CATALYTIC REACTIONS

On Slides and CVs

The blurb on "slide preparation" attributed to me on page 3 of the last issue (November-December 1998) is a substantial distortion of my e-mail "letter to the editor."

As you can see [in the "subject" of the e-mail–Ed.], my comment was in reference to the preparation of CVs, not slides (in reference not to the slide preparation article in The NIH Catalyst, May-June 1998, but to the CV preparation article in the September-October 1998 issue). A slide in html makes no sense! On the other hand, a brief, attractive CV on a postdoc’s web page might get her a job interview.

A correction would be much appreciated.

In case that you would like my view on "slide preparation," I would say: 1) make them large, that is, readable from as far away as necessary; 2) keep them sparse–your talk should be complementary to the slide’s contents, and busy slides can confuse rather than inform; 3) avoid fancy coloring, since it is often distracting or worse, invisible. (Have you seen a red curve or text in the Masur Auditorium recently?)

Thank you. Regards again.

—Ray Mejia, NHLBI and NIDDK

—Sorry, Ray, when you wrote that "it is wise to prepare one in html, and make it available to appropriate services and/or requests and via a personal web page," we inexplicably decided the "one" referred to slides–didn’t even think of CVs (maybe because we’re so (unjustifiably) secure in our jobs. . . .