Pre-course

Do you want to improve your research skills?

This year, ISCOMS will launch the pre-course on Tuesday the 5th of June. This is the first time the ISCOMS offers this to students and is an opportunity to participate in a third conference day.

The pre-course consists of master classes focused on your own research; ‘How to write an abstract’, ‘How to present your research’ and ‘Medical Statistics’.

If you are interested in participating in the pre-course, you can register at our website when the registration is open. As a non-presenter your welcome to participate in the pre-course as well! Participating in the pre-course costs €15,-.  We have a limited number of places.

Programme Pre-course
Tuesday June 5th 2012
09.00 – 10.30: Registration Pre-course
10.30 – 11.00: Coffee & Tea
11.00 – 12.30: Course 1
12.30 – 13.00: Lunch
13.00 – 14.30: Course 2
14.30 – 15.00: Break
15.00 – 16.30: Course 3

The pre-courses of ISCOMS 2011 were the following:

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Course 1: How to present your research
Don’t Be Boring! Preparing Interesting Presentations
This workshop will provide strategies for preparing interesting, engaging presentations. The essence of an effective presentation is that it engages the audience, captures their interest by posing an intriguing question, spells out a methodology for addressing it, and then answers that question. An effective presentation is aided by providing the audience with cues as to what to expect and providing them with needed information in an orderly structure where they expect to find it. Tips for doing so, along with tips on what not to do, will be provided and the presenter will engage participants in a highly interactive format in crafting storylines and structures from material that they provide. Participants should bring to the workshop brief statements of what they wish to present, why they find it interesting or important, how they are studying it, and what they have found or expect to find.

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Course 2: Medical Statistics
In 90 minutes, an overview of statistical techniques will be given. Based on data from a hypothetical study, we will go through several steps of the statistical process. Starting with descriptive statistics, refreshing the theory of univariate tests and confidence intervals, we will end up making and interpreting regressions models.
Emphasis will not be on formulas and mathematics, but on understanding the logic behind the statistical tools. Input of the participants is very welcome!

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Course 3: How to write an abstract
Prof. M.G. Rots, MD PhD

Designing and performing good experiments, as well as obtaining exiting data, represent first important steps towards publication in top journals. However, at least as crucial in this persuit is the interpretation and presentation of your data. In this workshop, we will discuss some do’s and don’t in writing scientific papers.
Scientific writing deals with writing texts that are unambiguously formulated: the author determines the direct and the indirect meaning. As with popular texts for a broader public, scientific writing aims to attract the attention of the reader, and to keep the attention throughout the text. Active formulation of sentences is preferred, lengthy sentences with many dependent clauses should be prohibited to keep the audience involved. If you are allowed to submit a conference abstract of maximum 250 words, aim for a strongly formulated text, even if the word count ceases at 187.
In this workshop, the participants will actively engage in two assignments. In the first one, the aim is to trigger the participants to critically evaluate the meaning of words and the scientific content of research published. In the second assignment, we will take a close look at an abstract submitted as part of a grant application. The workshop aims to provide insights in the power of words to convince the audience (or not…).