109 has... taken over

SOoo... Journal Club presentations have finally ended and a time of "rest" has come. I'm not really sure how to make this a deep, enlightening post so I'm just going state what happened (in a clear and concise way) and hope that the meaning comes out on its own.

Inconclusive Data on the Effect of Practice on Stress Reduction and Journal Club Presentation Time 

Introduction

Every biological engineer at MIT is required to take 20.109. Students are required to complete six major communication assignments, three of which are verbal assignments. It's of particular importance that one understand the process of developing a Journal Club presentation to prevent the pain and failure of future 109ers.

Methods

Journal Club Prepared Using Blood Sweat and Tears

The paper "CRISPR-Cas9-based mutagenesis frequently provokes on-target mRNA misregulation" (WHATSTHIS) was analyzed using my brain to procure meaningful figures that would later be presented in class.  Resulting images were cropped from WHATSTHIS using the Lenovo snipping tool and were simplified down to their most basic meaning using the google slides whitebox. After the images were simplified, they're moving parts were fixed together using the Lenovo snipping tool. The fixed images were then pasted into the final powerpoint presentation using the PC Ctrl+V function. After the final powerpoint presentation was completed, the delivery was practiced using a classroom projector and the timer on an iphone 8. This procedure was repeated a total of five times. 

Results

Practice Insufficient to Optimize Journal Club Presentation Time or Decrease Stress

The goal of practice was to optimize presentation time to 10 minutes (plus or minus 30 seconds) and to decrease presenter's stress (measured by pre- and co- presentation chills). Of the 5 trial presentations conducted, one was excluded from the data set due to technical difficulties, two were within the optimal presentation time , one was significantly below time, and one was significantly above. No significant increase in presentation time was detected. There was no significant decrease in pre- or co- presentation chills. These results we potentially due to to the time of day when the trials were run, the subject's level of sleep, and general issues with body temperature control. 

Of note, practice did increase the efficiency and clarity of the Journal Club Presentation's delivery. Results from the professional analysis has not yet arrived. It is also noteworthy that an eye rinse (solution procured from TearDucts) and a phone call to the subject's mother were sufficient to prevent a post-presentation meltdown.
 
Discussion

Journal Club Presentation Results Indicates a Non-Significant Effect of Practice on Presentation Time and Stress for the Conditions of this Experiment

I found a nonsignificant effect of practice on presentation time and stress. These findings directly contradict accepted research on the topic, leading me to believe that there was an issue with my experimental design(SOMEAUTHOR, SOMEYEAR). There was likely a lot of noise in my data due to inadequate testing conditions: a live subject was used for testing and the non-compliance with accepted sleep cycles and feeding schedules likely affected the results. Further tests must be done to reconcile these inconsistencies. 

Implications and Future Works

This experiment it particularly important for the future success of 109ers' presentations. It has significant implications in giving future students the tools to get an A on the Journal Club Presentation assignment. 


Figures








Grade: 8/10





Comments

  1. HaleyOctober 30, 2019 at 8:17 AM

    Our lab has replicated these results under similar conditions and suggests that the non-compliance with sleep schedule standards may be a key factor.
    (& Btw Fidelia this is a 10/10)

    ReplyDelete

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