3 ECTS credits
75 h study time
Offer 1 with catalog number 4021489ENR for all students in the 1st and 2nd semester at a (E) Master - advanced level.
This course is about effective communication. How to get a scientific message across. It is about getting the audience to understand something. Important is to catch their attention, and getting them to understand is most of the time a means to an end, as we may want them to remember the material.
You will learn the difference between information and a message, and you will learn how to identify a message. You will learn to optimize your message under constraints (space for a paper) or time (for a presentation). You will learn the three laws of communication and how to apply them, and how to organise knowledge effectively.
In the first semester focus goes to effective written documents (students should show their improved writing skills during the writing of weekly assignments), in the second semester focus goes to effective oral presentations (directly applicable during the oral reporting of the research rotations, and during master thesis presentations in the second year of the master program).
As there is no exam for this course, there is a very strict attendance policy!
Effective writing
‘Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over’ Ernest Hemingway
Designing the document: well-balanced structure, planning, identifying your audience, selecting content, non-embedded structures… will be taught based on key-examples. You will learn how to be clear, accurate and concise, and how to achieve simplicity and harmony without losing accuracy and correctness. You will learn how to make a title reader friendly. How to polish an abstract that faithfully reflects the content of the paper, and how to edit out ‘waste words’.
Effective Oral presentation
In the preparation of an oral presentation, you will learn how to distance yourselves from the situation and to find answers to the questions why, who, what, when, and where. You will learn how to design your presentation, how to structure the content, how to create effective slides (title, graphs, data,...). You will learn to set priorities using a top-down approach. You will practise the coordination between slides and spoken text, and how to deliver the presentation to the audience (vocal, verbal, visual). Also, info on how to answer questions and to manage stage fright will be included.
Power point slides containing the course material and specific course notes will be made available via the learning platform.
Recommended books:
Trees, maps and theorems – Effective communication for rational minds – Jean-Luc Doumont – Principiae 2009 (ISBN 9789081367707)
How to Publish in Biomedicine: 500 Tips for Success, Third Edition
John Dixon, Louise Alder, Jane Fraser (ISBN 9781785230103)
The floor is yours
Hans Van de Water, Toon Verlinden (ISBN 978 94 014 5827 6)
Effective writing
-The student should have knowledge on how to plan the writing of a scientific document.
-The student is able to judge the qualities of a document: clarity, accuracy, correctness.
-The student is able to produce a concise scientific report/abstract with a clear message and title.
-The student has knowledge on how to review a document of others.
Effective oral presentation and the design of slides
-The student is able to prepare effective slides.
-The student can deliver scientific results in a short presentation to the audience.
The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
LEC Presentation determines 50% of the final mark.
LEC Practical Assignment determines 50% of the final mark.
Within the LEC Presentation category, the following assignments need to be completed:
Within the LEC Practical Assignment category, the following assignments need to be completed:
Effective writing
During the 1st Semester, students will be evaluated based on assignments (converting information into messages, converting a lab protocol into a material and methods section, writing of an abstract and the design of a title for a scientific paper, among others…). The assignments need to be completed before specific deadlines through the Canvas platform. Feedback will be given via the Canvas platform and in class.
Effective oral presentation and the design of slides
-The students will receive via Canvas an example of a badly designed slide show (pdf of a pptx) - What should be improved? Comment in a written report (to be uploaded via Canvas within one week after the assignment becomes active) on all the possible aspects of how the slides need to be improved.
-The students will receive via Canvas an example of a bad presentation (link to a video fragment) – Explain in a written document (to be uploaded via Canvas within one week after the assignment becomes active) what goes wrong during the presentation and how it should be improved.
-At the end of the 2nd Semester (Mid May), students will present a scientific topic during a 6-minute presentation with slide show. The slide design, vocal, verbal, and visual delivery will be evaluated. Immediate feedback after the presentation.
This offer is part of the following study plans:
Master of Molecular Biology: Standaard traject