Interlude: Nervousness, Authorship Metrics, and Unbiased Science

Do you feel nervous before giving a presentation?

Most people fear public speaking, so I imagine that I am not alone in feeling nervous before giving a presentation. I often feel my heart racing and get butterflies in my stomach.

But last week, when I was getting ready to give a presentation in front of a large group, I wanted to shift my mindset around my feelings. Before getting on stage, I told myself that my feelings were not due to nervousness, but rather to excitement. I told myself that I was excited to get on that stage to present. And I was surprised to find that this shift in thinking helped to calm my nerves.

So the next time you feel nervous, try telling yourself that you are excited instead. You might be surprised at how the shift in your mindset will make you feel more confident or at ease.

Now onto this week's round-up...

💌 Round-up

👓 Reading

​Peer Review and Scientific Publication at a Crossroads​
"The premise of all Peer Review Congresses is that peer review and scientific publication must be properly examined, tested, and corrected in the same way the scientific method and its products are applied, vetted, weighted, and interpreted....we encourage research in any area of work that may be relevant to peer review and scientific publication, including novel empirical investigations of processes, biases, policies, and innovations. "

​A Complement to the H-Index: A Metric Based on Primary Authorship​
"...we propose a simple metric to quantify research output in a fashion amenable for today's changing patterns of authorship. We call this metric the “pa-index,” for primary author index, which takes into account the first and last author publications of an author. This way we have a metric that uniquely focuses on the publications where a given author took a leading role."

🎧 Listening

​The Unbiased Science Podcast​
I had the pleasure of hearing the podcast hosts, Drs. Jessica Steier and Andrea Love, speak at the AMWA conference last week. Their podcast is "devoted to objective, critical appraisal of evidence on health topics relevant to our daily lives." And they have done a great job of bringing an unbiased perspective to a variety of topics in science, from disease to food to pets and much more.

🧰 Tools

​Linktr.ee​
As I was getting ready to attend an annual conference last week, I decided to try something different this year. Instead of handing out paper business cards, I created a Linktr.ee page. Then I downloaded a QR code that would point to my page and saved the code to my photos (or you can save it as your background). As I met people, I pulled up the QR code for easy scanning. I really like the modern way to share my contact information.

📝 Experiment

The next time you feel nervous before an important event, take a moment to reframe the situation so you can shift your mindset to feeling excited instead.

Thank you so much for reading.

Warmly,

Crystal