How to walk my PI through a paper

[yeshuamo]

I'm an undergraduate involved in a research project. My advisor is a faculty member who has requested that I walk him and our postdoc collaborator through a paper that is relevant to our project; it's a 24-page in-depth journal article.

I made an attempt at walking them through a shorter article last week, but the PI said that I needed to work on better telling the story behind the paper instead of summarizing it.

Have you had to develop the skill of walking your superiors through research that you didn't conduct? Can you offer advice on preparing this talk?

I should note that I get nervous when speaking, so my memory isn't my best friend when I'm talking.

Thank you for your tips.

 

[BvU]

My impression is he/she is trying to help you. The skills in your story are indeed very useful in almost any career, so any investment is well made. Try to talk to him/her about your quandary (at least you don't have eto rely on your memory for that) and try to find out this motivation.

 

[yeshuamo]

Thank you. I ended up preparing slides that I handed out and added speaker notes to my copy. Added an intro slide putting the paper in context of other research and concluded with takeaways relevant for our project. It was received with praise, so mission accomplished!

 

[BvU]

Bravo !