Over the years I have taught courses on medical writing and in the next series of blog posts I will be sharing some bite-sized advice aimed at helping you improve your medical writing skills. I hope you find the information useful.
To start, a useful summary, and if you remember nothing else from this blog post, please try to follow this advice and you will surely be successful:
“Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them”
John Ruskin (1819–1900)
Art critic, author, and poet
Be precise
In scientific and medical writing precision is the most important goal of language and can be broken into two parts
• choosing the right words
• choosing the correct level of detail
Choose the wrong word and you change the entire meaning for your reader and also cause confusion. Examples are:
affect : verb meaning to influence
principal: noun or adjective meaning most important
dose : quantity administered at one time
examine: patients, animals and slides are examined
effect : noun means result or when used as a verb verb to bring about
principle : noun meaning a law
dosage : regulated administration of doses
evaluate: conditions and diseases are evaluable
Singular or plural? Be sure you know your latin:
• phenomenon versus phenomena
• stratum versus strata
• criterion versus criteria
As Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll says “When I use a word....it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” So like Humpty Dumpty make sure that when you have chosen your words, that they are meaningful and precisely what you wanted to say.
Choosing the correct level of detail
When writing, have you chosen the correct level of detail to present to your reader and equally is it at a level that they will be receptive to?
This is very important because the precision of the information you present is also influenced by the level of detail you present. But to be successful, the writer must also choose an appropriate level of detail for the audience whilst carefully achieving a balance between general statements to establish a direction of thought and specific detail that gives evidence to support the direction.
The job of the medical writer is not to try to bamboozle the reader with unlimited facts and numbers as this will only succeed in alienating an audience. Remember, you are pointing your reader in the direction you want them to follow and then providing detailed information that will be of use to them.
More bite-sized advice will be provided in later blogs to help you:
Be concise
Be accurate and clear
Be correct
Be organised
Write for your target audience
