Some End-of-Semester Thoughts

Here at Texas A&M University, fall semester will end soon. Therefore, for the next few days I’ll be busy grading articles by graduate students and presentations by medical students.

I’ve already been busy meeting with students about drafts of their articles and presentations. As always when I review drafts by graduate and professional students, I’ve learned a lot from the content of the work.

I’ve also been thinking about what makes some of the articles and presentations especially good. Here are some items that characterize the best articles and presentations I’m seeing:

• extensive information-gathering
• thoughtful integration of information from various sources
• logical organization
• clear (and generally simple) wording
• careful proofreading

Let me say more about the second item: thoughtful integration of information from various sources. The not-so-good papers and presentations just list information from one source and then information from another. The excellent ones show relationships of information from different sources, and they present fresh insights in this regard.

Such integration also tends to characterize good Discussion sections of papers for journals. Indeed, the five characteristics listed above are also some characteristics of good journal submissions and conference presentations.

This similarity is as it should be, for the characteristics sought in student communications and those sought in professional communications should be consistent. Some of the students are starting to publish articles and speak at conferences, and I hope that some of the others will do so soon.

But now, back to grading!