Services > Advice & Support Clinics > Tips on making the best use of clinics
The following refer both to face-to-face meetings, and to advice and support given over the telephone or via email.
| Requesting advice and support |
- If at all possible, approach us at the design stage of a project, rather than later. Advice and support will then usually be more effective - and potential problems can be avoided.
- Please note: Unless there are exceptional circumstances, you will be offered an appointment at the next clinic session available. Fitting people in between clinics is usually not practicable.
- Allow at least one month before deadlines, such as those for calls for grant applications or conference abstracts. Occasionally, calls for funding may be issued at shorter notice than this - in which case we will do our best to respond accordingly, once you have informed us.
- Send background reading - typically project proposals and draft documents or graphics - in advance, to allow for preparation for the meeting.
- If you are asking for a sample size calculation, to estimate the number of patients or subjects required for your study to fulfil its stated aims, then make this clear when arranging the meeting. You will then be advised to bring the necessary information with you to the meeting.
- Take along to the meeting any literature that you have found helpful or wish to inform your research design, as well as the specific data or documents that need to be discussed.
- If we are able to accommodate your queries arising from undertaking research as part of a postgraduate degree, then it is important that your supervisor attends the initial meeting. It is essential to establish that you will have the time to get a full understanding of all the methods you plan to use - so that you are able to explain and defend them.
- It is best to agree at an early stage what level of support is needed - and whether papers describing the work are to have an RDSU member of staff as a co-author. We may be able to provide further support but a charge for our services may be incurred.
- If the expert who has been assisting you is temporarily unavailable then please do not simply ask another to step in - since the same groundwork may have to be gone over again.
- If the expert who has advised you is a co-author of your paper, abstract, grant application or Ethics Committee application - or is acknowledged in it - then it is particularly important to let them approve the final version. Finally, you must also send them a copy of the document that you have submitted.
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