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What is a "Journal Club"?
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A journal club is a
group that meets regularly to discuss papers that have appeared
in the professional journals, usually recently, on a topic of
interest to the group. Sessions usually start with one person
giving a short oral presentation, summarizing and critiquing the
paper. This is followed by having the rest of the group ask questions
of the speaker, and/or discuss the paper. Journal clubs are common
among professional astronomers and graduate students, but we have
not previously had an undergraduate astronomy journal club at
UT.
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Goals of this Course:
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This course is an experiment. I am
offering it in response to repeated suggestions and interest on
the part of current and past undergraduate astronomy majors. There
are three things that I hope to accomplish with this course. Students
have told me that they feel that they need (1) practice and
guidance in learning how to read articles in the professional
literature in such a way as the extract the essential points;
also, regardless of your future career path, it is useful (2)
to obtain experience in giving concise, clear, and effective
oral presentations. Finally, the journal club format offers
us an opportunity (3) to closely examine astronomical subjects
that are fun, interesting, and timely, including the late-breaking
developments.
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Materials:
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We will mainly be reading articles in the technical
astronomical literature. In view of the fact that you are paying
a "fee" of $7 to take this course (something that is
beyond the control of the Astronomy Department!), I have arranged
for a special copier account that you will be able to use on all
of the copiers in the Astronomy Department (on the 15th and 16th
floors). Use of this account will be on the "honor system."
Don't use it for other purposes or give it to a friend, lest you
kill the golden goose -- overuse will cause this account to go
away! I will also provide some materials for preparing the presentations
(transparencies and colored markers), although some of you may
choose to use your own resources.
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Format and Required Work:
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The main activity in this course
will be presenting and discussing the articles that we read. I
anticipate that each student will be assigned to present about
3 or 4 articles during the course of the semester; these will
be short presentations, about 5-10 minutes. In addition, there
will be probably be one short writing assignment. Students are
encouraged to take the course on a credit/no credit basis, but
I will accommodate anyone who wishes or needs to receive a letter
grade. Receiving credit (or a good letter grade) requires a reasonable
level of participation, but will not depend on the student's background
from previous courses.
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Topics:
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For the first part of the semester, we will focus
on a couple of areas that are especially "hot" -- they
have broad appeal and have experienced a number of exciting, even
startling, new results within the past year or two. I am not an
expert in either area; I will be learning about them along with
the students, but I hope they appeal to you as much as they do
to me!
- Extrasolar Planets (a field that has broken wide open since
October 1995)
- Gravitational Lensing (both large-scale phenomena -- galaxy
clusters -- and "micro-lensing")
- Free-For-All -- any topic of interest to the students, as
long as the papers chosen are reasonably understandable and accessible
for the entire group.
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