Getting Your Foot in the Door - Volume 31, Issue

“Do your homework, knowledge is power!” my teachers used to say. Yes, we learn a lot during our education, respect the rules of the system, and we rely on that knowledge. However, once that stage is over, we are overwhelmed with possibilities and sta…

The perils of the unknown: Missing data in clinical studies - Volume 27, Issue

The phenomenon of missing data is ubiquitous in clinical studies. Both the extent of missing data and the structure of missing data can introduce bias into study results and lead to wrong conclusions. Medical writers should be aware of the extent of…

Medical Writing Teaching - Volume 25, Issue

A novice’s experiment with a wiki on a writing course A wiki? What is that? The name ‘wiki’ was probably what attracted me most about using this e-learning tool in my teaching. As a New Zealander, I associated the word with the Maori terms ‘waaka’…

Post-approval regulatory writing - Volume 23, Issue

The secrets of Microsoft Word®. Part I – ‘Find and Replace’ and en-dashes - Volume 23, Issue

Almost everyone uses Microsoft Word® – but do you use its standard functions to the full to make your job easier? It is worth spending a little time getting to know how you can exploit functions like ‘Find and Replace’ or change or understand some…

Teaching Medical Writing - Volume 28, Issue

The training of medical writers is not to be taken lightly and requires serious input from industry, established medical writers, and the academics making the transition. Following on from previous articles in Medical Writing, Sarah and Adrian Tilly…

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.…

The joys of outlining in medical writing - Volume 21, Issue

Using an outline to organize your writing project can help keep you on a straight path and avoid wandering into wastelands of irrelevance. There are various formats – the classic hierarchal model, the IMRAD system used for research reports, the…

New myths about English - Volume 21, Issue

My first 39 myths about English were published in The Write Stuff in a series of articles between January 2006 and January 2008. The myths are mainly drawn from claims about English made by participants at my training events on the use of English…

Pleasing the reader by pleasing the eye—Part 1 The role of format and design in readability - Volume 21, Issue

Whoever writes wants to be read. Yet, even if we succeed in creating an informative, logically structured, and adequately worded text tailored to our target audience, i.e., text we consider to have an adequate level of readability, our documents may…