Reading to learn the craft
Reading can teach medical writers how effective prose is built. Analytical reading, literature outside medicine and books chosen for a particular audience offer different ways to develop the craft.
Analytical reading
Medical writers should read for information, ideas, structure, style and historical perspective. When an article is appealing because of its writing, rereading it analytically can reveal its craftsmanship as well as its message.
Useful questions follow the article’s construction.
- How was the title composed?
- How was the abstract constructed?
- How was the information organised for clarity?
- Which tables and illustrations were used, and why were they effective?
- How many references were included, and which publications were cited?
Good medical prose can be studied for style; suggested sources include the British Medical Journal and editorials and opinion pieces in US medical journals. Reading nonmedical books can develop a sense of language, grammar, syntax and rhythm. Examples include the metaphorical prose of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Ernest Hemingway’s spare style in The Old Man and the Sea, Jane Austen’s subtle, complex style in Pride and Prejudice, and symbolism in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain; thrillers by Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell’s medical mysteries and James Michener’s epics offer further possibilities.
Historical reading adds perspective on medicine and its language, with examples including R. H. Major’s Classic Descriptions of Disease, Robert B. Taylor’s The Amazing Language of Medicine and Roy Porter’s The Greatest Benefit to Mankind.
Reading also requires absorption: buying books is easier than reading them, and reading is easier than absorbing their contents. Observation and recording need practice too, including learning to express an observation briefly and plainly.
Writing instruction beyond document content
In 2012 and 2017, medical-writing instruction was judged to offer more guidance on document content and preparing scientific articles than on writing mechanics adapted to medical writers’ needs. Detailed scientific and medical information should nevertheless be well organised, simple to read and easy to comprehend.
The March 2017 Medical Writing workbook offers explanations, examples, exercises and answer keys. Its sequence covers nominalisation, three chapters on wordiness, sentence construction, troublesome words, paragraph organisation, writing for lay audiences and a closing practical checklist.
Books for clinical and academic writers
Robert B. Taylor’s Medical Writing: A Guide for Clinicians, Educators, and Researchers, third edition, aims to help practising clinicians, health-professions educators and researchers translate observations, teaching innovations and research findings into publishable work. Its four learning objectives are as follows.
- Understand the art of medical writing, including motivation, conceptualisation, composition and frustrations.
- Know how to use different medical-writing models, including reviews and clinical research reports.
- Recognise how to get a manuscript published.
- Realise that writing can be enjoyable.
The book progresses from basic skills to document models, research protocols, grant funding, research reports and publication, with an appendix of writing terms, proofreaders’ marks, abbreviations and methodological and statistical definitions. It teaches through successful examples and counterexamples from published work and examples created to illustrate particular points. The third edition adds topics including predatory and hijacked journals, open-access publishing, altmetrics, peer-review fraud, permission-free illustrations and common submission errors.
Two recommended sets of books distinguish scientific-paper instruction from wider writing resources.
- M. Cargill and P. O’Connor, Writing Scientific Research Articles: Strategy and Steps (2009).
- Robert A. Day and Barbara Gastel, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, sixth edition (2006).
- M. Zeiger, Essentials of Writing Biomedical Research Papers, second edition (2000).
- T. M. Bernstein, The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage (1998).
- E. R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, second edition (2001).
- W. K. Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (2006).
How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper
Barbara Gastel and Robert A. Day’s eighth edition of How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper has eight parts, 42 chapters and four appendices; twenty chapters concern journal manuscripts.
Part I introduces scientific papers, their history, the introduction–methods–results–discussion structure, ethics and journal selection. Parts II and III devote 72 pages to the title, abstract, acknowledgements, references and manuscript sections, with general guidance across scientific disciplines rather than discipline-specific detail. Part IV covers submission, peer review, responses, proofs and publication.
Parts V and VI offer brief chapters, about five pages each, on oral presentations, posters, reviews, editorials, books, book reviews and conference reports. Part VII concerns scientific style, including jargon, abbreviations and writing for readers whose first language is not English. Part VIII includes theses, grant proposals, cover letters, recommendations, peer reviews and editing one’s own writing. The appendices cover journal abbreviations, words and expressions to avoid, SI prefixes and useful websites, with a glossary and references also available.
The eighth edition adds digital posters, ORCID identifiers, predatory journals, publicising and archiving papers, and self-editing. It also discusses career writing, including curricula vitae, personal statements, seeking recommendations and careers in scientific communication.
The book is recommended for students, beginners, writers moving from regulatory work into medical communications and others new to academic scientific writing; experienced writers may find the short chapters on less familiar topics useful. It has also been used as a required university medical-writing text, with students’ assignments demonstrating practical application of its advice.
Humour may complicate its instruction for some readers whose first language is not English. In particular, The Ten Commandments of Good Writing mixes obvious grammatical jokes with outdated style advice, making earnest instruction difficult to distinguish from sarcasm.
What Every Medical Writer Needs to Know
Robert B. Taylor’s What Every Medical Writer Needs to Know: Questions and Answers for the Serious Medical Author (2015) addresses improving writing, beginners’ mistakes, publication difficulties, copyright, plagiarism and ethics. Its examples are more closely suited to physicians writing manuscripts, literature reviews, chapters and books than to regulatory writers, making it particularly appropriate for beginners, freelancers and medical-communications writers.
Its ten chapters begin with medical-writing history and personality types, then cover getting started, writing processes, pitfalls, publication and ethical issues. The final chapters discuss notable and absurd publications, established writers’ experiences and miscellaneous facts, including caution when accepting publishers’ offers of work.
The getting-started chapter addresses mentoring, opportunities such as letters, research letters, case reports, newsletters and blogs, when and what to write, tools, freelance challenges and professional associations. The writing-process chapter addresses organisation, punctuation, readability, multitasking in relation to personality type, citation-management software and journal impact factor. The pitfalls chapter covers journal instructions, author order, excessive modifiers and abbreviations, long paragraphs, digressions, unsupported facts and complications of multiple authors.
The Gunning Fog Index is included as a readability measure, although medical vocabulary can limit its suitability; the underlying aim of avoiding unnecessary complexity may help writers of lay summaries.
The publication chapter covers peer review, open access, predatory publishers, rejection, institutional bias and limitations of review. The ethics chapter covers gift and ghost authorship, plagiarism despite screening software, copyright, permissions for borrowed material, conflicts of interest and accurate referencing.
Health-communication theory
Renata Schiavo’s Health Communication: From Theory to Practice is a reference for repeated reading by people responsible for communicating serious health topics to the public, including policy makers, clinicians, media and non-governmental organisations.
Its four-part progression links theory to practice.
- Definitions of health communication, communication models and cultural influences.
- Communication approaches: psychological factors, media channels, community mobilisation, professional communication, partners connecting communities and public advocacy.
- Planning and implementing interventions: planning messages, situation analysis and research, objectives and strategies, materials and implementation, issue management and monitoring, and evaluation and reporting.
- US and European case studies, including mental health and chronic disease.
Its planning chapter explains how to conceive a message and deliver it effectively to the public. The theoretical density requires sustained attention or repeated reading, and full use may require a health-communication course or dedicated study using additional references.
A descriptive approach to style
Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style (2014) addresses clear, coherent nonfiction without equating clarity with austere expression or a strictly formal style. It encourages learning technique through identifying, enjoying and reverse-engineering good prose, and includes examples of classic style and an “arc of coherence” chapter.
Its discussion treats shaping and sequencing prose as too complex for inflexible rules and distinguishes grammatical correctness, logical coherence, formal style and standard dialect while recognising language change. It is less suitable for someone seeking a prescriptive style manual, although it ends with a short usage guide. Its central advice is to earn readers’ trust through diligent work on writing well.
A budget selection
A 2022 Amazon UK selection required an English-language version below £10, excluded regulatory-writing guides because they become outdated quickly, and selected books considered relevant to medical writing. It was a personal selection rather than a systematic review, excluding other potentially useful books on price alone.
The following prices and customer ratings form a historical snapshot, with the selection last compiled on 15 November 2022.
| Book | Author; publisher and edition date | Amazon rating; reviews | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Effective Medical Writing: An Academic Writing Guide | Thomas Buckingham; 4 October 2017 | 4.4/5; 29 | Kindle £6.01 |
| Medical Writing: A Brief Guide for Beginners | Carol Scott-Conner; Rachel Lord Press, 23 October 2015 | 3.5/5; 3 | Kindle £7.26 |
| Writing Scientific Papers in English Successfully: Your Complete Roadmap | Ethel Schuster; edited by Haim Levkowitz and Osvaldo N. Oliveira Jr; hyprtek.com, 23 November 2014 | 4.7/5; 50 | Paperback £7.65; Kindle £7.63 |
| Fast Facts: Clinical Trials in Oncology—The Fundamentals of Design, Conduct and Interpretation | A. Hackshaw and G. C. E. Stuart; S. Karger, first edition, 18 December 2020 | 5/5; 3 | Free in Kindle Store |
| Eats, Shoots and Leaves | Lynne Truss; Fourth Estate, 26 May 2011 | 4.5/5; 2,825 | Paperback £4.83; Kindle £3.99 |
| Oxford Guide to Plain English | Martin Cutts; Oxford University Press, 27 February 2020 | 4.6/5; 155 | Paperback £7.15; Kindle £4.72 |
| The Art of Statistics: Learning from Data | David Spiegelhalter; Pelican, 13 February 2020 | 4.5/5; 2,865 | Kindle £1.99 |
| How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers | Tim Harford; The Bridge Street Press, 17 September 2020 | 4.6/5; 1,186 | Paperback £5.22; Kindle £0.99 |
| How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information | Alberto Cairo; W. W. Norton, 15 October 2019 | 4.7/5; 348 | Kindle £8.96 |
| Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients | Ben Goldacre; Fourth Estate, 25 September 2012 | 4.5/5; 953 | Paperback £8.49; Kindle £3.99 |
| Viruses: The Invisible Enemy (Oxford Landmark Science) | Dorothy H. Crawford; OUP Oxford, second edition, 5 November 2021 | 4.6/5; 19 | Paperback £7.99; Kindle £5.57 |
| The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | Rebecca Skloot; Picador, 3 June 2010 | 4.6/5; 15,305 | Paperback £8.38; Kindle £4.99 |
| Lucky Man: A Memoir | Michael J. Fox; Ebury Press, first paperback edition, 2 January 2003 | 4.6/5; 1,886 | Kindle £9.49 |
Lucky Man adds a patient’s perspective on living with disease.