There is a scathing review coming out on the topic of academia (particularly the US one). While the general tone of the dissertation is negative, they do indicate a strong need, or rather duty, of scientists to communicate our findings as clear and understandibly as possible. Personally, I completely agree with this. Clear communication sometimes hinges on explaining everything in cool graphics, be it in posters or in presentations. So how do we learn how to create cool graphics? Well, one avenue is comics! They have supplied us with concise stories, be it comical or educational, applying graphics to provide a visual narrative.

One of my favourite online comics is Dresden Codak. Witty, beautifully drawn and often requiring quite some thought to understand the story, it is everything I seek in a comic. The author/artist also provides us with excellent tools to learn about visualisations, as he keeps a superb weblog analysing various forms of visual narration. This post is my favourite, as it indicates very clearly how we can use space intelligently in our graphics to tell a story, and what pitfalls to avoid. I hope it will provide us all with good inspiration for our next talks! Good luck!

Hi all,

I found some interesting papers for you, and a talk. Let me start with the talk. It is a TED talk (naturally) concerning TED talks. This nice introspective talk is actually of interest for all of us as it gives a few pointers to the set-up of excellent (and terrible) talks, with a fascinating slide on the colours used to evoke certain responses from the audience. Funny and applicable to us to make our talks better (and we know we need it, right?). The talk is here.

Then there are some papers, two of which I found to be closely related to what I did. One paper discusses the stretching of voids in tensile experiments, simulating the 2D patterns with cylinders (but unfortunately not using a 2D fit, but 1D slices to arrive at a solution). That paper is here (yes, you have probably already read it since it is in j.appl.cryst., but just in case you have been too busy like me to read the table of contents…). Another one is similar, but I must admit I have not managed to completely read it yet. Looks interesting, though.

Also, it is not everyday you see a new geometry diffractometer being suggested. I wish these guys good luck in the further development of their diffractometer and I hope they publish some fantastic results when they get to it.

At the moment, I am trying to do a literature research (something I should have done much, much earlier) on in-situ particle growth studies using SAXS. I have come up with quite some references by now, but if you know an excellent study, do drop me a line at brian at stack dot nl, and I will be eternally grateful. If you are, on the other hand, interested in co-authoring a small review paper on the topic, I am always open to collaborate!

Step one in creating a good presentation is to spice up your talk. I will present here several methods you can use to make a spicy talk. Read the rest of this entry »

I think there are a ton of wonderful topics out there, that are currently being researched by scientists. Now more than ever, they need to be able to present them in front of not only their peers, but also to those who control money. The presentation, therefore, needs to cater to a wider audience.  Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, I’m starting the “Clear Presentation Initiative”, as a movement to improve presentation skills in science. I will be posting more here about this soon.  Cheers!