Astrophysics Journal Club

Astrophysics Journal Club is a weekly seminar at which students, faculty and postdocs offer reviews of interesting and potentially important papers from the research literature.

Current schedule
Some guidelines for presentations
Some resources

Fall Semester 2007 Journal Club

Date	Student	Faculty/Postdoc
Sept 13	Andrew Helton	Terry Jones
Sept 20	Randy Jokipii (U of A)	Randy Jokipii
Sept 27	Dan Polsgrove	Larry Rudnick
Oct 4	Paul Edmon	Chick Woodward
Oct 11	Dan Weisz	Liliya Williams
Oct 18	Shea Brown	Tom Jones
Oct 25	Steve Warren
Nov 1	Pete Mendygral	Evan Skillman
Nov 8	Karl Isensee	Yong Qian
Nov 15	Crystal Austin	Bob Gehrz
Nov 22	Thanksgiving	Thanksgiving
Nov 29	Jessica Ennis	Sebastian Hidalgo
Dec 6	Martha Boyer	Roberta Humphreys

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Some resources to find papers for review:

From astro-ph: http://astro-ph@xxx.lanl.gov/

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From the journals:
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NASA ADS
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Some Journal Club Presentation Guidelines

In preparing a Journal Club (JC) presentation, the following guidelines
may be useful (partly paraphrased from the Astrophysics Grad Student Handbook):

I. Paper selection: Please choose a paper that will be interesting to a broad audience. "Discovery" papers are more likely to be of general interest than "technical" papers.
For example, reviewing the relevant journal article connected to a press release will
generally be appreciated by all. Remember that short papers, especially Letters, are concise, so often much of the background is omitted. On the other hand, it may be difficult to do justice to a very long paper in the time allotted.

II. Give yourself enough prep time: It is best to identify an article at least a
week in advance, so there is time to find another if the first choice turns out to be unsuitable.

III. Tips for Presentation:

Make sure visual aids can be read easily from the back of the room (viewgraphs and powerpoint are both available).
Design the presentation for 20 minutes, including time for questions. Discussion is strongly encouraged.

IV. Feedback: Everyone is encouraged to seek and to provide helpful feedback, since one of the principal purposes of JC is to enhance our presentation skills.

Some suggested questions to address in reviewing papers.

What is the main point of the paper under discussion?
How does this observation/theoretical insight advance one or more broad classes of astrophysical phenomena?
Is the focus in the paper development of a new observational/theoretical insight or confirmation/refinement of existing understandings?
Is there any new observational or theoretical "technology" that allowed this
particular discovery to be made when it was, or was it a "serendipitous" discovery using a mature technology/concept?

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Last update: 30 August, 2007