Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface to the fourth edition
- Layout of the fourth edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Problem: the illness
- Part II Solution: symptomatic relief
- 4 Technology, changing language and authority
- 5 Guidelines to clearer writing
- 6 Spelling
- 7 Is there a better word?
- 8 Superfluous words
- 9 Imprecise words
- 10 Superfluous phrases
- 11 Trouble with short words
- 12 Use of the passive voice
- 13 Consistency: number and tenses
- 14 Word order
- 15 Punctuation
- 16 Circumlocution
- 17 Words and parts of speech for EAL writers
- 18 Clichés and article titles
- 19 Constructing sentences
- 20 Further help with sentences for EAL writers
- 21 Drawing clear graphs
- 22 It can be done
- Part III Practice: recuperation
- Appendix British–American English
- References and further reading
- Index
19 - Constructing sentences
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface to the fourth edition
- Layout of the fourth edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Problem: the illness
- Part II Solution: symptomatic relief
- 4 Technology, changing language and authority
- 5 Guidelines to clearer writing
- 6 Spelling
- 7 Is there a better word?
- 8 Superfluous words
- 9 Imprecise words
- 10 Superfluous phrases
- 11 Trouble with short words
- 12 Use of the passive voice
- 13 Consistency: number and tenses
- 14 Word order
- 15 Punctuation
- 16 Circumlocution
- 17 Words and parts of speech for EAL writers
- 18 Clichés and article titles
- 19 Constructing sentences
- 20 Further help with sentences for EAL writers
- 21 Drawing clear graphs
- 22 It can be done
- Part III Practice: recuperation
- Appendix British–American English
- References and further reading
- Index
Summary
. . . I find it increasingly difficult to understand published papers, even those in my own specialty. I soon become lost in the tortured grammar, the acronyms, and the jargon.
(Anon. In England now. Lancet 1992; 339: 737.)Your writing will improve if you try to avoid the abused and over-used words, phrases and constructions we discuss in our earlier chapters, and note our suggestions about prepositions, tenses, punctuation, and so on. But it is far less easy to lay down a few simple rules about how to write sentences. We have to say at this stage that there is no substitute for practice: the more you write the better you will become. It is also true that the more widely you read the better you will write but, sadly, medicine tends to be all-consuming.
Remember:
that a sentence describes an idea, and can include qualification of that idea;
to take care if there is more than one idea, or more than one qualification;
to keep linked items – subjects and verbs, ideas and their qualification – together.
It follows that short sentences are less likely to lead writers and readers astray, but short sentences do not guarantee clear writing.
The opening sentence
But before we deal with sentence construction, we need to deal with a sentence that is often a problem not because of its construction but because of its idea: the opening sentence of the Introduction. The medical research article, describing a usually detailed aspect of a medical condition, is by far the commonest form of published medical writing. Although laypeople are reading primary medical research more and more, specialist journals and textbooks are aimed at like-educated readers. Yet this was the opening sentence of a chapter on renal blood flow in a book about regional cardiovascular physiology.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Medical WritingA Prescription for Clarity, pp. 294 - 309Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014