The Scientific Talk Report Card
by
Colleague: “Hey, can you come to my practice talk later? I’d really like your feedback.”
You: (In your head: “I’d rather count the number of salt granules required to make a liter of Tris buffer.”) Uh, sure.
And just like that, you’re signed up to listen to an unpolished talk and provide the critical feedback that will hopefully right the ship. Worse, your colleague invited that windbag from the lab down the hall who lives to hear the sound of their own voice. If only there was some way to provide structure to the feedback process. If only…
Introducing the Scientific Talk Report Card. If you’ve got a pen, a pulse, and a prefrontal cortex, you’re ready to go! Simply react to the sections of the talk as you hear them, grade them, and declare the fee for your services. It’s that simple. And if you have to run take care of a “very important experiment” just as the windbag opens their mouth – feel free to leave your report card behind.
[Click on the image below to download your own Scientific Talk Report Card!]
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K.C.
wrote on August 2, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Too funny! I've got a talk at the end of August and I did a practice today and handed these to my friends. Now if only it was two to a page.
alan@benchfly
wrote on August 2, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Awesome — hope it was "mindblowing"!
antisocialbutterflie
wrote on August 2, 2012 at 4:11 pm
We had something like this for my grad journal club. Ours had a section on laser pointer usage (not enough, just right, gave me motion sickness).
K.C.
wrote on August 2, 2012 at 6:55 pm
That's an excellent section to add. We had an outside speaker last Spring and her laser pointer use certainly did give me motion sickness. Sometimes it's hard to tell when you're the nervous one standing in the front.
alan@benchfly
wrote on August 2, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Totally agree- great idea! It will be in V2.0…
antisocialbutterflie
wrote on August 2, 2012 at 4:11 pm
We had something like this for my grad journal club. Ours had a section on laser pointer usage (not enough, just right, gave me motion sickness).