Picking a Journal Club Paper

Overview: Participating in a regular Journal club provides a way to keep abreast of new developments in Immunology and to learn how to read scientific papers and evaluate them. Learning how to present a journal club paper is an important skill for now and in the future.

Tips on choosing a paper: The foundation of an outstanding journal club presentation rests on the choice of an interesting and well-written paper for discussion. Pick a paper that you are interested in, that has been published in the past year, and it should usually be in one of the top journals for Immunology (see list below). While there are no guarantee that the papers in these journals are great, because of the review process that they go through to get accepted in these journals the odds are better that they are solid papers.

Top Immunology Research Journals Nature Science Cell Nature Immunology Immunity Cell Host and Microbe PNAS PLOS Pathogens Journal of Immunology

Review Journals - included as a reference, we will be presenting articles from research journals. Annual Reviews of Immunology Nature Reviews Immunology

Keeping up on reading papers: I would recommend that you sign up to be emailed the electronic table of contents (eTOCs) for Science and Nature (register on their websites) and any other journals relevant to your work. This will help you keep up with the best new science.

Journal Impact Factors: While journal impact factors are never an indicator of how good a paper in that journal will be, if you want to get a feel for how a journal of interest is ranked here is the online link. You can search by scientific categories or search by the specific journal name.