Biochemistry – Biochimica

Week 1 - 3h - Writing and presentation skills Activity 1: Teacher introduction. Student self-introduction (60 sec each) with feedback (60 sec for each student) Lecture 1 - Q&A session: Introduction to the course, presentation of the syllabus, description of evaluation methods and of the project. Activity 2: Work in small groups: Each group will discuss and write the outcome of their discussion in the shared notes: Why is communicating science effectively important? Who is the target audience of scientific communication? What is “poor” and “good” scientific communication? What writing, graphic, and presentation skills a scientist does need? (write the two most important skills for each aspect) Lecture 2 - Q&A session: “Introduction to the art of lecturing”. Basic rules of writing; comments on scientific language; what type of manuscript? Writing and illustrating an article for publication; writing compilation master or doctoral theses; preparing case reports. Similarities and differences. Activity 3: Reflection on student’s project. Choose a scientific journal based on the scope of the journal. Week 1 - 1h - Graphic skills Lecture 1: Understanding figure guidelines: 2D image definition; Image Resolution (dpi, video and print formats); color spaces (RGB, CMYK); Vector vs bitmap (examples, fonts and pt, different software). Activity 1: Image dimension and resolution: Creating a new image; Changing and image dimension: scaling with or without resampling; Exporting an image (file formats and compression) Week 2 - 3h - Writing and presentation skills Activity 1: In groups of three, each student delivers his/her presentation, collects 4-dimension feedback (presentation vs content | positive vs to-be-improved), incorporates the feedback and gives the presentation again. Second round of feedback. Lecture 1: Drafting a manuscript: choose the format according to the manuscript purpose, read guidelines / instructions, choose data representations that best illustrate your results, elements of a scientific manuscript: title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusions, references, figures and tables, acknowledgements. Activity 2: Choose / revise the title of the project, identify take home message(s), select the results that you want to present. Week 2 - 1h - Graphic skills Lecture 2: basic design principles: Layout: balance, rule of thirds, alignments; Gestalt & logos; Color palettes & scheme Activity 2: discriminating between good and bad designs Week 3 - 3h - Writing and presentation skills Lecture 1: Creating an effective and engaging powerpoint presentation. Basic rules to create and compose slides. Text and visuals. Week 3 - 1h - Graphic skills Lecture 3: Getting started in Gimp and Inkscape: GIMP - Canvas; Layers; Selections; Masks; Regulations. Inkscape - Shapes: (Fill, Stroke, Combination); Bézier curves (Paths, Nodes); Patterns Homework assignments: Activity 3: Playing with GIMP (follow the tutorial) Activity 4: Playing with Inkscape (follow the tutorial) Week 4 - 3h - Writing and presentation skills Lecture 1: Presenting your project. What you should and should NOT do when you are on the stage. How to use your body and your voice. How to engage the audience. Activity 1: In groups: students pick one presentation and complete it. Week 4 - 1h - Graphic skills Lecture 5: Preparation of a multi-panel figure starting from scratch: The planning process; Schemes and Plot; choosing the style and using references; Data preparation and organization (keeping your kitchen clean); Online resources; The production process Activity 5: Hands on: prepare a multi-panel figure for your paper Activity 6: revision of the student’s the graphic projects and figures

Conoscenza avanzata del pacchetto Microsoft Office o OpenOffice. Conoscenza di base di almeno un software per l'analisi dei dati (es. Origin, Matlab, Kaleidagraph, Graphpad, Sigmaplot, ecc.)

Writing and presentation skills Learning materials (including slides, tutorials, articles, videos, notes, and extracts from text books, if needed) will be provided during the course. Lectures are based on the following books: Parham Aarabi, “The Art of Lecturing”, Cambridge University Press Björn Gustavii, “How to Write and Illustrate a Scientific Paper”, Cambridge University Press Although students may find them helpful and interesting, reading them is not a prerequisite for the exam. Graphic skills All the essential learning material (Lectures, Tutorial guides and supporting files) will be provided to the students within the virtual classroom. No specific text book is required.

Il superamento dell'esame è legato alla presentazione di un elaborato finale (final project), che difficilmente potrà essere svolto senza frequentare il corso e senza partecipare alle attività di gruppo.

Students will be evaluated based on their final project. The project will consist of a written scientific report on a subject agreed with the teachers, showing students have acquired the writing and graphic skills presented in the course. Students will present their project by giving a presentation incorporating strategies, lecturing principles and methods, and tips acquired during the course. Students will start working on their project at the beginning of the course and will build it during the course, receiving targeted feedback from the teachers on a weekly basis. The final grade will be the result of the grade obtained for the scientific report (65%) and for the final presentation (35%).

Il corso si svolgerà in presenza. Le lezioni teoriche saranno alternate ad attività pratiche (individuali o di gruppo). All'inizio del corso gli studenti saranno divisi in gruppi e ogni gruppo applicherà i principali concetti appresi durante il corso per produrre un elaborato scientifico (relazione). Infine, ogni gruppo presenterà il progetto alla classe. Il superamento dell'esame è legato alla presentazione di un elaborato finale (final project), che non può essere svolto senza frequentare il corso. Agli studenti in Erasmus potrà essere data la possibilità di frequentare in remoto.