Weekly Discussion Sections & Readings
Time and Location
TBD
Format
The standard discussion section involves student presentations on 1 or 2 papers. Some discussion sections will involve hands-on skill-building demos taught by the teaching fellows, such as the use of R, High Performance Computing, and GitHub. The exact format will be determined based on the size of the class. However, we generally require the following:
- Each week, students should read the assigned papers and write at a minimum of 200 words (half a page, single-spaced, per paper) summaries of each paper (two articles = approx. 1 page). We would like to encourage electronic submission, via Canvas. For those who have trouble accessing canvas, we will also accept submission over email to cbb752 (at) gersteinlab.org BEFORE the start of each section.
- Each student will give one presentation about a selected paper (approx. 20 min) in one of the sessions.
- Students will be graded on a combination of the written summary, presentation, and participation in discussions.
- If you are presenting, you are exempt from writing a summary.
- Please notify TFs in advance if you cannot come to the discussion session. Student can miss up to one discussion section without a penalty.
For write-ups and presentation, think about the following:
- What was missing in the field? (introduction/background)
- What were the questions the paper aim to address? (hypothesis)
- What they did and what was the breakthrough? (method/results)
- Conclusion and future direction (discussion/conclusion)
- Questions you have about the paper, can be either elucidatory or critical
Section Readings
Reading assignments for discussion sessions are listed below:
(Optional) Suggested Reading for Week 1
- How to (seriously) read a scientific paper, on your own. [Link]