Medical Writing Writing Matters Writing Matters

Volume 21, Issue 3 - Writing Matters

Writing Matters

Writing matters to medical writers … or at least it should. But sometimes we are more consumed with the content of a document than the writing itself. And some might even argue that detailed medical or scientific information cannot be written as simple, clear, and engaging prose. I disagree; the writing in medical and scientific documents should be not only well organised but also simple to read and comprehend.

Many books, articles, and guidelines have been written on the appropriate content of different documents, but few specifically teach medical writers to write well. Medical Writing is here to help. In this issue, we provide you with a series of articles that help generate simple, clear, and engaging text.

Michele Arduengo gets us started with four central principles of clear writing in her article ‘Writing to make your message clear’. In the article, which is based on her scientific writing blog, she states that the main principle is to write for the reader. I can't repeat this enough to my colleagues (and even to myself)! Writing should be clear, accurate, and engaging and make life easy for the reader. Michele's article illustrates her four principles of clear writing with multiple examples, making her article an excellent basic reference for all medical writers.

Of course, writing clearly has to start somewhere. Two articles in this issue will help you get started in the right direction. In ‘What's your problem?’ Marina Hurley explains that the origin of a clear document is a clearly articulated problem statement. Her article includes an exercise to help a writer articulate the problem statement and then use it to guide the structure, design, and logic of the document.

In ‘The joys of outlining’, Robert Taylor explains that once you have the main idea, writing an outline is enormously helpful for preparing a well-written document. I have to admit that I never used outlines when I was a graduate student or even when I first started as a medical writer, but as pointed out in Dr Taylor's article, this can lead to ‘wandering into wastelands of irrelevance’. I have to agree, and like Dr Taylor, I am now a staunch supporter of outlining, even for the simplest documents. As pointed out in his article, an outline gives discipline and focus to the writing process and is a great help in organising team projects. His article also details exactly how to put together a good outline.

These principles should help you build a well-written text, but how can you be sure that the document's content, style, and format are of high quality? In ‘Quality control: getting the best out of your review’, Nicola Haycock explains the benefits of detailed quality control. She also explains how the process should run and how to create a detailed quality control checklist.

Finally, in this issue's installment of Webscout, Karin Eichele summarizes and provides links to additional websites and PDFs on writing clear and proper English as well as on how to write for websites and the influence of technology on writing.

Readability matters too

All of these ideas can help a medical writer write clearly and produce high-quality text. But even if your content is excellent and your text well written, it won't be used if it is not easy on the eyes. How many times have you been turned off and frustrated by a document or website that was painful to look at or was badly organised?

As explained in part I of II of ‘Pleasing the reader by pleasing the eye’ by Gabriele Berghammer and Anders Holmqvist, this issue is called ‘readability’. Their article explains how the elements in a text work together to determine whether it will be successful with a target audience. In particular, they explain how the format and design of a document must make information easy to find and extract.

In ‘Writing visually for medical writers’, which I co-authored with Charlotte Leventhal (that's right, my mom), we give some specific instructions on how to make a text approachable and how to make information easy to find and understand. Our instructions include details about not only how the document looks on the screen or page but also how specific kinds of visuals can be used to speed comprehension of complex information.

So, both writing and readability are important in creating a successful text or document. Of course, there's a lot more to these subjects than can be covered in this issue of Medical Writing, but I think that these articles should be a great start in the right direction.

An important note on copyright for articles published in Medical Writing

All corresponding authors for feature articles and all editors of regular features in Medical Writing must sign a copyright assignment form assigning copyright to EMWA. We understand that this change has been difficult for some, but it is necessary. EMWA owns the journal but has granted a licence to Maney Publishing to produce the journal and to monitor the copyright. The reasons for and implications of the copyright assignment are addressed in a detailed Q&A document, which will be available by the end of 2012. These topics will also be discussed at the Freelance Business Forum during the EMWA conference in Berlin (November 8–10, 2012). In the meantime, if you have questions about copyright or any other editorial matter, please write to editor@emwa.org and see http://www.maneypublishing.com/authors/copyright.

 

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Articles

Writing Matters
Message from the President
EMWA news
Getting what you want from your scientific writing: tips for writing clearly
What's your problem? A practical approach to scientific document design
The joys of outlining in medical writing
Pleasing the reader by pleasing the eye—Part 1 The role of format and design in readability
Writing visually for medical writers
Quality control: getting the best out of your review
Pharmaceutical medical writing competencies: Comparing self-perception with employers' expectations
In the Bookstores
Journal Watch
The Webscout
Manuscript Writing
Regulatory writing
English Grammar and Style
Out On Our Own
Gained in Translation

Member Login

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Editoral Board

Editor-in-Chief

Raquel Billiones

Co-Editors

Evguenia Alechine

Jonathan Pitt

Managing Editor

Victoria White

Associate Editors

Anuradha Alahari

Jennifer Bell

Nicole Bezuidenhout

Claire Chang

Barbara Grossman

Sarah Milner

John Plant

Sampoorna Rappaz

Amy Whereat

Section Editors

Daniela Kamir

AI/Automation

Jennifer Bell

Biotechnology

Nicole Bezuidenhout 

Digital Communication

Somsuvro Basu

EMWA News 

Ana Sofia Correia 

Gained in Translation

Ivana Turek

Getting Your Foot in the Door

Wendy Kingdom / Amy Whereat

Good Writing Practice

Alison McIntosh 

In the Bookstores

Maria Kołtowska-Häggström

Lingua Franca and Beyond

Maddy Dyer

Publications

Lisa Chamberlain-James

Medical Communications/Writing for Patients

Payal Bhatia

Medical Devices

Evguenia Alechine

My First Medical Writing

Anuradha Alahari

News from the EMA

Adriana Rocha

Out on Our Own

Tiziana von Bruchhausen

Pharmacovigilance

Clare ChangZuo Yen Lee 

Regulatory Matters

Sam Hamilton

Regulatory Public Disclosure

Claire Gudex

Teaching Medical Writing

Louisa Ludwig-Begall / Sarah Kabani

The Crofter: Sustainable Communications

Louisa Marcombes

Veterinary Writing

Editors Emeritus

Elise Langdon-Neuner

Phil Leventhal

Layout Designer

Chris Monk