Activities at LIO
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SARA provides many activities within the LIO that are related to writing and publishing scientific articles. See the calendar below for the dates of these activities. To find out more about the activities offered by SARA at the LIO, please consult the descriptions in the list directly below the calendar.
SARA uses the Slack platform for rapid communication among its members. “Channels” in Slack have been set up speficically for your lab and will be used to let you know about upcoming activities, but it will also be used for different SARA activities related to your lab. To register with the SARA Slack platform and to use the channel set up for LIO, please write to your SARA ambassador or to the SARA team.
iCal file to add SARA’s activities to your calendar
Workshops on scientific writing and publishing
SARA regularly holds workshops on various themes related to scientific writing and publishing. These are small workshops that last 20 – 30 minutes. To find out more about the topic that will be covered in a workshop, just click on the event in the above calendar and read the description.
Past presentations
Writing Blitz
The Blitz offers you a structured and motivating environment to make progress on your scientific writing. You can also ask SARA members questions and get writing tips relevant to your project. Bring along your current scientific writing in progress. If you do not have a specific scientific text that you are working on, we’ll help you find a useful writing exercise that will get you further along on your research topic. All students will find some value in participating in a Blitz, no matter what stage they are in their research project and writing.
Feedback Groups
Scientific writing is often portrayed as a lonely process but it needn’t be. In fact, no one should write in solitude! Feedback from our peers at every stage of writing is extremely important. We are addressing this need for feedback with our feedback groups. These small groups will meet once a month to discuss each other’s writing under SARA’s guidance. In between meetings, they will use the feedback to revise their work and write more, as well as exchange their writing to be read by others in the group before the next meeting. This feedback activity will take the place of the Blitz once a month.
You can also request to organize a feedback group using the Slack channel for SARA-LIO. To register with the SARA Slack platform and to use the channel set up for LIO, please write to your SARA ambassador or to the SARA team.
Just-in-Time Peer Review
If you are about to submit a paper to a conference or Journal, you can get some quick feedback before submitting from volunteer SARA reviewers in your laboratory. These reviews can be done very quickly, in two working days. To make a review request to the reviewers, use the Slack channel for SARA-LIO. To register with the SARA Slack platform and to use the channel set up for LIO, please write to your SARA ambassador or to the SARA team.
Journal Club
Do you have trouble keeping up to date with your scientific readings? After you’ve read an article, are you wondering “Did I understand that correctly?” The Journal Clubs, two-hour meetings that take place once a month, are a way to bring students together to dissect scientific articles with each other, and also a way to get tips on how to better read articles. But don’t get us wrong, the goal is also to have fun! Don’t expect long presentations; but do expect interesting and fun discussions among students.
Before each session, you will read two scientific articles on a research topic. During the meeting, you will interact with colleagues to dissect and compare articles using different analysis tools. This way, you will develop methods to analyze articles and even improve your ability to write better texts. In addition, students themselves will propose and choose the research topics addressed in a session, thus making sure the topics are interesting and useful for all.
Contact
Ambassador: Jérôme Harrison
The SARA team: sara@etsmtl.ca