Week 1, Day 2

Happy second day of your internship! We’ll be practicing writing for the newsletter today and preparing for Wednesday’s discussion!

Our first expert guest speaker is Dan Fogarty on Wednesday; Dan is a concussion patient and advocate, as well as a CA community member. Our second expert guest speaker is Dr. Elizabeth Sandel on Friday; Dr. Sandel was one of the first professionals to become sub-specialty certified in Brain Injury Medicine and is the author of our internship curriculum text Shaken Brain: The Science, Care, and Treatment of Concussion.

There are three Tasks to do today:

Project Interest Form (Please fill out as soon as possible)

• Read through this project description document to get an idea of what each project would look like (the doc is also linked in the Google Form).

• Then fill out this Project Interest Form to give us an idea of what you’d like to work on. Projects will be assigned on Wednesday so you have time to sign up for a Project Start-Up Meeting on Thursday with Conor, Gigi, and Sam.

Practice Newsletter Synopsis (Please fill out as soon as possible)

• We’ve picked two sets of source documents from previous newsletter synopses for you to write a practice synopsis with! You’ll be using your practice synopsis in the workshop tomorrow, so try to pick which of the two you want to write about and read them over today, so when you go to write it tomorrow it isn’t totally fresh.

• Check out the two options here, and sign up for which one you want to write about (only 4 slots for each one!)

  • Option 1:

    • https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/18/1048

    • https://news.umich.edu/more-youth-report-concussions-since-2016-u-m-study-shows/

  • Option 2:

    • https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/02/09/bjsports-2020-103274

    • https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/mar/23/pitchside-saliva-tests-could-be-used-to-diagnose-concussion

    • https://www.healio.com/news/neurology/20210325/qa-researchers-identify-concussion-biomarkers-in-saliva

  • Sign-Up Sheet

Newsletter Workshop Today

• Read and watch through all of the newsletter prep tutorial curriculum below before you start writing!

• Read through the original research and the additional article(s) that you selected yesterday

• Using what you’ve learned from Galen and Julian’s tutorials and reading other newsletter synopses, try to craft a synopsis of the research! Think about what information is important and what might be less crucial to include – as well as whether any of the information could confuse a naïve reader. Are there any mechanisms or specifics of the study that need to be included? Can they be included using the words that the researchers used, or do they need to be simplified? Think about how to simplify information minimizing the loss of nuance and prioritizing information that is important to the reader.

  • There is are no official word count parameters, but most synopses fall between 150 and 300 words.

• Zoom link:

  • Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8428523914?pwd=dXA0TkRocTE2RjJHUzJGNGx6UEJzdz09

  • Meeting ID: 842 852 3914

  • Passcode: 094687

Work through this curriculum for today:

This curriculum is the second half of our preparation for Wednesday’s discussion on the 5th Consensus Statement. Yesterday you read the statement itself, and today you’ll read two critiques of the statement creation process from two different perspectives, plus a video on the creation process of the statement itself.

1. Read Head injuries and sport: confusion, anger and lots of difficult questions — ramifications of the postponement of the sixth International Conference on Concussion in Sport.

2. Read Toward Complete, Candid, and Unbiased International Consensus Statements on Concussion in Sport – a critique of the consensus process by members of an international working group that CA has since joined

3. Watch this short video from the University of Calgary on the consensus creation process

Tutorials (Newsletter Prep)

1. Watch Galen Moller’s webinar on our style guide and writing for our newsletter 

2. Tip Sheet: A Getting-Started Guide for Newcomers to Science Writing 

3. Read two newsletters (20 min read): 

   • New test for risk of delayed recovery in youth athletes (10/14/21 newsletter)

   • Psilocybin for TBI–researchers hope to improve lives (7/15/21 newsletter)

     • This newsletter was the last newsletter written by our summer 2021 interns