Are you wanting to improve your writing? Here are a few tips from the editorial perspective for new medical writers to remember when writing.
Beware of misplaced apostrophes
Make sure that your apostrophes are really needed and that – if they are needed – they are in the right place.
Apostrophes don’t ever belong in plural nouns (eg, it’s ‘the 2010s’ not ‘the 2010’s’, ‘the four Cs’ not ‘the four C’s’ and ‘GPs’ not ‘GP’s’) and or in possessive pronouns, even when they end in ‘s’ (eg, it’s ‘yours’ not ‘your’s’ and ‘its’ not ‘it’s’) so we can leave them out.
That said, apostrophes are used to indicate possession. We can often make mistakes and place the apostrophe in the wrong place with plurals so this is something to watch out for. With singular nouns, an apostrophe is added before a final ‘s’ to indicate possession (eg, ‘the patient’s dermatitis’), while an apostrophe is added after the final ‘s’ with plural nouns (eg, ‘patients’ contact details’). If a plural noun doesn’t end in ‘s’, we add an apostrophe and ‘s’ to create the possessive form (eg, the children’s test results).
While avoided in formal manuscripts, apostrophes are also used to indicate that letters have been removed from words in the process of combining them to create a contraction (eg, the word ‘it’s’ is a contraction of ‘it is’).
Ensure plural nouns take plural verbs
Make sure plural or collective nouns take plural verbs. This can be something we can get confused by, particularly with Latin- or Greek-based terms with unusual plural forms. A common mistake is around the use of ‘data’. The term ‘data’ is plural (‘datum’ is singular) so data takes a plural verb. Thus, ‘the data were reported’ rather than ‘was reported’.
Beware of confusing ‘fewer’ and ‘less’
We can muddle up the use of ‘less’ and ‘fewer’. Remember to use ‘fewer’ for things that can be counted one by one (eg, ‘fewer than 15% of patients’) and ‘less’ for continuous variables that cannot be counted like this (eg, ‘less than 25% of the standard dose’).
Watch your use of acronyms
Another thing to look out for is not defining the acronyms used in your writing or using too many acronyms in one piece. Adding definitions for the acronyms used in the text instantly aids understanding and makes your writing more approachable. Conversely, while we are all aware of word count limits, using too many acronyms in one piece of writing starts to make the text sound like gobbledygook and makes it more difficult for the reader to comprehend.
Check your use of tenses
Something else to watch for is any switching of tenses unintentionally as you get caught up in the flow of what you are writing. Please check for this when reading through your draft or when editing a manuscript.
It’s important to decide on the appropriate tense and to then be consistent. Journal manuscripts are generally written in past tense because the authors are reporting what they did and what they found. Scientific posters are similar. However, it can be appropriate to write some conclusions in present tense – if the evidence base is compelling enough to permit generalisation. For other types of publication, describing something in the present tense can give your text more immediacy, and thus more relevance to the reader, than using past tense.
Obviously medical writing is not easy and there is a lot to consider, but hopefully these tips help. One potentially useful resource to also help on the grammar side is Grammarly. (Be careful to change your account to the right English dialect to ensure the punctuation and grammar differences between British English, also used in New Zealand and Australia, and US English are picked up.) Quillbot for grammar checking and help with paraphrasing is another potential useful resource to try.
Don’t let writing mistakes trip you up. We worry about the rogue apostrophes and mismatched tenses so you can focus on what matters most. Get in touch today at elion.nz for expert writing and editing support.
Photo credit: Image design by Yan Krukau on Pexels.
