Writing Ideas for FocalPlane

A couple of months ago, we launched a survey to learn about your experience with FocalPlane and hear your suggestions. We want to thank you again for taking the time to participate and share your comments and suggestions with us.

We noticed that many of you did not know that you can post your content and contribute on FocalPlane without permission or moderation. So we want to remind you that the FocalPlane site is free to access and is driven by content written by the community. Once registered, you are free to post and contribute without requiring prior authorisation or approval.

If you are not sure what you can bring to FocalPlane, here are some ideas for how you can contribute:

• Catching up with the literature:
  • Write a ‘research highlight’ on a paper that amazed you. This is a great opportunity for practising your scientific communication skills.
  • Write a post telling people about those ‘must read’ papers – classics or recent findings – everyone should know about before getting started on a specific topic or technique.

• Tales from the pandemic:
  • Are you working remotely? Tell us what is/isn’t working for you  (e.g. lab meetings, experiments, training). Or are you recently back in the lab? Do you have any tips for those yet to make the transition?
  • Did you organize or attend a virtual meeting/symposia/seminar series? Your experience could be very useful for upcoming events.
  • Did you defend your thesis online? Share your experience and tips for those preparing their defence.

• How to: describe a specific protocol (e.g. sample preparation, imaging or analysis pipeline).

• Tools: describe in detail a specific imaging tool (e.g. fluorophores, detectors), microscopy technique or analysis tool.

• Case studies:
  • Behind the paper: tell us the story behind your recent publication. Talk about your personal experience or go deeper into the technical details and the challenges you faced.
  • Tell us about a successful experiment: did you solve the great mystery of those strange artefacts in your sample? Why your cells were dying and how to keep them alive? Why the fluorescent protein was not working as expected? …

Do you have any other suggestions? Contact us! We’d love to hear your ideas. If you’re interested in writing for FocalPlane, check the FAQs section (‘Posting’) for more information. Also, feel free to contact us – we’re happy to help at any point of the process, from talking through ideas to defining an outline to helping with editing and formatting the final post.

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