For the 2015 RuG Metabolism & Nutrition course, 25% of the final grade is determined by an editorial I have to write with 3 other students. Scratch that; one of them is no longer enrolled. Good for me! The less, the merrier! The remaining two students in group C with the same subject—metabolic regulation—are: Jesse E. Kuindersma and Vera E. Otten. Based on the editorial, we also have to prepare a presentation.

Janine Kruit explained today that the editorial has to be in the style typical of scientific editorials that promote a scientific article. So, it might be a good idea to look at a few published editorials for inspiration. One important feature she mentioned is that the editorial has to be positive about the study. Of course, the results can be negative, such as in [my example]: “dieting does not lead to long term weight loss”. She did suggest putting a positive spin on results such as these; e.g.: “There’s no need to force yourself to stick to some diet; dieting doesn’t work anyway.” 😉

The editoral has to be 800–1000 words long and is meant to highlight the most important results from a study and place them in a broader context that is applicable to the audience. The audience are the co-enrolled students who will witness the presentation and who will be able to access the editorial through the course’s Nestor environment.

One schematic illustration (of some metabolic pathway) is expected to accompany the text of the editoral. I’m guessing the presentation may contain more figures.

The presenation should take ± 20 minutes. Before the presentation, a concept-editoral has to be handed in by our group. Our presenation will be on Friday, March 27, sometime between 11:00–13:00, during the tutorial [Tutorial 6] in room 3111.0017A.

Update March 31: We just handed in the finished editorial.