One of the most difficult tasks for an academic is to know the literature. Most labs run some kind of literature discussion, which are usually referred to as “journal clubs” in biology. We tested several variants when I created my lab in 2012 and we have learned a good deal about what works and what does not. So here is my personal view on the different types of journal clubs, from worst to best.

5. Online discussion forum

Live meetings have several disadvantages: they disrupt the workflow of experiments, there are no records, and some people speak too much. I reasoned that a good way of addressing all this would be to put up an online forum where we could upload a paper and share our thoughts. I invited all the ~300 researchers of the institute to participate with the plan to go to social media if it gained momentum.

That did not work at all. We never got past the first paper, which had only one comment (mine). It was not appealing at all to formalize your thoughts in order to write a paragraph and post it for people who work next door. The written form is...