Editing for writers who have English as an additional language - Volume 27, Issue

Editors of English are typically met with expectations to make a quick fix of documents that need more radical changes than authors think. As editors, we should convey how we work to improve readability, and either adjustor gain acceptance for our…

Predatory publishing – what medical communicators need to know - Volume 28, Issue

The rise of ”predatory journals”, also known as pseudo-scientific journals, poses a risk to the integrity of science and therefore medical communicators need to know about their practices. Upon receipt of a publication fee, predatory journals…

Science writing workshops for AIDS vaccine researchers in Africa - Volume 22, Issue

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) is a global scientific and advocacy organisation dedicated to ensuring an AIDS vaccine for use worldwide. In Africa, IAVI partners with seven research centres who conduct vaccine trials and studies.…

Forgive me for repeating myself: Self-plagiarism in the medical literature - Volume 21, Issue

While plagiarism of others’ work is universally condemned, authors’ reuse of their own words and data (so-called ‘self-plagiarism’) is a far more contentious issue. The recycling of one's own text, in particular, polarizes opinion: some consider it…

Regulatory Writing - Volume 23, Issue

Regulatory documents are complex beasts, often requiring input from many different authors. Sometimes, different departments will be responsible for authoring certain sections and the role of the medical writer could perhaps be more accurately…

Lingua Franca and Beyond - Volume 25, Issue

In this issue of Medical Writing, I would like to recommend two articles. Szymon Musiolshares with us his thoughts on a statistician’s role in research overall and also in the process of preparing publications. He takes a medical writer’s…

Regulatory Matters - Volume 30, Issue

Calling all medical writers:

Focus your writing with lean authoring

In today’s medical writing environment, authors are routinely faced with expedited timelines to write documents about highly complex studies with overwhelming amounts of data. Revi…

The Crofter: Sustainable Communications - Volume 33, Issue

Section Editor: Kimi Uegaki Breaking barriers in sustainable development in East Africa: How Lightup Impact is leveraging communications to shift the power to the right actors Authors: Nicole Bezuidenhout, Valeria Santoro, Jeniffer Muganda …

Guidelines for disclosing the results from observational trials - Volume 26, Issue

Observational trials are a relevant part of clinical research. Publishing their results can be challenging for scientists and writers.  The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement was the first…

Update of the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards: CHEERS 2022 - Volume 31, Issue

If economic evaluations are to be used by researchers and healthcare decision makers, they need to be adequately reported. This article discusses the update of the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS 2022), the main…