later. But if you are in a rush, minimize the use of excessive text. And if you provide background information, stick to diagrams that give an overview of results from previous work. Remember: a picture speaks louder than a thousand words.

Regarding point 4, engagement is critical. So carry out a practice run to make sure you are happy with the flow of your presentation and to give you an idea of your timing. It is important to stick to the time that is allotted for you.

This provides good practice for more formal conference settings where you will be stopped if you run over time. It’s also good manners and shows consideration for the attendees.

And regarding point 5, as the presenter, questions are likely to be directed toward you. So anticipate questions from the outset and prepare for the obvious ones to the best of your ability.

There’s a limit to everyone’s knowledge, but being unable to provide any sort of response will be embarrassing and make you seem unprepared.

Anticipate that people might also disagree with any definitions you make and even with your presentation of other people’s data. Whether or not you agree is a different matter, but present your reasons in a calm and professional manner.

If someone is rude, don’t rise to it and respond calmly and courteously. This shouldn’t happen too often, but we all have “those people” around us.

How Do You Choose a Journal Club Paper?

Consider the quality of the journal.

Just to be clear, I don’t mean the paper itself but the journal it’s published in.

An obscure journal is more likely to contain science that’s either boring, sloppy, wrong, or all three.

And people are giving up their time and hope to be stimulated. So oblige them!

Journal impact factor and rejection rate (the ratio of accepted to rejected articles) can help you decide whether a paper is worth discussing.

Consider the Impact and Scope of the Paper

Similar to the above, but remember, dross gets published in high-impact journals too. Hopefully, you’ve read the paper you want to present. But ask yourself what makes this particular paper stand out from the millions of others to be worth presenting.

Keep It Relevant and Keep It Interesting

When choosing a paper to present, keep your audience in mind. Choose something that is relevant to the particular group you are presenting to. If only you and a few other people understand the topic, it can come off as elitist.

How Do You Break Down and Present the Paper?

Know and provide the background material.

Before you dive into the data, spend a few minutes talking about the context of the paper. What did the authors know before they started this work? How did they formulate their hypothesis? Why did they choose to address it in this way?

You may want to reference an earlier paper from the same group if the paper represents a continuation of it, but keep it brief.

Try to explain how this paper tackles an unanswered question in the field.

Understand the Hypothesis and Methods of the Paper

Make a point of stating the  hypothesis  or  main question  of the paper, so everyone understands the goal of the study and has a foundation for the presentation and discussion.

Everyone needs to start on the same foot and remain on the same page as the meeting progresses.

Turn the Paper into a Progression of Scientific Questions

Present the data as a logical series of questions and answers. A well-written paper will already have done the hard work for you. It will be organized carefully so that each figure answers a specific question, and each new question builds on the answer from the previous figure.

If you’re having trouble grasping the flow of the paper, try writing up a brief outline of the main points. Try putting the experiments and conclusions in your own words, too.

Feel free to leave out parts of the figures that you think are unnecessary, or pull extra data from the supplemental figures if it will help you explain the paper better.

Ask Yourself Questions about the Paper Before You Present

We’ve touched on this already. This is to prepare you for any questions that are likely to be asked of you. When you read the paper, what bits didn’t you understand?

Simplify Unfamiliar and Difficult Concepts

Not everyone will be familiar with the same concepts. For example, most biologists will not have a rigorous definition of entropy committed to memory or know its units. The concept of entropy might crop up in a biophysics paper, however.

Put yourself in the audience’s shoes and anticipate what they might not fully understand given their respective backgrounds.

If you are unsure, ask them if they need a definition or include a short definition in your slides.

Sum Up Important Conclusions

After you’ve finished explaining the nitty-gritty details of the paper, conclude your presentation of the data with a list of significant findings.

Every conclusion will tie in directly to proving the major conclusion of the paper. It should be clear at this point how the data answers the main question.

How Do You Present a Journal Club Powerpoint?

Okay, so we’ve just gone through the steps required to break down a paper to present it effectively at journal club. But this needs to be paired with a PowerPoint presentation, and the two bridged orally by your talk. How do you ace this?

Provide Broad Context to the Research

We are all bogged down by minutia and reagents out of necessity.

Being bogged down is research. But it helps to come up for air. Ultimately, how will the research you are about to discuss benefit the Earth and its inhabitants when said research is translated into actual products?

Science can be for its own sake, but funded science rarely is. Reminding the journal club audience of the widest aims of the nominated field provides a clear starting point for the discussion and shows that you understand the efficacy of the research at its most basic level.

The Golden Rule: A Slide per Minute

Remember during lectures when the lecturer would open PowerPoint, and you would see, with dismay, that their slides went up to 90 or something daft? Then the last 20 get rushed through, but that’s what the exam question ends up being based on.

Don’t be that person!

A 10-15 minute talk should be accompanied by? 10-15 slides! Less is more.

Be Judicious about the Information You Choose to Present

If you are present everything in the paper, people might as well just read it in their own time, and we can call journal club off.

Try to abstract only the key findings. Sometimes technical data is necessary for what you are speaking about because their value affects the efficacy of the data and validity of the conclusions.

Most of the time, however, the exact experimental conditions can be left out and given on request. It’s good practice to put all the technical data that you anticipate being asked for in a few slides at the end of your talk.

Use your judgment.

Keep the Amount of Information per Slide Low for Clarity

Your audience is already listening to you and looking at the slides, so they have a limited capacity for what they can absorb. Overwhelming them with visual queues and talking to them will disengage them.

Have only a few clearly related images that apply directly to what you speaking about at the time. Annotate them with the only key facts from your talk and develop the bigger picture verbally.

This will be hard at first because you must be on the ball and confident with your subject area and speaking to an audience.

And definitely use circles, boxes, and arrows to highlight important parts of figures, and add a flowchart or diagram to explain an unfamiliar method.

Keep It Short Overall

The exact length of your meeting is up to you or the organizer. A 15-minute talk followed by a 30-minute discussion is about the right length, Add in tea and coffee and hellos, and you get to an hour.

We tend to speak at 125-150 words per minute. All these words should not be on your slides, however. So, commit a rough script to memory and rehearse it.

You’ll find that the main points you need to mention start to stand out and fall into place naturally. Plus, your slides will serve as visual queue cards.

How Do You Ask a Question in Journal Club?

A well-organized journal club will have clear expectations of whether or not questions should be asked only during the discussion, or whether interruptions during the presentation are allowed.

And I don’t mean literally how do you soliloquize, but rather how do you get an effective discussion going.

Presenters: Ask Questions to the Audience

We all know how it goes. “Any questions?” Silence.

Scientists, by their very nature, are usually introverted. Any ideas they might want to contribute to a discussion are typically outweighed by the fear of looking silly in front of their peers. Or they think everyone already knows the item they wish to contribute. Or don’t want to be publicly disproven. And so on.

Prepare some questions to ask the audience in advance. As soon as a few people speak, everyone tends to loosen up. Take advantage of this.

Audience: Think About Topics to Praise or Critique

Aside from seeking clarification on any unclear topics, you could ask questions on:

  • Does the data support the conclusions?
  • Are the conclusions relevant?
  • Are the methods valid?
  • What are the drawbacks and limitations of the conclusions?
  • Are there better methods to test the hypothesis?
  • How will the research be translated into real-world benefits?
  • Are there obvious follow-up experiments?
  • How well is the burden of proof met?
  • Is the data physiologically relevant?
  • Do you agree with the conclusions?

How to Keep It Fun

Make it interactive.

Quizzes and polls are a great way to do this! And QR codes make it really easy to do on-the-fly. Remember, scientists, are shy. So why not seek their participation in an anonymized form?

You could poll your audience on the quality of the work. You could make a fun quiz based on the material you’ve covered. You could do a live “what happened next?” You could even get your feedback this way. Here’s what to do:

  • Create your quiz or poll using Google forms .
  • Make a shareable link.
  • Paste the link into a free QR code generator .
  • Put the QR code in the appropriate bit of your talk.

Use Multimedia

Talking to your audience without anything to break it up is a guaranteed way of sending them all to sleep.

Consider embedding demonstration videos and animations in your talk. Or even just pausing to interject with your own anecdotes will keep everyone concentrated on you.

Keep It Informal

At the end of the day, we’re all scientists. Perhaps at different stages of our careers, but we’ve all had similar-ish trajectories. So there’s no need for haughtiness.

And research institutes are usually aggressively casual in terms of dress code, coffee breaks, and impromptu chats. Asking everyone to don a suit won’t add any value to a journal club.

Your Journal Club Toolkit in Summary

Anyone can read a paper, but the value lies in understanding it and applying it to your own research and thought process.

Remember, journal club is about extracting wisdom from your colleagues in the form of a discussion while disseminating wisdom to them in a digestible format.

Need some inspiration for your journal club? Check out the online repositories hosted by PNAS and NASPAG to get your juices flowing.

We’ve covered a lot of information, from parsing papers to organizational logistics, and effective presentation. So why not bookmark this page so you can come back to it all when it’s your turn to present?

While you’re here, why not ensure you’re always prepared for your next journal club and download bitesize bio’s free journal club checklist ?

And if you present at journal club and realize we’ve left something obvious out. Get in touch and let us know. We’ll add it to the article!

  • Linzer M et al . (1988) Impact of a medical journal club on house-staff reading habits, knowledge, and critical appraisal skills . JAMA 260 :2537–41

Forgot your password?

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.

Back to login

5 Tips for Journal Club First-Timers

By Lucy Bauer

Monday, March 30, 2015

Research communities often uphold the ideal of scientific collaboration. But what does “collaboration” really mean? The picture that comes to mind can be people sitting, talking, and exchanging ideas that push toward the goal of creating better health. How can this exchange practically happen? One way is through a journal club. Recently, I had the privilege of presenting a journal article to my lab group’s journal club in the PAIN (Pain And Integrative Neuroscience) lab for  Dr. Catherine Bushnell . One goal of our lab is to look at the relationship and differences between itch and pain.

scientific journal club paper

Me explaining part of the spinal neuron pathway in itch

So, what is the purpose of a journal club?

A journal club is a regular gathering of scientists to discuss a scientific paper found in a research journal. One or two members of the club present a summary of the chosen paper that the whole group has read. Then, the discussion begins. Attendees ask clarifying questions, inquire about different aspects of the experimental design, critique the methods, and bring a healthy amount of skepticism (or praise) to the results.

For my first journal club at the NIH, we considered a paper that looks at how itch is mediated in the spinal cord from the skin up to the brain. The authors show that mice lacking a gene for a specific type of spinal neuron constantly scratch specific areas of their bodies corresponding to the missing spinal interneuron. When these mice receive a stem cell implant, a normal reaction to itch is restored. This paper generated much discussion about neuronal development, ethical considerations, and how the results relate to our research within the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).

The ideas found and discussed at the journal club can help expand and balance each scientist’s scope of what is happening in the world of research while informing experimental plans and research directions. Here are five things I learned from my experience leading a journal club that can help you prepare to get the most out of your discussions:

1. Know the background material.

Prepare beforehand for your journal club presentation by knowing the research that has preceded and is related to the paper you will be presenting. This will make your discussion more informed and effective. Of course, it is likely impossible to know everything that would relate to your journal club presentation, but even a little bit of background information is helpful.

2. Make your presentation concise.

Every paper has many details about methods, results, discussion, future directions, etc. It is very helpful to give your audience the general flow of the entire paper and research before adding in all the details.

3. Simplify unfamiliar concepts.

Journal clubs often have members of varying backgrounds. Hence, not all concepts will be familiar to everyone in the group. It can be helpful to give a short summary of techniques and results. Detailed explanations can be provided later on, because the primary focus of presenting the paper should be giving an overview of the research.

4. Ask yourself questions about the paper before you present.

As the presenter, you may be the semi-“expert” on the paper, but as you get to know the research, you may discover some questions you have about the methods. Share with the group the questions you came across yourself and any answers you may have found to address them.

5. Ask specific questions to the members of the journal club.

When entering into discussion time, ask the group for their thoughts on specific topics found in the paper to create a starting point for conversation about the paper. Questions can be about methods, results, general ideas, and much more!

Journal clubs are great forums for the exchange of thoughts and ideas. Clubs held at the NIH are just one way through which necessary scientific discussion and collaboration can take place. Be sure to look into journal clubs happening near you!

If you’re at the NIH, the Office of Intramural Training and Education (OITE) hosts  Summer Journal Clubs  that are ideal for trainees just getting their feet wet. And for our colleagues around the world, the NIH National Library of Medicine (NLM) provides an online platform to discuss journal articles in our connected world via the  PubMed Commons Journal Clubs .

Related Blog Posts

  • Isaac Fights to Inspire Others
  • Need for Speed
  • What’s in a Name, Postbac IRTA?
  • Brain Pathway Amplifies Pain After Injury
  • Dialing Down the Brain’s Pain Thermostat

This page was last updated on Wednesday, July 5, 2023

JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.

STEMCELL Technologies

  • Compare Products

Have a question? +1 604 877 0713 or Email Us at [email protected]

Your cart has an existing quote

Your shopping cart contains an active quote order and cannot be modified. To modify your shopping cart, please remove the current quote order before making changes to your cart. If you require changes to the quote, please contact your local sales representative.

  • Sign In Email Address Password Sign In Forgot your password?

Register for an account to quickly and easily purchase products online and for one-click access to all educational content.

  • 10 Journal Club Tips: How to Run, Lead, and Present Like a Pro

Ten Tips for Scientific Journal Clubs: How to Organize, Lead, and Participate Well

scientific journal club paper

What is a journal club? A scientific journal club is a dedicated meeting where researchers gather to discuss publications from peer-reviewed journals. These meetings help researchers keep up with current findings, exercise their critical thinking skills, and improve their presentation and debate abilities.

Journal club formats vary depending on the preferences of organizers and participants. Online journal clubs organized using virtual meeting platforms (e.g. Zoom, Google Meets, Webex) are increasing in popularity with research labs and institutions.

In a well-run journal club, participants engage in lively discussions, while critically and honestly evaluating a study's strengths and weaknesses. They take away insights on what to do—and what not to do—in their own work. They feel inspired by new findings and walk away with ideas for their own research. On the contrary, ineffective journal clubs lack active participation. There may be a fear of openly voicing thoughts and opinions, or attendees may just be there for the free refreshments. In the end, the attendees take away nothing useful and think it's a waste of time. Whether you’re an organizer or a participant, follow these tips to run and lead a successful journal club, and to create engaging journal club presentations.

1. Make It a Routine

Schedule the journal club at a recurring time and location, so that it becomes a regular part of everyone's schedule. Choose a time that will be the least disruptive to everyone's experiments. Perhaps host it during lunchtime and invite people to eat while the presenter is speaking. Or perhaps host it in late afternoon with coffee and snacks provided.

We try and make the meeting times agreeable to most people and at times that are conducive to the work day of a grad student. We hold our journal clubs after seminars or presentations so it doesn’t interrupt experiments.

Shan Kasal, Graduate Student, The University of Chicago

2. Designate a Leader

A designated leader(s) who can take ownership of running the journal club will contribute tremendously to its success. The responsibilities of a leader may include organizing the journal club (see below) and facilitating the meeting (e.g., starting and ending meetings on time, making speaker introductions and announcements, and moderating discussions). Skilled journal club leaders make it safe for members to openly voice their thoughts and opinions. They work to generate excitement and encourage active participation. They also provide opportunities for members to join them in organizing and leading the journal club. Great leaders inspire personal and professional growth in others within their journal club community. Download this journal club preparation checklist to help you stay organized as a leader and ensure all necessary tasks are completed before each journal club meeting.

3. Get Organized

Staying organized is key to running a successful journal club. Here are some ways that can help you organize a journal club:

  • Set a consistent format and make sure members are aware of it.
  • Create and share schedules so participants know it's their turn to present, facilitate, pre-read, or provide refreshments.
  • Develop a communication rhythm to make sure announcements and reminders are sent out in a timely manner.
  • Provide guidelines and/or a template for presenters.
  • Bring attendance sheets to track member turnouts. Depending on the institute, keeping track of attendance can help with budget requests and approvals.
  • Provide feedback forms to the audience to help identify areas for improvement.

Journal Club Toolkit

Journal Club ToolKit

Get organized with these downloadable tools, including a journal club preparation checklist, attendance sheet template, presentation checklist, feedback form template, and presenter evaluation forms.

4. Pre-Read Papers

Pre-reading is a great way to ensure that you have sufficient background information to participate in journal club discussions. In an ideal world, everyone in the journal club will read the paper prior to the meeting. But due to the high demands of research , members may not have the time to pre-read before every single meeting. Journal club leaders can encourage pre-reading or even make it mandatory. Some journal clubs ask for different members to present different figures. Using this format, several individuals have to pre-read the paper and actively participate during each meeting. Other journal clubs designate one or two individuals, in addition to the presenter, to thoroughly pre-read the paper each week. The pre-readers are asked to help promote discussion by asking questions during the meetings. Organizers can set a schedule so that members know when it's their turn to pre-read.

5. Build a Community

You need to have students that are interested in the club in the first place, and I would also say, interested in hanging out with each other. Our journal club format is informal, which allows us to at least enjoy the company of each other.

Journal club organizers and leaders should aim to create a community where the members feel safe enough to share their thoughts and ask questions. Fostering community encourages active participation and the exchange of ideas, and can increase participant satisfaction and collaborations.

Successful journal clubs always come with food!!

Serena Chang, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Stanford University

A great way to foster community is, simply, to serve food and drinks. Eating and drinking together can create a friendly, informal atmosphere conducive to open discussions, which will help encourage the flow of ideas and thoughts on the journal club paper. In addition, refreshments help to incentivize members to continue attending the journal club.

scientific journal club paper

Immunology Journal Club Sponsorship Contest

Enter for a chance to win a $500 USD sponsorship budget for your immunology journal club. Use it to fund food and drinks. Be a hero and win it for your journal club community.

6. Choose Relevant Papers

Consider the composition of your journal club community when choosing a paper. A journal club may have a broad group of researchers (e.g., a general immunology journal club), or it may only involve one or two labs specifically working on immune tolerance or a particular immune cell type. Papers discussed should be be on topics relevant to the participants’ research areas so that they remain interested.

We encourage people to select papers they are not already reading to try and expand our understanding of immunology and theirs. Too many times I feel like people select papers they already have read or will read and gain nothing from it, so there is no incentive to invest more.

As a busy researcher, the additional task of preparing for a journal club can feel like an extra burden. It’s easy to choose a paper that you are already reading for your research project. But choosing a paper that is outside of your research specialty can help you and others gain new perspectives and broaden your knowledge.

7. Make Engaging Presentations

You’ve likely suffered through boring lectures with text-heavy slides, or a monotonous presentation. How can this be avoided in your journal club?

I have a one page suggestion list of things to include in the presentation, including criticisms for the methods, hypothesis, whether the results are valid/strong enough to support the hypothesis, etc. This helps keep everyone on track.

As a journal club organizer or leader, you can provide presenters with a suggested list of presentation content and best practices:

  • Start with why. Capture everyone’s interest by sharing why you chose that paper or why the paper is important to discuss.
  • Prepare a concise presentation. Summarize only the key points of the paper. Include enough background information but avoid the urge to include every single detail. You can provide technical details when needed during the discussion period.
  • Simplify complex information. Create simple visual representations of complex ideas, pathways, or techniques to help your audience understand the information. Avoid writing out complex information in text-heavy slides that nobody will read.
  • Give it more space. Make your slides easier to read by avoiding having too much text in small fonts or too many figures on one slide. If a figure is too large, you can break it up into a few slides.
  • Include discussion starters. Instead of simply summarizing, include your thoughts and opinions on all aspects of the paper to initiate a discussion. What were the strengths and weaknesses? What questions did you have when reading the paper?

Download this journal club presentation checklist to help your presentation preparation.

8. Keep It Exciting

Break out of the routine once in a while to keep the journal club fresh and exciting. For example, you could invite external speakers to your journal club:

  • Invite a visiting scientist to present their work.
  • Ask a biotech company to present their technologies.
  • Find a speaker who can discuss scientific careers.
  • Ask a science communication expert to give tips.

9. Look for Ways to Improve

You’ve taken the first step towards improving your journal club by reading this article, but improvement is a continual process. What does your journal club community think? Perform regular audits of the journal club by asking for feedback every few months. Distribute feedback forms that attendees can fill out at the end of a journal club meeting. Download a journal club feedback form template > In addition to asking for feedback, pay attention to what happens during journal club meetings. Do members generally appear awake and engaged during presentations? Are you constantly running out of discussion time? You can gain a lot of insights by simply being observant in the meeting.

10. Make Time for It

Understandably, the demands of research can prevent you from making the choice to take on this additional task of leading or participating in a journal club. Adopt smart practices so you can use your time more efficiently. Working smart will help free up your time for other beneficial activities, including journal clubs. One of the ways to work smarter is to make the switch to more efficient technologies that can help you get your results in less time. For example, you can switch to a smarter way to isolate cells.

Scientist working in the lab

Efficient Tools and Technologies for Life Science Research

Accomplish more in less time and with less effort by making smarter choices for the tools you use in the lab, including cell isolation and cell culture technologies.

Share This Article:

Tweet Share

Watch Our Virtual Journal Club Presentations

Choose one of the titles below to see a recording of our online journal club presentations.

  • Viral Exploitation of Extracellular Vesicles to Spread Infection
  • Mechanisms of Glioblastoma Resistance
  • New Strategies to Target Macrophages in Cancer
  • Patient-Derived Alzheimer’s Disease Modeling
  • Cerebral Organoids for Human-Specific Infection Modeling
  • Human In Vitro T Cell Development
  • Expanding the Therapeutic Tool Kit for CAR T Cells
  • NK Cell Expansion or Differentiation from Progenitors for Cell Therapy
  • The Potential of Antibody-Producing B Cells for Modelling and Therapy
  • Advances in Live-Attenuated Vaccine Development for Zika Virus
  • Evaluating Functional Immune Responses in the Next Generation of Humanized Mice

Related Resources

Watch live virtual events.

Register for upcoming digital experiences hosted by STEMCELL, including online journal clubs and live webinars.

Browse Events >

Virtual conference exhibitions

Visit Virtual Conference Exhibitions

Attend scientific talks, browse posters, and join discussions on immunology, pluripotent stem cells, and organoids.

Explore Now >

  • Organize Lab Bench
  • Manage Inventory
  • Organize Notebooks
  • Share Duties
  • Choose Technologies
  • Productivity Habits
  • Staying Motivated
  • Productive Commute
  • Mentor Effectively
  • Successful Journal Club
  • Immunologists to Follow
  • Attending Conferences
  • Effective Presentations
  • Networking Tips
  • Habits to Break
  • Optimizing Value
  • Thriving in Research
  • Information Overload
  • Storing and Preserving Data
  • Poster Presentations
  • Efficient Technologies
  • Return to Lab
  • Managing Projects
  • Reopening the Lab
  • Lab Coats & Life™ Podcast
  • Increase Your Productivity
  • Get Organized
  • Communicate Effectively
  • Advance Your Career
  • Move from Academia to Industry

Watch a Session of the Online Immunology Journal Club

  • Cookie Preferences
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Current Country/Region

Log in using your username and password

  • Search More Search for this keyword Advanced search
  • Latest content
  • Current issue
  • BMJ Journals More You are viewing from: Google Indexer

You are here

  • Volume 22, Issue 6
  • Journal Clubs: 2. Why and how to run them and how to publish them
  • Article Text
  • Article info
  • Citation Tools
  • Rapid Responses
  • Article metrics

Download PDF

  • Jeffrey K Aronson
  • Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences , University of Oxford , Oxford OX2 6GG , UK
  • Correspondence to Dr Jeffrey K Aronson, Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX26GG, UK; jeffrey.aronson{at}phc.ox.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebmed-2017-110861

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request permissions.

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Journal clubs have many functions, including the provision of a forum for developing skills in critical appraisal, an essential part of being a competent clinician.

From early on, journal clubs reported their proceedings in academic journals. The Zoological Journal Club of Michigan , for example, regularly reported its activities in the journal Science (see figure 1 ).  Table 1 lists a selection of other journals that publish journal club articles, showing the wide range of topics covered. Modern methods of conducting journal clubs include the use of online media to encourage interactive discussion, 1 including blogs, 2 twitter, 3 and virtual journal clubs. 4

  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

The contents page of Science for Friday 7 December 1900, listing the proceedings of the Zoological Journal Club of the University of Michigan .

  • View inline

Some journals that publish articles under the heading ‘Journal Club’

It is therefore appropriate that Evidence-Based Medicine  (EBM) should feature a regular journal club report.

In order to find out how others run journal clubs and the effects that they have, I searched PubMed for articles on journal clubs, using the search term ‘journal[ti] & (club[ti] OR clubs[ti])’ (1699 hits) and found three types of articles: articles in which authors described a paper that they had discussed at a journal club or thought would be suitable material for a journal club; studies of the effects of running journal clubs; and reviews of various sorts.

I found three systematic reviews. One recommended the journal club as a tool for assessing practice-based competencies that might be difficult to assess by other means 5 ; one reported that journal clubs improve knowledge and critical appraisal skills but that there was no evidence on translation of evidence from journal clubs into clinical practice 6 ; and one reported that journal clubs seemed to be the preferred way of teaching critical appraisal skills but that it was not clear which elements were most important for learning. 7

I have synthesized much of this information and have distilled what I consider to be the important points that arise from the formal studies and reviews and describe the objectives of a journal club and how to run one.  I also give guidance on the preparation of journal club reports that we hope readers will submit for publication. We look forward to hearing from you.

Five reasons for running a journal club

To highlight new findings.

To teach practitioners how to search for interesting articles representing the best evidence to inform clinical practice.

To encourage practitioners to read and appraise publications critically and give them the ability to do so.

To encourage practitioners to do applied clinical research and to show them how.

To improve debating skills, demonstrate leadership skills, and aid peer mentorship.

Sixteen suggestions on how to run a journal club

The members of the club should on the whole have shared or complementary interests, including statisticians, but do not discourage multidisciplinarity, if available; involve everyone, from students down to professors.

Run the club regularly at the same time on the same day of the week, so that it becomes a fixture.

Have at least one designated skilled leader who regularly participates in the club.

Ideally, make attendance mandatory and keep a record.

Ensure that the meetings start and end on time.

Encourage communality; this could be done, for example, by asking everyone at the start of each meeting to give their name and a piece of information about themselves (eg, a movie they have recently seen).

Discuss up to three papers from peer-reviewed journals; develop a theme each time; occasionally include books of interest.

Split presentation and discussion times 50/50.

Try to choose papers that you think may influence clinical practice and discuss why.

Disseminate the chosen articles in advance, with questions that might be asked; the leader should bring spare copies to the meeting.

Keep notes and conduct regular audits (eg, yearly); give feedback on later developments; link it to a Xmas quiz.

Welcome guest speakers from time to time to add expert comment.

Provide free enticing refreshments; have a rota for making the tea/coffee.

Use your imagination to make it fun.

Publish your experience.

Adapt these suggestions to suit your own circumstances.

Ten tips on how to prepare a journal club article for EBM

The article should have proceeded from an actual journal club.

The paper discussed need not have been published in EBM .

At the start, give the full reference (Vancouver style) of the article that you have discussed.

The following framework, adapted from that originally suggested by Riegelman 8 may be useful: aims, methods, results, interpretation, implications for practice, and further research.

Say what the purpose of the study was.

Summarise the important points in the article, paying particular attention to the methods that were used.

Briefly describe the main results.

Highlight the strengths and weaknesses; how could the study have been improved? did the authors achieve what they set out to achieve?

Describe the implications of the results and whether you think they may or may not influence practice beneficially or adversely.

If relevant, say what further research might be carried out.

  • Radecki R , et al
  • Sparks MA ,
  • Phelan PJ , et al
  • Chetlen AL ,
  • Solberg AO , et al
  • Golnik KC , et al
  • Deenadayalan Y ,
  • Grimmer-Somers K ,
  • Prior M , et al
  • McKenzie ME ,
  • Maclean A , et al
  • Riegelman RK

Competing interests JKA is an associate editor for EBM.

Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

Read the full text or download the PDF:

How to run an effective journal club: a systematic review

Affiliation.

  • 1 University of South Australia, City East Campus, Adelaide, Australia.
  • PMID: 19018924
  • DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2753.2008.01050.x

Background: Health-based journal clubs have been in place for over 100 years. Participants meet regularly to critique research articles, to improve their understanding of research design, statistics and critical appraisal. However, there is no standard process of conducting an effective journal club. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify core processes of a successful health journal club.

Method: We searched a range of library databases using established keywords. All research designs were initially considered to establish the body of evidence. Experimental or comparative papers were then critically appraised for methodological quality and information was extracted on effective journal club processes.

Results: We identified 101 articles, of which 21 comprised the body of evidence. Of these, 12 described journal club effectiveness. Methodological quality was moderate. The papers described many processes of effective journal clubs. Over 80% papers reported that journal club intervention was effective in improving knowledge and critical appraisal skills. Few papers reported on the psychometric properties of their outcome instruments. No paper reported on the translation of evidence from journal club into clinical practice.

Conclusion: Characteristics of successful journal clubs included regular and anticipated meetings, mandatory attendance, clear long- and short-term purpose, appropriate meeting timing and incentives, a trained journal club leader to choose papers and lead discussion, circulating papers prior to the meeting, using the internet for wider dissemination and data storage, using established critical appraisal processes and summarizing journal club findings.

Publication types

  • Systematic Review
  • Congresses as Topic / organization & administration*
  • Diffusion of Innovation
  • Education, Continuing / organization & administration*
  • Evaluation Studies as Topic
  • Evidence-Based Medicine / education*
  • Evidence-Based Medicine / organization & administration
  • Group Processes
  • Interprofessional Relations
  • Outcome Assessment, Health Care
  • Periodicals as Topic*
  • Professional Role / psychology
  • Research Design
  • Total Quality Management / organization & administration

U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

  • Publications
  • Account settings
  • Advanced Search
  • Journal List
  • PLoS Comput Biol
  • v.16(7); 2020 Jul

Logo of ploscomp

Ten simple rules for reading a scientific paper

Maureen a. carey.

Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health, Department of Medicine, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America

Kevin L. Steiner

William a. petri, jr, introduction.

“There is no problem that a library card can't solve” according to author Eleanor Brown [ 1 ]. This advice is sound, probably for both life and science, but even the best tool (like the library) is most effective when accompanied by instructions and a basic understanding of how and when to use it.

For many budding scientists, the first day in a new lab setting often involves a stack of papers, an email full of links to pertinent articles, or some promise of a richer understanding so long as one reads enough of the scientific literature. However, the purpose and approach to reading a scientific article is unlike that of reading a news story, novel, or even a textbook and can initially seem unapproachable. Having good habits for reading scientific literature is key to setting oneself up for success, identifying new research questions, and filling in the gaps in one’s current understanding; developing these good habits is the first crucial step.

Advice typically centers around two main tips: read actively and read often. However, active reading, or reading with an intent to understand, is both a learned skill and a level of effort. Although there is no one best way to do this, we present 10 simple rules, relevant to novices and seasoned scientists alike, to teach our strategy for active reading based on our experience as readers and as mentors of undergraduate and graduate researchers, medical students, fellows, and early career faculty. Rules 1–5 are big picture recommendations. Rules 6–8 relate to philosophy of reading. Rules 9–10 guide the “now what?” questions one should ask after reading and how to integrate what was learned into one’s own science.

Rule 1: Pick your reading goal

What you want to get out of an article should influence your approach to reading it. Table 1 includes a handful of example intentions and how you might prioritize different parts of the same article differently based on your goals as a reader.

1 Yay! Welcome!

2 A journal club is when a group of scientists get together to discuss a paper. Usually one person leads the discussion and presents all of the data. The group discusses their own interpretations and the authors’ interpretation.

Rule 2: Understand the author’s goal

In written communication, the reader and the writer are equally important. Both influence the final outcome: in this case, your scientific understanding! After identifying your goal, think about the author’s goal for sharing this project. This will help you interpret the data and understand the author’s interpretation of the data. However, this requires some understanding of who the author(s) are (e.g., what are their scientific interests?), the scientific field in which they work (e.g., what techniques are available in this field?), and how this paper fits into the author’s research (e.g., is this work building on an author’s longstanding project or controversial idea?). This information may be hard to glean without experience and a history of reading. But don’t let this be a discouragement to starting the process; it is by the act of reading that this experience is gained!

A good step toward understanding the goal of the author(s) is to ask yourself: What kind of article is this? Journals publish different types of articles, including methods, review, commentary, resources, and research articles as well as other types that are specific to a particular journal or groups of journals. These article types have different formatting requirements and expectations for content. Knowing the article type will help guide your evaluation of the information presented. Is the article a methods paper, presenting a new technique? Is the article a review article, intended to summarize a field or problem? Is it a commentary, intended to take a stand on a controversy or give a big picture perspective on a problem? Is it a resource article, presenting a new tool or data set for others to use? Is it a research article, written to present new data and the authors’ interpretation of those data? The type of paper, and its intended purpose, will get you on your way to understanding the author’s goal.

Rule 3: Ask six questions

When reading, ask yourself: (1) What do the author(s) want to know (motivation)? (2) What did they do (approach/methods)? (3) Why was it done that way (context within the field)? (4) What do the results show (figures and data tables)? (5) How did the author(s) interpret the results (interpretation/discussion)? (6) What should be done next? (Regarding this last question, the author(s) may provide some suggestions in the discussion, but the key is to ask yourself what you think should come next.)

Each of these questions can and should be asked about the complete work as well as each table, figure, or experiment within the paper. Early on, it can take a long time to read one article front to back, and this can be intimidating. Break down your understanding of each section of the work with these questions to make the effort more manageable.

Rule 4: Unpack each figure and table

Scientists write original research papers primarily to present new data that may change or reinforce the collective knowledge of a field. Therefore, the most important parts of this type of scientific paper are the data. Some people like to scrutinize the figures and tables (including legends) before reading any of the “main text”: because all of the important information should be obtained through the data. Others prefer to read through the results section while sequentially examining the figures and tables as they are addressed in the text. There is no correct or incorrect approach: Try both to see what works best for you. The key is making sure that one understands the presented data and how it was obtained.

For each figure, work to understand each x- and y-axes, color scheme, statistical approach (if one was used), and why the particular plotting approach was used. For each table, identify what experimental groups and variables are presented. Identify what is shown and how the data were collected. This is typically summarized in the legend or caption but often requires digging deeper into the methods: Do not be afraid to refer back to the methods section frequently to ensure a full understanding of how the presented data were obtained. Again, ask the questions in Rule 3 for each figure or panel and conclude with articulating the “take home” message.

Rule 5: Understand the formatting intentions

Just like the overall intent of the article (discussed in Rule 2), the intent of each section within a research article can guide your interpretation. Some sections are intended to be written as objective descriptions of the data (i.e., the Results section), whereas other sections are intended to present the author’s interpretation of the data. Remember though that even “objective” sections are written by and, therefore, influenced by the authors interpretations. Check out Table 2 to understand the intent of each section of a research article. When reading a specific paper, you can also refer to the journal’s website to understand the formatting intentions. The “For Authors” section of a website will have some nitty gritty information that is less relevant for the reader (like word counts) but will also summarize what the journal editors expect in each section. This will help to familiarize you with the goal of each article section.

Research articles typically contain each of these sections, although sometimes the “results” and “discussion” sections (or “discussion” and “conclusion” sections) are merged into one section. Additional sections may be included, based on request of the journal or the author(s). Keep in mind: If it was included, someone thought it was important for you to read.

Rule 6: Be critical

Published papers are not truths etched in stone. Published papers in high impact journals are not truths etched in stone. Published papers by bigwigs in the field are not truths etched in stone. Published papers that seem to agree with your own hypothesis or data are not etched in stone. Published papers that seem to refute your hypothesis or data are not etched in stone.

Science is a never-ending work in progress, and it is essential that the reader pushes back against the author’s interpretation to test the strength of their conclusions. Everyone has their own perspective and may interpret the same data in different ways. Mistakes are sometimes published, but more often these apparent errors are due to other factors such as limitations of a methodology and other limits to generalizability (selection bias, unaddressed, or unappreciated confounders). When reading a paper, it is important to consider if these factors are pertinent.

Critical thinking is a tough skill to learn but ultimately boils down to evaluating data while minimizing biases. Ask yourself: Are there other, equally likely, explanations for what is observed? In addition to paying close attention to potential biases of the study or author(s), a reader should also be alert to one’s own preceding perspective (and biases). Take time to ask oneself: Do I find this paper compelling because it affirms something I already think (or wish) is true? Or am I discounting their findings because it differs from what I expect or from my own work?

The phenomenon of a self-fulfilling prophecy, or expectancy, is well studied in the psychology literature [ 2 ] and is why many studies are conducted in a “blinded” manner [ 3 ]. It refers to the idea that a person may assume something to be true and their resultant behavior aligns to make it true. In other words, as humans and scientists, we often find exactly what we are looking for. A scientist may only test their hypotheses and fail to evaluate alternative hypotheses; perhaps, a scientist may not be aware of alternative, less biased ways to test her or his hypothesis that are typically used in different fields. Individuals with different life, academic, and work experiences may think of several alternative hypotheses, all equally supported by the data.

Rule 7: Be kind

The author(s) are human too. So, whenever possible, give them the benefit of the doubt. An author may write a phrase differently than you would, forcing you to reread the sentence to understand it. Someone in your field may neglect to cite your paper because of a reference count limit. A figure panel may be misreferenced as Supplemental Fig 3E when it is obviously Supplemental Fig 4E. While these things may be frustrating, none are an indication that the quality of work is poor. Try to avoid letting these minor things influence your evaluation and interpretation of the work.

Similarly, if you intend to share your critique with others, be extra kind. An author (especially the lead author) may invest years of their time into a single paper. Hearing a kindly phrased critique can be difficult but constructive. Hearing a rude, brusque, or mean-spirited critique can be heartbreaking, especially for young scientists or those seeking to establish their place within a field and who may worry that they do not belong.

Rule 8: Be ready to go the extra mile

To truly understand a scientific work, you often will need to look up a term, dig into the supplemental materials, or read one or more of the cited references. This process takes time. Some advisors recommend reading an article three times: The first time, simply read without the pressure of understanding or critiquing the work. For the second time, aim to understand the paper. For the third read through, take notes.

Some people engage with a paper by printing it out and writing all over it. The reader might write question marks in the margins to mark parts (s)he wants to return to, circle unfamiliar terms (and then actually look them up!), highlight or underline important statements, and draw arrows linking figures and the corresponding interpretation in the discussion. Not everyone needs a paper copy to engage in the reading process but, whatever your version of “printing it out” is, do it.

Rule 9: Talk about it

Talking about an article in a journal club or more informal environment forces active reading and participation with the material. Studies show that teaching is one of the best ways to learn and that teachers learn the material even better as the teaching task becomes more complex [ 4 – 5 ]; anecdotally, such observations inspired the phrase “to teach is to learn twice.”

Beyond formal settings such as journal clubs, lab meetings, and academic classes, discuss papers with your peers, mentors, and colleagues in person or electronically. Twitter and other social media platforms have become excellent resources for discussing papers with other scientists, the public or your nonscientist friends, or even the paper’s author(s). Describing a paper can be done at multiple levels and your description can contain all of the scientific details, only the big picture summary, or perhaps the implications for the average person in your community. All of these descriptions will solidify your understanding, while highlighting gaps in your knowledge and informing those around you.

Rule 10: Build on it

One approach we like to use for communicating how we build on the scientific literature is by starting research presentations with an image depicting a wall of Lego bricks. Each brick is labeled with the reference for a paper, and the wall highlights the body of literature on which the work is built. We describe the work and conclusions of each paper represented by a labeled brick and discuss each brick and the wall as a whole. The top brick on the wall is left blank: We aspire to build on this work and label this brick with our own work. We then delve into our own research, discoveries, and the conclusions it inspires. We finish our presentations with the image of the Legos and summarize our presentation on that empty brick.

Whether you are reading an article to understand a new topic area or to move a research project forward, effective learning requires that you integrate knowledge from multiple sources (“click” those Lego bricks together) and build upwards. Leveraging published work will enable you to build a stronger and taller structure. The first row of bricks is more stable once a second row is assembled on top of it and so on and so forth. Moreover, the Lego construction will become taller and larger if you build upon the work of others, rather than using only your own bricks.

Build on the article you read by thinking about how it connects to ideas described in other papers and within own work, implementing a technique in your own research, or attempting to challenge or support the hypothesis of the author(s) with a more extensive literature review. Integrate the techniques and scientific conclusions learned from an article into your own research or perspective in the classroom or research lab. You may find that this process strengthens your understanding, leads you toward new and unexpected interests or research questions, or returns you back to the original article with new questions and critiques of the work. All of these experiences are part of the “active reading”: process and are signs of a successful reading experience.

In summary, practice these rules to learn how to read a scientific article, keeping in mind that this process will get easier (and faster) with experience. We are firm believers that an hour in the library will save a week at the bench; this diligent practice will ultimately make you both a more knowledgeable and productive scientist. As you develop the skills to read an article, try to also foster good reading and learning habits for yourself (recommendations here: [ 6 ] and [ 7 ], respectively) and in others. Good luck and happy reading!

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the mentors, teachers, and students who have shaped our thoughts on reading, learning, and what science is all about.

Funding Statement

MAC was supported by the PhRMA Foundation's Postdoctoral Fellowship in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics and the University of Virginia's Engineering-in-Medicine seed grant, and KLS was supported by the NIH T32 Global Biothreats Training Program at the University of Virginia (AI055432). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

  • - Google Chrome

Intended for healthcare professionals

  • Access provided by Google Indexer
  • My email alerts
  • BMA member login
  • Username * Password * Forgot your log in details? Need to activate BMA Member Log In Log in via OpenAthens Log in via your institution

Home

Search form

  • Advanced search
  • Search responses
  • Search blogs

Journal clubs

  • Related content
  • Peer review
  • Martina Esisi , staff grade doctor, psychiatry ( Oritsesemisan{at}btinternet.com )
  • Warwickshire

Martina Esisi considers how to get the most out of them

Journal clubs are educational meetings where individuals meet regularly to critically evaluate recent articles in the scientific literature. They have often been cited as a bridge between research and practice, as they encourage the application of research in clinical practice. 1

After a literature search, the earliest reference to a journal club I found is described by Sir James Paget who, in the mid-1800s, described a group at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, as a “kind of club . . . a small room over a baker's shop near the hospital-gate, where we could sit and read the journals.” 2

Why journal clubs?

Many academic training programmes include a journal club. They have long been recognised as a means of keeping up to date with the literature; promoting evidence based medicine; and teaching critical appraisal skills, which I found particularly useful when preparing for the critical review paper to part 2 of the Royal College of Psychiatry's membership exam. In order for trainee doctors to be able to adapt to ever-changing circumstances, in clinical practice, they need to equip themselves with the skills of critical appraisal, and the ability to apply new knowledge. Journal clubs also help to keep permanent staff updated. 3

Advantages of a journal club

Help people to learn and improve their critical appraisal skills

Encourage evidence based medicine

Promote awareness of research skills

Keep abreast with new literature

Encourage use of research

Promote social contact

Provide continuing medical education

Stimulate debate, and improved understanding of current topics.

Unfortunately, in my experience these clubs are often poorly attended. There are various reasons for this, including the way they are organised.

Organising journal club sessions

There is no single ideal format for a journal club. Many variations have been described, and this is influenced by the goals set by the organisers, and the needs and interests of the target participants.

Participants often differ widely in knowledge and skills, and, for example, if part of the goal is to teach critical appraisal skills and thereby help trainees (such as in psychiatry) to prepare for the critical review paper component of the membership exams, the critical appraisal journal clubs will be particularly useful.

In this respect, access to basic and refresher courses are helpful, so that people feel more confident to participate at meetings. Some postgraduate education centres provide this.

If on the other hand the main aim is to contribute to the application of research then it might be more appropriate to structure each meeting to look at specific topics, rather than articles, or perhaps a combination of both will be useful.

Generally, the two main variations are critical appraisal journal clubs and evidence based journal clubs. Even within these broad types, there are variations in the way they are run.

Critical appraisal clubs

Critical appraisal is the process of systematically examining research evidence to assess its validity, results, and relevance before using it to inform a decision. 4 It is thus an essential part of evidence based clinical practice, as it helps close the gap between research and practice. In critical appraisal journal clubs, generally an article is reviewed. Usually, the presenter introduces the paper, which is either a classic paper, or one that has been chosen by the presenter, often using a critical appraisal checklist. The main problem with this sort of club is that participants may not feel confident in their critical appraisal skills and are therefore reluctant to join in.

Evidence based clubs

Evidence based medicine is the process of systematically reviewing, appraising, and using clinical research findings to aid the delivery of optimum clinical patient care. 5 The main elements include posing a question, carrying out a literature search, and then selecting relevant papers, as well as critical appraisal. It may become necessary to spend one session of this journal club finding a relevant paper. and spend another session appraising it. Alternatively, the presenter could select a paper that is then appraised at the club.

Whatever the format, certain factors remain relevant in the structure of a successful journal club. Successful clubs are generally those with a single leader and a mandatory attendance. The environment is also important.

Role of the leader

Having someone who takes overall responsibility for the club is useful. This is usually the leader. Additionally, some clubs have a chairperson who chairs the meeting on different occasions. Usually, as well as organising the meeting the leader decides on the chairperson for each meeting. The advantage of this system is that different people take turns to share experience. Frequently, consultants with interests in medical education, such as tutors, take the role of leaders, and senior trainees such as senior registrars take the role of the chair.

Choosing an article

It is important to consider what you want to achieve in your presentation and then choose a paper accordingly. 6 Think of recent articles that perhaps contradict old truths. Alternatively choose a classic paper in the history of your specialty. You might also want to consider articles of topical issues.

The presentation

Consider the needs of your target audience and remember how long you've got. Use PowerPoint or an equivalent package, with user friendly slides. Bring enough copies of articles for everyone, including multiple copies of a quick (one page) appraisal tool. If an article being reviewed seems only vaguely related to the question, take the opportunity to critically appraise the methodology in a systematic way. 7 It is often useful to include the limitation and clinical implication of an article. Remember to anticipate possible questions you might be asked, and prepare answers.

The environment

The room should suit the group. The larger the group, the larger the room, and vice versa. A large room with a small group of people encourages passivity. On the other hand, a small room with a large number of people discourages attendance. Providing free good food at any educational meeting is only one way of improving attendance; there are others:

Mandatory attendance for trainees (use of registrar)

Bleep-free for trainees not on call

Setting boundaries (strict start and finish time)

Early week rather than late week slots (Mondays, not Fridays)

Distribute time, place, topics, and roles.

Journal clubs can be stimulating and entertaining, but they will only continue to be interesting if they respond to the needs of participants. Although there is no ideal format, the common themes for successful journal clubs seem to be that they are question driven and appraisal focused. 7 They need to be well structured yet flexible and creative within the limitations of a traditional format.

  • ↵ Kleinpell RM. Rediscovering the value of the journal club. American Journal of Critical Care 2002 ; 11 : 42 . OpenUrl
  • ↵ Linzer M. The journal club and medical education; over one hundred years of unrecorded history. Postgraduate Medical Journal 1987 ; 63 : 475 -8. OpenUrl Abstract / FREE Full Text
  • ↵ Swift G. How to make journal clubs interesting. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 2004 ; 10 : 67 -72. OpenUrl Abstract / FREE Full Text
  • ↵ Hill A, Spittlehouse C. What is critical appraisal? London: Hayward Medical Communications, 2006 . ( www.evidence-based-medicine.co.uk
  • ↵ Rosenberg W, Donald A. Evidence based medicine; an approach to clinical problem solving. BMJ 1995 ; 310 : 1122 -6. OpenUrl FREE Full Text
  • ↵ Hallas P. Tips on—Choosing an interesting paper for the journal club. BMJ Careers 2005 ; 331 : 252 . http://careerfocus.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/331/7529/252 OpenUrl
  • ↵ Phillips R, Glasziou P. What makes evidence based journal clubs succeed? Evidence Based Medicine 2004 ; 9 : 36 -7. OpenUrl FREE Full Text

scientific journal club paper

The Scientific Hypothesis

The Key to Understanding How Science Works

How to Give a Great Journal Club Presentation

A lot of advanced science education takes place in the more-or-less formal setting of a journal club where one member of a group presents a paper from the scientific literature to the whole group. giving a good presentation is a learned skill; here are some tips on how to do it well..

  • Pick a good paper. (Don’t get all neurotic about this. If you find it interesting and significant, then it will almost certainly benefit your group. If you’re in doubt, ask a colleague or mentor.) Read it. Two or three times. Skimming quickly may be enough to tell you whether or not there is something to it, but getting down to the level of detail that you’ll want to have under control for the actual presentation can easily take more time and effort than you first think it will. Is it clearly written and understandable? If you find it too difficult, or poorly written to get the message, chances are that others will struggle too. You might want to pick a different paper.
  • Ask yourself why the authors did the research.  What did they hope to learn?  The abstract and conclusion of a paper generally express the essence of the work.  Read them carefully even before going over the rest of the paper in depth. It often helps you to figure out the big picture, especially when the authors seem to take it for granted that all readers will see what it is. Authors often start off by saying that some subject, X, “is not well-understood.”  Well, of course it’s not!  That’s why they got a paper out of studying X.  The statement usually just gives you a general idea of what the about and is only rarely the level of information that you want.  
  • Find the hypothesis in the paper; most have one, but a great many papers that are based on hypotheses don’t say so explicitly (BTW, some authors say they’re testing a “model;” occasionally they are referring to an “animal model” such as a mouse, but usually a model that’s being tested is the same as a hypothesis). 
  • The most important thing for your audience is to trace the logical flow of the paper. How do the experiments in the paper test the hypothesis? Is each result truly relevant to the hypothesis: that is, does it support or contradict it, or is it irrelevant to the truth of the hypothesis (this is more common than you might think)? 
  • With practice you can make a smooth and informative narrative out of any average paper.  When transitioning from one figure to the next, avoid the trite and deadly-boring phrase “… and then they wanted to look at…” The authors certainly had a reason for “wanting to look at” whatever they looked at. Tell the audience what it was!  Why did they do what the authors did and why that experiment followed at that point.  What did they learn by doing it? 
  • Be able to go over the important figures, tables or other displayed items in enough detail to make the main point(s) clear.
  • You should understand the methods used by the authors well enough to explain them generally to a group, and say why the authors chose them. You are not expected to become a technical expert in the field represented by the paper, however. Be aware of notable advantages and limitations of the methods in case questions about them arise.
  • Try to anticipate the kinds of questions that may come up, but if you can’t answer one, it is perfectly ok to say, “I don’t know.” We’ve all been there.  Maybe someone else in the group does know, in any case an honest statement of ignorance is preferable than trying to fake it. 
  • You must be scrupulously fair to the authors, but you are not their advocate; your job is to discuss their paper in a critical and insightful way.  After presenting their reasoning and results as the authors would want them to be presented, feel free to point out shortcomings if you disagree with them or think that they have made a mistake in reasoning, execution, etc..  But be a bit cautious:  if you think that the authors made a bone-headed error, try extra hard to understand what they were doing.  It is possible that they did err somehow, but it is possible that you’ve missed something.  Hopefully, your audience will be engaged and following right along and they will raise critical questions as well. It is important to keep in mind that an attack on the paper is not an attack on you!  Your reputation is not on the line here, the authors’ reputations are.  Of course, if you wind up completely trashing the paper, it may appear that you didn’t follow rule number 1.
  • Be aware that you may be the only person in the room who has actually read the paper.  You are the authority on it.  A common mistake is to assume that everyone else already knows full well what you just spent a week learning; after all, they showed up expecting to be enlightened.  There might be one or two experts in the audience, but you should assume that most people aren’t experts. And even experts are rarely offended by hearing a concise review of the basics: they know full well that the audience needs it. So don’t assume too much and do give enough detail. Your main task is to educate your colleagues about a piece of work that you think is interesting and valuable.  
  • Plan to finalize your talk at least a day or so in advance. Practice going through the slides out loud (ideally with a couple of friends), indicating the major points of each one, but do not try to memorize or read your talk! It’s nice to know your transition to the next slide, but if you forget it, don’t panic – just advance the slide and pick up from there. (Some people like to have a card with a few notes on it as a security blanket in case of a public brain freeze.  Ordinarily, having a card handy is enough to guarantee that they won’t need it.)
  • On the day of the talk show up early, get into the room, get your presentation loaded. and flip through the slides in advance.  Every experienced presenter has nightmare stories of last minute computer crashes, software incompatibilities, missing pointers, unfamiliar set-ups. These problems are not fun, and not what you want to have to cope with after you’ve been introduced. If you find a glitch during your run-through, you’ll have time to fix it.

1 thought on “ How to Give a Great Journal Club Presentation ”

I have encouraged students to study Brad’s tips on giving a great journal club presentation for 20 years. I plan to continue doing so!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Welcome to ReproducibiliTea

We are a grassroots journal club initiative that helps researchers create local Open Science journal clubs at their universities to discuss diverse issues, papers and ideas about improving science, reproducibility and the Open Science movement. Started in early 2018 at the University of Oxford, ReproducibiliTea has now spread to 101 institutions in 25 different countries. We are completely volunteer run, and provide a unique and supportive community for our members, who are predominantly Early Career Researchers.

Want to join the movement? Just curious for now? Grab your cup of (Reproducibili)tea and use our freely accessible and adaptable materials to get started today.

Current Journal Clubs

We meet every second or third Wednesday, from 5 pm to 6 pm. A meeting begins with a short presentation about the paper we read, followed by a discussion. Everyone and every perspective are welcome!

Please get in touch via email Read the paper and come by for tea and discussion!

Next meeting: 10th May 2023

About us: We are excited to bring the first ReproducibiliTea journal club to Norway! We are two PhD candidates at BI Norwegian Business School (Department of Leadership and Organizational Behavior) organizing this journal club together. The journal club is open to everyone at BI Norwegian Business School, staff and students, across departments (and campuses). Everyone is welcome to join us - whether you are an enthusiast, skeptic, or a cautious explorer. Feel free to get in touch if you are interested to participate or contribute!

Our mission:

  • provide an informal and friendly platform for discussions about open science and reproducibility
  • help each other get familiarized with open science practices (e.g., pre-registrations, sharing data, sharing preprints, etc.)
  • connect students and researchers from various specializations who are interested in open science

Format: Before each meeting, we read an article on open science practices and methods in general, which we then discuss during the meeting. At each meeting, a presenter begins by providing a short overview of the paper and facilitates the discussion throughout the meeting. Anyone can propose a possible paper or topic to present if we have not covered it already. More recently, we have held more practical workshops on open science practices. We have also invited guest speakers. Please feel free to reach out to us if you’d like to give us a talk or workshop on anything related to open science and reproducibility!

Follow us on Twitter!

Have you ever seen researchers chatting online? Yes, we at Bioclues.org have been exchanging e-mails, and messaging everywhere from erstwhile PhpBB2 forums to the WhatsApp chats. It is time we all came together to discuss interesting topics. Bioinformatics club for experimenting scientists (a.k.a. Bioclues) has set up a virtual journal club and you’re welcome to join! We already have state reps from India to help you get started.

Birmingham City

Welcome to the University of Birmingham’s journal club! We are currently based in the College of Medical and Dental Sciences but hope to expand soon. We aim to host meetings twice a term.

ReproducibiliTea journal club at the Université de Bordeaux. We meet monthly, every last Tuesday of the month, at 5:30pm.

Our opportunity to develop an Open Science discourse, and to support those who would like to include Open Science/Open Scholarship practices in their work. Open Access to any visitors can be arranged. Meetings take place on Microsoft Teams currently Monthly meetings, email Zoe Flack or Kerry Fox for future dates.

University of Bristol

The university of bristol reproducibilitea journal club.

Inspired by the original Oxford club ReproducibiliTea came to Bristol in January 2019 with the support of the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN), which is now spreading to other universities.

We run an ECR-led weekly journal club open to all staff and students from any discipline.

Time & Place

Every other Monday, 4-5pm, via Zoom & in person

In advance of each session, one attendee chooses a paper related to the barriers and solutions to better research methods in the life sciences. During the session the attendee presents a short (~15mins) overview of the chosen paper and the remainder of the session is dedicated to free discussion amongst all attendees.

Inclusivity

Everyone is welcome to join us - skeptics and open science enthusiasts alike! We are hoping for a diverse range of attendees from all career stages, disciplines, and backgrounds.

How to join

To join the mailing list please email one of the club organisers, Benji Woolf ([email protected]) and Robbie Clark

Chichester Tea

City university london.

QUB ReproducibiliTea is a welcoming space at Queen’s where researchers from all fields, and from any career stage, can relax and discuss reproducible practices and open science/scholarship.

We are currently meeting in-person at The Graduate School. Check our OSF repository or join our Teams channel for more information!

Our journal club in Dresden wishes to provide a platform for early career researchers from all disciplines to discuss Open Science and good scientific practices in general.

ReproducibiliTea Exeter is focused broadly on transparency and reproducibility in research.

We meet twice a month in term time (hybrid), and we run a mix of traditional journal club discussion sessions, as well as practical sessions, where we try out things like data visualisation with R, preregistering studies, open data sharing, and more.

If you want more information or you want to be added to our mailing list, please feel free to email Kathryn at [email protected] or Xinran at [email protected]!

Forward Focus

Forward Focus is a monthly, virtual journal club for voice enthusiasts (SLPs, ENTs, vocologists, students, etc.) to connect and discuss current findings in voice research.

Forward Focus was started by a collective of SLPs and SLP students seeking to bridge the gap between current voice research findings and clinical service provision. Our meetings are virtual to create opportunities for individuals from different regions to join and connect with each other. We strive to create a welcoming environment through open, judgement-free conversations where individuals of all experience levels can learn and share their perspectives.

Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions, or if you are interested in joining our community member list! We hope to see you at our next meeting!

The ReproducibiliTea journal club in Frankfurt

Our journal club is organized by the Frankfurt Open Science Initiative, located within the Goethe University, and is open to anyone who is interested in the topic.

Every second Wednesday, we are going to meet online on Zoom, from 4pm to 5pm. All relevant materials as well as the latest schedule can be found on our OSF page .

In case you are interested in Open Science in general and want to be more involved, you can sign up here to our mailing list of the Frankfurt Open Science Initiative.

We are looking forward to welcoming you! :)

Student-run ReproducibiliTea at the University of Freiburg in Germany

This journal club will be open and welcomed to all early career researchers around Fukuoka and other areas in Japan! Please feel free to contact Yuki Yamada for details.

Organized by the Geneva local node of the Swiss Reproducibility Network

Glasgow Tea is currently looking for new members / club hosts!

The ReproducibiliTea in Graz, Austria is organized by Gabriela Hofer (Differential Psychology) and Hilmar Brohmer (Science Communication) and is greatly supported by the Graz Open Science Initiative ( @GrazOpenScience ).

We are slowly evolving from a journal club of psychology papers to a multidisciplinary discussion group.

Moreover, our increasing number of attendees demonstrates an interest in Open Science-related topics throughout academic disciplines: In the spring / summer semester 2019 we counted usually 5 to 7 members per session. In fall / winter semester 2019/20 we are in the double digits (so far). After the (main part of the) pandemic, we count approximately 10 attendees.

If you are interested to join our ReproducibiliTea please get in touch and come along!

The ReproducibiliTea Groningen aims to

  • increase awareness, knowledge and skills for open and reproducible science;
  • build an open science community, to help, learn from and support each other in our open science endeavors;
  • assist in making regular (small) steps towards open & reproducible science.

The idea is to have regular meetings on any reproducibility related topic, from discussing bias in the literature, a work-session on preprints/preregistrations or a workshop on r-markdown/Github. What the contents will be exactly is to be decided by us all and will change from meeting to meeting. We aim to be a journal club plus, in that we try to focus on practical use; hence workshops make up quite a bit of the sessions. Furthermore we’re closely related to the Open Science Community Groningen , which also hosts some of our collaboratively written blogposts on open science

We meet every two weeks, meeting times switch every week between 10.00 - 11.00 am. and 14.00 - 15.00 pm., hopefully enabling more people to join. Everyone is welcome, from any discipline and backgrounds, open-science minded or not at all. Swing by, drop in, have a cookie, and enjoy the ride!

A journal club for the IGDORE community to discuss articles about Open Science. Meetings will be held monthly, and the club will discuss both introductory and advanced material.

We are a journal club coming together to discuss methodological and theoretical issues surrounding the reproducibility, explanatory value, and more generally the quality of scientific research. We currently have a focus on research in psychology and cognitive science, but are open to staff and students from any discipline.

Karolinska Institutet

At ReproducibiliTea KI, we meet every other Thursday at 15.30 to discuss scientific papers on reproducibility, open science and how to improve the robustness and validity of our findings. We mix newly published work with re-runs of our favorite articles from the past. This way, new participants won’t miss out on the really good stuff.

Please join us!

Kings College London

We are an interdisciplinary journal club at King’s College London based at the Denmark Hill campus. If you are looking for an opportunity to broaden your knowledge of open science, share experiences, and get to know others at King’s interested in open science, please come along! No prerequisites are required. We welcome people at all career stages, from undergraduate students to permanent staff members.

Each meeting is focused around one paper or article that we have chosen to discuss, which we use as a starting point to talk broadly about open science, meta-research, theory development, research methods, and other topics around improving science. Meetings are on the second Thursday of each month from 4-5pm in the IoPPN main building (seminar room 9 until September 2024), with the option to join online.

​ About

The journal club is open to everyone across Kingston University, at any level, from any discipline or department. We meet monthly on the second Wednesday of the month at 12:00 - 13:30 via Teams. We also organise talks and workshops on open research related topics. The most up-to-date information can generally be found on our OSF page , and we will circulate meeting details through the Kingston ReproT mailing list. Please contact Dr Mircea Zloteanu to join the mailing list.

​ The format

For each session, the presenter will provide a short (5 mins) overview of the chosen paper with the remainder of the session dedicated to free discussion among all attendees.

Everyone is welcome to join us - sceptics and enthusiasts alike! We are hoping for a diverse range of attendees from all career stages, disciplines, and backgrounds, and particularly enjoy hearing views from all perspectives. Your voice is welcome here, and we offer a friendly atmosphere!

​ How to join

To join the mailing list please email the club organiser, Dr Mircea Zloteanu .

Lancaster University’s Psychology Department and the PROSPR group (Promoting Open Science Practices) launched the ReproducibiliTea Journal Club in July 2019. We meet twice a month during term time to discuss key papers on open science and reproducibility issues. All are welcome regardless of the experience and career status!

For the Autumn 2022-2023 semester, we’ll be meeting once monthly, on the first Tuesday of each month from 15:00 to 16:00 in the UNIL-Anthropole cafeteria. Everyone very welcome - we love to meet new people interested in reproducible science in Lausanne!

The University of Leeds ReproducibiliTea journal club. Find some of our previous sessions and papers here:

Our OSF page: https://osf.io/qvyk4/

Our previous events on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/reproducibilitea-leeds-30162739476

Recordings of some of our previous sessions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU5XU8R1p20HimC7ulQlCwA

ReproducibiliTea Leicester is for anyone who wants to learn more about reproducible research and open science practices in the Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour at the University of Leicester, but other departments are also welcome! We get together (with tea, coffee and cake!) once a month to discuss interesting journal articles about topics relating to open science, replicability in research, pre-registration and data sharing, among others. It doesn’t matter if you’re an undergrad, professor, beginner or expert – everyone is welcome!

Meeting details are circulated via email so if you are interested, email Sammie ([email protected]) or Brendan ([email protected]) and you will be added to the mailing list.

ReproducibiliTea Leipzig journal club is a space to discuss various aspects related to Open Science practices. We discuss articles, which are selected to touch upon possibly versatile Open Science topics, from general issues to specific applications, presenting both enthusiastic and critical perspectives. If you look for an opportunity to broaden your knowledge on Open Science, discuss pros and cons, share experiences and get to know other Open Science adopters - feel warmly invited!

The ReproducibiliTea@KULeuven journal club is a space for interdisciplinary discussion about science in general, and more specifically about Open Science and Reproducibility. We welcome people from all backgrounds and disciplines, and we hope to create an inclusive environment for friendly discussion. We are open to anyone, staff or students, at KU Leuven.

About: The journal club is open to everyone across Link"oping University, from any discipline or department (all campuses included). Everyone is welcome to join us - skeptics and enthusiasts alike! For each session, the presenter will provide a short (5-15mins) overview of the chosen paper with the remainder of the session dedicated to free discussion amongst all attendees.

Follow us on Twitter for the most up-to-date information about meeting times etc.: @LinkopingTea . You can also check out our OSF page or contact us to sign up to our mailing list, where we circulate meeting details.

Loughborough

About: The journal club is open to anyone across Loughborough University and nearby institutions, from all disciplines or deparments. The most up-to-date information can be found on our Twitter Page , you can sign up through the Doctoral Developmental Portal (PhD students), send us an Email or simply pop by.

The format: The sessions are a combination of discussing current issues in academia and introducing new, innovative research methods. We go with the flow and look forward to incorporating everyone’s interests into the session plan. Most sessions are run online and are a combination of a presentation and discussions among all attendees.

Inclusivity: Everyone is welcome to join us- skeptics and enthusiasts alike. We are hoping for a diverse range of attendees from all career stages, disciplines and backgrounds and look forward to learning from each other.

ReproducibiliTea is coming to LSHTM! Sign up to the email list above for information on reproducibility-themed journal club sessions with a health-related twist. To volunteer to run a session or for questions, please contact Anna Schultze at anna.schultze[at]lshtm.ac.uk

The Neuroscience Research Center of Lyon student club is organized by a few PhD students of the center, with no specific leader (here we rolled a dice to choose the JC communication ‘lead’). Student club sessions are organized on a monthly basis. They consist in a presentation of a paper, principle, software, method, etc somehow related to neuroscience which is then discussed in the way of locally trying to ‘fix science’. We seek to be very careful regarding the idea that any comments have to be welcomed and discussed regardless of the scientific statute at play. By ‘student club’, we do not mean that we exclude extra-student staff. They are all welcome, but we seek to stick to the bottom-up fashion of discussing, proposing, etc. In practice, our student club is also a chill-out time during which we drink tea and eat cakes.

Our Reproducibilitea journal club meets 4 times per year, and is in collaboration with the Open Science Community Maastricht. We aim to make Open Science visible at Maastricht University, and to facilitate discussion between researchers, departments and faculties on integrating open science in everyday research.

Makerere University Center for Health and Population Research

The Makerere University Center for Health and Population Research Journal Club aims to build an open science community among early career scientist in Uganda. The journal club provides a platform for researchers to discuss issues around reproducibility, ethics, and transparency in research.

The club meets twice a month to read and share papers and materials related to open science. Through facilitated discussions and working groups, members are introduced to concepts and best practices in areas like open data, preregistration, and replication.

The journal club welcomes students from all disciplines related to public health, healthcare policy, research, and informatics. By creating a collaborative environment, the club empowers young and mid-career scientists to conduct research that is transparent, reproducible, and ethical. This aligns with the club’s overall goal of reducing wastage in research through promoting the utilization of high-quality generated evidence from early career scientists.

This ReproducibiliTea is associated with the Mannheim Open Science Meetup, bringing together open science enthusiasts across various institutions in Mannheim. Find us on Twitter @MAOpenScience

As our community consists of various disciplines, the ReproducibiliTea Mannheim wants to cover open science topics of broader interest. Meetings will be held monthly at every 2nd Tuesday of the month at the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim

Our next meeting will take place on August 8th, 17:30, where we will discuss

Fanelli, D. (2009) How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data. PLoS ONE 4(5): e5738. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005738

Email us for details on how to join!

Welcome to the McMaster ReproducibiliTea journal club! We discuss how we can help make science transparent, reproducible, and cumulative.

Everyone is welcome to join us - skeptics and enthusiasts alike! We welcome undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and staff from all departments and background, and hope to hear views from all perspectives.

We are an interdisciplinary journal club that meets monthly (on the last Thursday of each month at 4pm). We chat about all things meta-research, philosophy of science, and research methods, as well as topics related to improving science, including reproducibility and open science. Our journal club is open to all (so long as you are happy to endure the horrible Australian time zone differences!).

Montpellier

The journal club is dedicated to exchanges about reproducibility in Science and is open to anyone at the Supagro Campus, both students and scientists. Each session is based on a specific paper that is discussed during lunch breaks.

Our initiative is driven by the belief that advancing scientific knowledge requires transparency, collaboration, and open access to research. At the Montreal ReproducibiliTea Journal Club, we believe that science is at its best when it’s accessible to everyone. That’s why we’re excited to announce that we are open to queries and questions from the general public!

Transparency and accessibility are core principles of open science, and we want to extend this openness beyond our academic community. Whether you’re a fellow scientist, a curious individual, or someone passionate about neuroscience, your questions and inquiries are welcome.

If you have questions about the research, scientific methods, or the topics we discuss in our meetings, don’t hesitate to reach out. You can connect with us through our dedicated channels, and our members will do their best to provide answers and insights.

By engaging with the public, we aim to demystify neuroscience and open up a dialogue that promotes a better understanding of the brain and its mysteries. We firmly believe that collective knowledge and shared curiosity are powerful drivers of scientific progress.

So, whether you’re a seasoned researcher or simply someone with a curious mind, join us! Let’s talk about the wonders of the brain and the principles of open science.

We have decided to establish a journal club on the topic of Open Science. We meet every three to four weeks. The slogan of our journal club is “ReproJuicebiliTea” and highlights the topics to be covered and discussed (Reproducibility & Open Science) and our broadened beverage selection. We will discuss the issue of the “replication crisis”, identify necessary improvements in science and talk about current debates on the theories of science. Tea, juice and snacks will be provided in order to fulfil our motto.

With the Journal Club we would like to address and encourage attendees from all disciplines and at every career step to join the discussion and enable an interdisciplinary exchange.

Please send us a short mail and we will put you on our mailing list ([email protected])

Love open science and tea

A journal club to improve our research practices. Not limited to students or researchers of Nantes université, visitors are welcome! Location varies to move around campuses of the university, that are spread around the city. For more info, do not hesitate to send an email to [email protected]

ReproducibiliTea journal club of the university of Cyprus, hosted by the department of economics.

Northumbria University

Open science student society.

We organise open, online ReproducibiliTea meetings in the Polish language.

We publish info about our upcoming meetings on our Facebook fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/StudenckieKoloOpenScienceSKOS

OpenCSD Journal Club

The original reproducibiliTea Journal Club, meeting fortnightly during term time at the University of Oxford (often in hybrid formats). Most members come from the Department of Experimental Psychology, but we welcome people from all over the university and have had regular members in the past from the Anthropology and across the Medical Sciences Division.

The majority of our regular members are graduate students and early career researchers, but we’re pleased to count established faculty as regular members, too.

You can sign up for our mailing list by logging into your Single Sign On account. Those who don’t have an SSO can email Lazaros and he’ll be happy to add you!

ReproducibiliTea Oxford is kindly sponsored by Reproducible Research Oxford .

Paris Saclay

ReproducibiliTea Plymouth welcomes staff and students at all career stages. We meet fortnightly (in-person, as of late 2021) to discuss papers about open and transparent science, research methods, research culture, and science reform. Our papers mostly focus on issues in Psychology and Cognitive Science, but we also welcome researchers from other disciplines.

If you’d like to join our mailing list, please contact our lead organizers (Robbie Harlow and Darya Klymenko) at the email addresses provided.

The UoP ReproducibiliTea Journal Club aims to promote a research culture of Open Science. We meet once every month at the Department of Psychology to discuss matters around research replication over a cup of tea.

Our meetings are hybrid and can be joined via the following Zoom link: https://port-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/81439691410?pwd=N1IxcUZrVVJ1T3JidkJOcGJuYldLZz09

Schedule 2024 17 January: Navigating Academia as Neurodivergent Researchers: Promoting Neurodiversity Within Open Scholarship - John Shaw

14 February: Open research practice in the National Institute for Health and Care Research - Kristy Rogers & Jazz Bartholomew

13 March: An introduction to Big Team Science, with a focus on ManyPrimates - Drew Altschull

17 April: Does this even apply to me? Considering the opportunities and challenges surrounding open qualitative research - Annayah Prosser

15 May: Ten common statistical mistakes to watch out for when writing or reviewing a manuscript - Jean-Jacques Orban de Xivry

Psychological and Brain Sciences

ReproducibiliTea Purdue was started by postdocs in the Human Development and Family Science department to discuss meta-science topics relevant to both disciplines and cultivate an open science culture.

We get together every month to discuss articles and better science practices. All are welcome!

Queen Mary University of London

Welcome to the Queen Mary ReproducibiliTea! Founded fall 2020, we host various open science and reproducibility-related events and meetings with the goal of improving the trustworthiness of research across a wide range of scientific disciplines.

Get started by joining our mailing list and stop by our monthly journal club, where we discuss one or more articles about topics ranging from meta-science to scientific fraud to philosophy of science over a (currently socially-distanced) cup of tea or coffee.

Sign up using this link (https://forms.gle/9coCMGvPqddkKn5G7) or by emailing Nick ([email protected]).

All are welcome: from those who have never heard of open science to experts, undergraduates to department heads, linguists to entomologists to computer scientists and beyond.

Based at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Bergen, but members from other faculties or other local institutions are more than welcome. We tend to have a nice mix of PhD students and more senior researchers.

ReproducibiliTea Nottingham

ReproducibiliTea at Stanford was launched at 26 October 2022 and welcomes new members. We aim to meet once a month and discuss Reproducibility projects, as well initiatives and incentives that exist to promote and implement a culture of research transparency and reproducibility.

ReproducibiliTea Victoria University of Wellington

The RHUL branch of RTea is based at the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway University of London. Our RTea journal club meets once a month (date and time TBA).

The format of our meetings varies depending on the topic at hand, ranging from how-to talks on new methodological and statistical tools to paper discussions.

We particularly encourage input from PhD students and early career researchers, but all are welcome. Anyone can propose a possible topic/paper and present/lead a discussion, so please do get involved!

Virginia Commonwealth University

About: The Data Science Lab at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) proudly hosts the ReproducibiliTea journal club. All VCU students, faculty, and staff regardless of discipline or department are welcome to join us. Similarly, attendees from Virginia Union University, University of Richmond, and wider open science community also are welcome.

The most up-to-date information can generally be found on our OSF page . To stay up to date with all VCU DSL open science initiatives and events, we encourage joining both the DSL general listserv as well as the VCU RTea mailing list.

The format: RTea meetings are informal, and everyone is welcome to attend. Each month we will focus on a specific theme (e.g., data sharing and management, project organization, analysis methods). A discussion leader for that meeting will select one or two papers that highlight or illustrate important topics associated with the theme of the month. Meetings typically begin with the discussion leader providing a short (5-15 min) overview of the theme and article(s), with the remaining time dedicated to open discussion among all attendees over tea and snacks. The most up-to-date information about the discussion leaders, monthly themes, and selected articles can be found on our OSF page .

Inclusivity: Everyone benefits from inclusivity and diversity. Your voice is welcome here–open science skeptics and enthusiasts alike! No matter your career stage, discipline, familiarity with open science, or university affiliation, you are welcome.

Get all the latest updates: Join our mailing list by sending an email to [email protected]. Include a single line of text in the body of the message saying “SUBSCRIBE RTEA-L ” (No need to include the quotes in your email).

ReproducibiliTea Rotterdam is a journal club organized by the Open Science Community Rotterdam ( OSCR ). We discuss documents addressing various topics on open science practices.

Every session, one discussant chooses a published article, preprint, or blog post about a specific open science topic (e.g., the advantages of publishing your work in open access journals, criticism of pre-publication peer review, best practices of data/code curation/sharing, …). The discussant prepares a short presentation (5’-15’) summarizing the main points of the document, but the bulk of the meeting (45’-55’) is dedicated to open discussion: is the topic relevant for your field of research? In case of specific issues, has anybody proposed and/or implemented some solutions? Can any of these solutions be translated, scaled, and applied in other research areas?

Even though some papers, at first glance, seem to relate only to a specific discipline (e.g., psychology has been working on open science issues quite intensively in the past years), we aim to extract general lessons that can be helpful for researchers in different fields.

A different discussant will take care of the initial summary, ensuring that different research areas are represented.

This journal club is open to everyone: PhD candidates, post-docs, junior and senior faculty, from any school/department at EUR and ErasmusMC. Interested Bachelor and Master students are also welcome to join, especially if it can be helpful for their thesis. Interested parties not employed at EUR or ErasmusMC can send an email to the lead organizer with a request to join specific sessions.

Practical Information

From November 2019 to March 2020 we used to meet on the second Wednesday of every month at 11:00. From April 2020 onward we meet online. Around two weeks before the session, an invitation is sent via the mailing list of the Open Science Community Rotterdam (to be included, please contact the lead organizer). Announcements are also made on our website ( News section) and on Twitter ( @OSCRotterdam ).

Royal Veterinary College RVC

Saint louis area.

This journal club is for those interested in open science, reproducibility, and related topics. We’re based in the Saint Louis area, and welcome all!

The Sheffield branch of ReproducibiliTea meets monthly and has people coming from a range of departments across the University of Sheffield and beyond.

At our sessions, we are aiming to provide an informal, friendly and supportive space to discuss topics related to reproducibility, replicability and transparency, open research practices and research culture change.

Anyone is welcome to propose a paper or topic to discuss.

During each session, one or more members volunteer to lead the discussion. The volunteer/-s prepare a short introduction to the paper/blog post/talk/topic and facilitate discussion.

Practical information

If you’re a student, early career researcher or staff, please do come and join us! Just log into MUSE, then sign up to our Google group and subscribe to our Google calendar . Do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any trouble joining the group!

Southampton

About us The Taipei ReproducibiliTea journal club meets at Taipei Medical University to have open discussions about what might be wrong with the way we are doing science and how to make things better.

People from an field, at any institution in Taipei, and at any stage of their career are all welcome to come along and join in.

Bring a cup and enjoy some tea, some biscuits, and some friendly science chat!

TCPSR is the Chinese-speaking community where we wish more Chinese-as-first-language scholars realize and join ReproducibiliTea journal clubs. We expect each mega city in Taiwan will have a standalone journal club. Since 2021 winter, we are managing bimonthly open practices workshops included the pre-research estimations on power, effect size and sample size.

The Bangor University Open Science Society

The Bangor University Open Science Society (BOSS) meets twice monthly during term time to discuss open science, methods, reform, philosophy of science, and the academic landscape. We also host regular workshops and talks by invited speakers.

Welcome to the Toronto ReproducibiliTea Club, hosted at York University! The goal of the club is to have an open space for productive discussions of papers and topics related to reproducibility. No matter what university, discipline, or level of study you are at, we invite you to join us!

Club meetings will take place online via Zoom every 2 weeks. The meetings will be open-discussion based. Reading the papers is encouraged, but optional. We look forward to having you join us!

TOSI Open Science Journal Club

We are based in Montreal, Canada. This journal club was initiated by the undergraduate subcommittee of the Tannebaum Open Science Institute (TOSI) of the Montreal Neurological Hospital (The Neuro), hence the name of this club. We aim to target McGill undergraduate students, to educate open science in research and hope to engage students in research early on in their academic journey.

Our club meetings will be hosted monthly, in the last week of the month from September to November and January to March each school year. They will be IN PERSON, lead by a professor, researcher or graduate student who actively incorporates open science practices in their research. We will provide snacks and tea!

We look forward to seeing you at our meetings:)

This JC is based in Christchurch, New Zealand created by University of Canterbury students. We are excited about being active member of the open science community and want to share the benefits and ideas of meta science to a wider community.

University of Oslo

Our journal club is open to both staff and students at UiO across all departments. Everyone is welcome to join us - whether you are an enthusiast, a skeptic, or a cautious explorer. Feel free to get in touch if you are interested to participate or contribute!

Our mission

  • provide an informal and friendly platform for discussions about meta scientific topics
  • connect students and researchers from various disciplines who are interested in meta science.

Before each meeting, we read an article on meta scientific topics, which we then discuss during the meeting. At each meeting, a different discussion leader will begin by providing a short overview of the paper and facilitate discussion throughout the meeting. Anyone can propose a possible paper or topic to present if we have not covered it already. Grab a cup of tea (coffee?) and join us! Due to the current pandemic, all sessions will be held online (Zoom) for the time being.

If you would like to receive announcements about our journal club and related events, please subscribe to our mailing list: https://sympa.uio.no/uio.no/subscribe/open-science-oslo

Welcome to the ReproducibiliTea UniBasel Journal Club.

We will discuss the topics on reproducibility, replicability, open science and statistics twice a month in the fall semester and occasionally in the spring semester.

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago ReproducibliTea Journal Club meets every week during each quarter to discuss meta-science topics such as reproducibility, open science and others! An initiative started by graduate students and early-career researchers in the Psychology department, the goal is to create a supportive community and empower each other to undertake rigorous and open research practices!

To subscribe to our mailing list, please email William with your @uchicago.edu email.

University of Dundee

Hello, we’re Edinburgh ReproducibiliTea and we host a mix of seminar/journal club style sessions on Open Research topics every 3rd Friday of the month from 11-12 UK time during the academic semesters.

For an overview of our schedule and blog posts about our previous sessions see https://edopenresearch.com/reproducibilitea-blog/.

We also have a YouTube channel were we upload our recordings https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9y6VX6Dvs4-vC8eDuOKpNQ and we also post our recordings and other relevant materials on our OSF page: https://osf.io/kh5px/

To sign up for our sessions you can join our mailing list by filling out this form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScjjpsLmzt-XIm21ec5sUz4LGE_YfOrjwnI321WcS5R5qgXFA/viewform or keep an eye on our Twitter (@Edinburgh_Tea) for links to our session-specific Eventbrite pages. We hope to see you at one of our sessions!

University of Murcia

Our ReproducibiliTea JC takes place the last week of each month in a hybrid format.

We welcome anyone who is interested in discussing open science! Follow us on Twitter and sign up our mailing list for more details.

Uppsala Psychology

With the “Bielefeld University Reproducible Science Tea” (BURST) group, we would like to contribute to making the process and results of scientific work more transparent and accessible. Topics that concern us include free access to publications, analysis code, data and hypotheses. Open and reproducible research is not meant to be a new niche or alternative to traditional research, but the implementation of what most of us intuitively consider to be standard research ( “Open science is just science done right” ).

The BURST-group is scheduled to meet on the first Friday of each month, and will discuss articles on the topics of open and reproducible science, as well as new developments and ideas arising in our disciplines.

Our meetings are open to both students and scientific staff in psychology and in neighbouring fields. Everyone is invited to suggest topics and articles for discussion and to participate in the organisation of the meetings. If you have any questions, you can reach us at [email protected].

A lot of great information on open and reproducible science can be found on the internet, and we will make extensive use of these resources. Founding a group at Bielefeld University and offering local meetings (at the university or via Zoom) is meant to facilitate a more interactive exchange among us, and to provide us all with the opportunity to bring forward our individual questions and ideas, so that we can all shape the direction the group will take in the future.

Therefore, we are looking forward to your participation and your contributions.

See you soon!

The ReproducibiliTea Vienna was founded by the Early Career Researchers of the Faculty of Psychology. It is meeting once a month in order to discuss papers on open science and exchange our own open science research practices. ReproducibiliTEA Vienna is open to researchers from all areas and from all stages of research (early career to senior academics).

York St John

Organized by the Center for Reproducible Science, University of Zurich.

  • Hobart (Emily Lowe-Calverley, Jim Sauer)
  • Melbourne (Beth Clarke, Tom Hardwicke)
  • Graz (Gaby Hofer, Hilmar Brohmer)
  • Innsbruck (Nicole Cruz, Irene Alfarone)
  • Vienna (Markus Tünte)
  • Leuven (Olivia Kirtley, Aline Claesen, Eline Van Geert, Naeem Muhammad, Amélie Godefroidt, Ginette Lafit, Benjamín Šímsa)
  • McMaster (Elizabeth Phillips, Maya Flannery)
  • Montreal (Minza Haque)
  • Toronto (Gabriel Crone, Spencer Arshinoff)
  • TOSI Open Science Journal Club (Cathy Fang)
  • Nicosia (Adrien Fillon)

Czech Republic

  • Olomouc (Jakub Smetana)
  • Bordeaux (Eduarda Centeno, Fjola Hyseni)
  • Lyon (Guillaume Sescousse, Wanda Grabon)
  • Montpellier (Jean-Francois Martin, Thibault Nidelet)
  • Nantes (Giorgio Varesco, PhD, Valentin Goreau, MSc, PT, Cyril Forestier, PhD)
  • Paris Saclay (George Marchment, Clémence Sebe)
  • Berlin (Yu-Fang Yang, Eva Maria Funk)
  • Bielefeld (Martin Wegrzyn, Sarah Steghaus, Usama El-Awad)
  • Bochum (Lianne Wolsink, George Jacob, Gen Hartanto, Robert Reichert)
  • Dresden (Gundula Thiele, René Dutschke)
  • Frankfurt (Lea Müller Karoza, Zoë Bolz)
  • Freiburg (Dwayne Lieck)
  • Leipzig (Alexander Enge, Salma Elnagar, Max Hinrichs)
  • Mannheim (Juli Nagel)
  • Munich (Laura Goetz, Viktoria Wiegelmann, Gracia Pruem, Alp Kaan Aksu, Finia Loeb, Julian Lange)
  • Potsdam (Yana Arkhipova, Alice Hodapp)
  • AUTH (Anna-Bettina Haidich, Konstantinos Bougioukas, Anna Mavromanoli)
  • Bioclues (Indrani Biswas, Goldy Singh, Malavika J, KS Manjari, Rajul Jain, Anil Kumar S and Prash Suravajhala)
  • Dublin (Katayoun Bahramian, Dr Ricardo Segurado, Dr Keith Smart)
  • Fukuoka (Yuki Yamada, Kohei Ueda)
  • Tokyo (Koki Ikeda, Kai Hiraishi)
  • MX (Antonio Laguna-Camacho)
  • Puebla (Jose L. Flores-Guerrero, Jorge Castro)

Netherlands

  • Amsterdam (Frantisek Bartos)
  • Groningen (Michiel de Boer, Ineke Wessel, Andrea Stoevenebelt, Lisette de Jong - Hoekstra)
  • Maastricht (Emmy van den Heuvel)
  • Rotterdam (Antonio Schettino, Eirini Botsari)

New Zealand

  • ReproducibiliTea Victoria University of Wellington (Gina Grimshaw, Konstantina Slaveykova)
  • UC (Kimberley Penrose, Brianna Murphy)
  • Bergen (Sebastian Brun Bjørkheim, Bjorn Satrevik)
  • BI Oslo (Lewend Mayiwar, Yooeun Jeong)
  • University of Oslo (Timo B. Roettger, Agata Bochynska)
  • Open Science Student Society (Paulina Manduch)

Russian Federation

  • Moscow (Elena Rybina, Evgenii Kalenkovich, Anastasia Poltarzhitskaya)
  • University of Murcia (Alejandro Sandoval-Lentisco, Ruben Lopez-Nicolas, Miriam Tortajada)
  • IGDORE (Paola Masuzzo, Gavin Taylor)
  • Karolinska Institutet (Kristin Öster, Jonna Hybelius)
  • Linköping (Lina Koppel, Henrik Danielsson)
  • Uppsala Psychology (Lilja Kristíon Jónsdóttir, Emma Heeman)

Switzerland

  • Geneva (Johanna Hein,Abigail Licata)
  • Lausanne (Jessica Brown)
  • UniBasel (Tugba Akinci D’Antonoli, Claudia Weidenseiner, Xenia Deligianni, Francesco Santini, Valentin Amrhein, Noëmi Capdevila)
  • Zurich (Rachel Heyard, Eva Furrer)
  • Taipei (Elizaveta Baranova-Parfenova, Niall Duncan)
  • TCPSR (Sau-Chin Chen)
  • Makerere University Center for Health and Population Research (Michael Muhoozi, Haron Gichuhi)

United Kingdom

  • Belfast ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected])
  • Birmingham (Vicky Lyon, Katherine Eales, Danai Bagkou Dimakou, Bircan Ciytak)
  • Birmingham City (Ann-Kathrin Johnen, Emma Bridger, Nadia Maalin)
  • Brighton (Zoe Flack, Isaac Thornton)
  • Chester (Suzanne Stewart)
  • Chichester Tea (Dr Benjamin Sharpe)
  • City University London (Steven Samuel)
  • EARLI JURE (Dr Jo Van Herwegen)
  • Edinburgh (Sumbul Syed, Emma Wilson)
  • Exeter (Xinran Du, Kathryn Knight)
  • Glasgow (Rebecca Johnson)
  • Kings College London (Ze Freeman)
  • Kingston (Dr Mircea Zloteanu)
  • Lancaster (Marina Bazhydai, Agata Dymarska)
  • Leeds (Kelly Lloyd, Eike Mark Rinke, Stephen Bradley, Queen Saikia, Sophia Batchelor, Nick Cooper)
  • Leicester (Samantha Tyler, Tami Kalsi, Brendan O’Connor)
  • Loughborough (Theresa Wege, Michael Bukur, Inka Kosonen, Krystof Cipora, Petra Salaric)
  • LSHTM (Anna Schultze)
  • Northumbria University (David Smailes)
  • Oxford (Lazaros Belbasis)
  • Plymouth (Robert Harlow, Darya Klymenko, Rory Spanton)
  • Portsmouth (Gadda Salhab, Lina Hillner, Ismail Abdul Kader, Carrie Toptan)
  • Purdue (Avery Closser)
  • Queen Mary University of London (Nick Ballou)
  • ReproducibiliTea Nottingham (Josefina Weinerova)
  • RHUL (Maria Korochkina)
  • Royal Veterinary College RVC (Andrew Crump)
  • Sheffield (Zuzanna B Zagrodzka, Jim Uttley)
  • Southampton (Philly Broadbent, Amy Peters, Christian Bokhove)
  • Swansea (Laura Wilkinson)
  • The Bangor University Open Science Society (Samuel Jones)
  • UEA (Samuel Forbes, Prerna Aneja, Ann-Kathrin Johnen)
  • University of Bristol (Benji Woolf, Robbie Clark)
  • University of Dundee (Fiona Ramage)
  • Warwick (Talar Moukhtarian)
  • York (Emma Sullivan, Cátia Ferreira De Oliveira, Kirralise Hansford)
  • York St John (Emma Tecwyn)

United States

  • Forward Focus (Maura Philippone (she/her), M.A., CCC-SLP, Rebecca von Duering (they/them), M.S., CCC-SLP)
  • OpenCSD Journal Club (Elaine Kearney, Mariam El Amin)
  • Psychological and Brain Sciences (Nils Reimer, Ava Ma de Sousa, Amber Xuqian Chen, Madhuri Kashyap)
  • Saint Louis Area (Haley R. Cobb, Jack Friedrich)
  • Stanford (Mario Malički)
  • University of Chicago (William Ngiam, Claire Bergey, Anna Corriveau, Katie Reis)
  • Virginia Commonwealth University (Dana Lapato, Nina Exner, Timothy P. York)

SOLER Journal Club

  • Calendar / Outlook

The Science of Learning Research Initiative (SOLER ) is pleased to present our next journal club event. This time, we will discuss a fascinating learning analytics study published as a conference paper last year. The session will be led by Elissa Sorojsrisom, a PhD candidate in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology. Elissa joined SOLER as a Graduate Student Assistant last year with a focus on learning analytics. She previously served as a CTL Lead Teaching Fellow. 

Access the article, "30 Million Canvas Grading Records Reveal Widespread Sequential Bias and System-Induced Surname Initial Disparity" (Pei et al., 2023),  here .

To be added to SOLER's mailing list and receive invitations to upcoming events, click  here . 

Contact Information

IMAGES

  1. Journal Club Toolkit: How to Give an Excellent Presentation

    scientific journal club paper

  2. Best scientific journal covers from 2021

    scientific journal club paper

  3. Scientific Journal Cover Design Services

    scientific journal club paper

  4. (PDF) How To Write A Scientific Article For A Medical Journal?

    scientific journal club paper

  5. journal club template word Doc Template

    scientific journal club paper

  6. How to Create A Journal Article Presentation in PowerPoint || Create

    scientific journal club paper

VIDEO

  1. Journal club 1

  2. Super Note Club Paper

  3. Journal Club Teaser, 30.01.2024

  4. How to submit a manuscript (scientific paper) on journal

  5. JOURNAL CLUB (EPISODE 2)

  6. Scientific Paper Presentation Session 15 Academic English

COMMENTS

  1. How to Prepare an Outstanding Journal Club Presentation

    Journal club presentations provide a forum through which hematology trainees keep abreast of new developments in hematology and engage in informal discussion and interaction. Furthermore, honing presentation skills and mastering the ability to critically appraise the evidence add to our armamentarium as clinicians.

  2. Choosing an interesting paper for a journal club

    Here are some suggestions. Consider what you want to achieve with your presentation: do you want to teach, amuse, provoke, or just impress your colleagues? Choose a paper accordingly. Picking a subject outside your specialty will broaden horizons.

  3. Journal Club Toolkit: How to Give an Excellent Presentation

    A journal club is a series of meetings in which somebody is elected to present a research paper, its methods, and findings to a group of colleagues. The broad goal is to stimulate discussion and ideas that the attendees may apply to their own work. Alternatively, someone may choose a paper because it's particularly impactful or ingenious.

  4. 5 Tips for Journal Club First-Timers

    A journal club is a regular gathering of scientists to discuss a scientific paper found in a research journal. One or two members of the club present a summary of the chosen paper that the whole group has read. Then, the discussion begins.

  5. 10 Journal Club Tips: How to Run, Lead, and Present Like a Pro

    A scientific journal club is a dedicated meeting where researchers gather to discuss publications from peer-reviewed journals. These meetings help researchers keep up with current findings, exercise their critical thinking skills, and improve their presentation and debate abilities.

  6. Establishing and sustaining an effective journal club

    A journal club is a group that meets regularly to review and critique scientific literature. It is thought that Sir William Osler set up the first discussion-based healthcare journal club at McGill University in 1875, after which he encouraged attendees to apply their updated knowledge in practice. 1

  7. PDF Journal Club Tips How to Give a Good Journal Club Presentation Paper

    Journal Club Tips How to Give a Good Journal Club Presentation Paper Selection Step 1: pick a good paper. What makes a "good" J. Club paper? Papers that present an important concept in a clear manner. Many excellent papers are published but the data does not lend itself well to a clear presentation. Overall features:

  8. Sixteen suggestions on how to run a journal club

    Figure 1 The contents page of Science for Friday 7 December 1900, listing the proceedings of the Zoological Journal Club of the University of Michigan. View inline View popup Table 1 Some journals that publish articles under the heading 'Journal Club'

  9. Establishing and sustaining an effective journal club

    A journal club can help individuals to develop their critical appraisal skills. Several critical appraisal tools and reporting guidelines are available as checklists ( Table 1 ). These provide a useful guide; they can be used to structure presentations and also provide prompts for key questions such as 'will the results help locally?'

  10. How to run an effective journal club: a systematic review

    How to run an effective journal club: a systematic review. J Eval Clin Pract2008 Oct;14 (5):898-911. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2753.2008.01050.x. Y Deenadayalan K Grimmer-Somers. 19018924. Health-based journal clubs have been in place for over 100 years. Participants meet regularly to critique research articles, to improve their understanding of ...

  11. Step-by-Step Approach to Presenting at Journal Club

    Step 1: Introduction Explain the clinical question that prompted you to consult the literature and what drew you to the article. Step 2: Who wrote the paper? Consider the title of the paper, the authors and their affiliated institution (s). Are there any outstanding features, e.g. a first study of its kind, a well-known author or institution?

  12. How to do a journal club, a seminar and a webinar?

    Evolution of journal club "Journal Club" was the term given by Dr James Paget in the year 1835. It was so named as the doctors of the St. Bartholomew's hospital, London, used to sit in a lounge and read the journals.[] However, the introduction of journal club discussion happened later in the year 1875 when Sir William Osler first organised it at the University of Montreal, Canada for a ...

  13. How to Prepare a Journal Club Presentation

    What is a journal club? How do your prepare for it? And how do you present it? In this video, I will guide you on how to prepare a journal club presentation....

  14. PDF Template for a Journal Club Presentation

    Presented by <Your Names>. Department of Physics • University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign. PHYS 596, November 10, 2017. The title slide cues the audience "Get ready to listen" Include an interesting graphic to grab their attention. Your talk should answer the following questions:

  15. How to make a good (and interesting) presentation in journal club

    When I give presentation in journal club, I always select the kind of papers that tell a "fun" story- I believe we can learn more by discussing "how the author (s) come up with such idea?" question. Over the years, the topics of my selected papers have ranged from how bugs determine the color of laid eggs to whether getting cancer is just bad luck.

  16. Ten simple rules for reading a scientific paper

    Rule 6: Be critical. Published papers are not truths etched in stone. Published papers in high impact journals are not truths etched in stone. Published papers by bigwigs in the field are not truths etched in stone. Published papers that seem to agree with your own hypothesis or data are not etched in stone.

  17. Journal clubs

    Journal clubs are educational meetings where individuals meet regularly to critically evaluate recent articles in the scientific literature. They have often been cited as a bridge between research and practice, as they encourage the application of research in clinical practice. 1

  18. PDF How to Make Scientific Paper Reading Fun: Journal Club Style Role

    This seminar course is based on short lectures, paper discussions, and active participation by the students. The two roles these courses utilize, adopted from Parrott and Cherry (2011), are "Discussion leader" and "Devil's advocate". These roles are used to facilitate group discussions and to critique the paper, respectively.

  19. How to Give a Great Journal Club Presentation

    A lot of advanced science education takes place in the more-or-less formal setting of a Journal Club where one member of a group presents a paper from the scientific literature to the whole group. Giving a good presentation is a learned skill; here are some tips on how to do it well. Pick a good paper. (Don't get all neurotic about this.

  20. Reimagining journal clubs for inclusive scientific training

    Most scientists have experienced the 'canonical' journal club: in the laboratory, a colleague explains a scientific paper applicable to the lab's research. The presentation is punctuated by occasional questions or comments from a few lab members while most others remain quiet.

  21. Model for implementation of a modern journal club in medical physics

    The journal club could focus on one single paper with emphasis on meticulously presenting each of the sections of the article including the objectives, hypothesis, and conclusion. ... Since the ability to read scientific journals is a life-long learning experience, residents should learn how to efficiently sort the good articles from the bad ...

  22. ReproducibiliTea

    Welcome to ReproducibiliTea. We are a grassroots journal club initiative that helps researchers create local Open Science journal clubs at their universities to discuss diverse issues, papers and ideas about improving science, reproducibility and the Open Science movement. Started in early 2018 at the University of Oxford, ReproducibiliTea has now spread to 101 institutions in 25 different ...

  23. SOLER Journal Club

    The Science of Learning Research Initiative (SOLER) is pleased to present our next journal club event. This time, we will discuss a fascinating learning analytics study published as a conference paper last year. The session will be led by Elissa Sorojsrisom, a PhD candidate in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology. Elissa joined SOLER as a Graduate Student Assistant last year with a ...

  24. Reimagining journal clubs for inclusive scientific training

    Most scientists have experienced the 'canonical' journal club: in the laboratory, a colleague explains a scientific paper applicable to the lab's research. The presentation is punctuated by occasional questions or comments from a few lab members while most others remain quiet. In the classroom, a professor leads first-year graduate ...