Zooming in on Journal Club

This journal club has easily been the most unique one I’ve done. Some things still stayed the same, like having to identify key components to form cogent story. It was an interesting challenge to excavate the main data of my paper and pare unnecessary details and figures. I could feel the pressure of the 10-minute time limit as I tried to strike a proper balance of details to enhance the figures’ main story without overwhelming my audience.

An unexpected challenge, however, was to get around the sheer awkwardness I felt when catching a glimpse of myself presenting in the corner of my screen. I always have had a nonzero amount of presentation anxiety, but I didn’t expect the same feelings to resurface when talking to a computer screen instead of a live audience. I also found that became more attuned to specific words and phrases than I would in a live presentation. Consequently, I found myself restarting my recordings over small details that I normally wouldn’t pay attention to.

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