Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the third edition
- Acknowledgements
- PART I PROBLEM: THE ILLNESS
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The malaise of medical manuscripts
- PART II SOLUTION: SYMPTOMATIC RELIEF
- PART III PRACTICE: RECUPERATION
- Appendix: examples to rewrite
- References and further reading
- Index
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the third edition
- Acknowledgements
- PART I PROBLEM: THE ILLNESS
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The malaise of medical manuscripts
- PART II SOLUTION: SYMPTOMATIC RELIEF
- PART III PRACTICE: RECUPERATION
- Appendix: examples to rewrite
- References and further reading
- Index
Summary
This book is about words: about the ways in which words are used by doctors, medical scientists and others who write on medical matters. These ways are mostly no different from the ways that words are used and misused in many other subjects. But, in our opinion, too many of the producers and consumers of academic medical English are tolerant of writing that is clumsy, inaccurate, obscure or just downright bad. The first section of this book examines the roots of that tolerance; the remainder and larger part deals with the nuts and bolts of writing, taking its numerous examples from the field of medicine.
Our approach is to encourage good writing by examining bad writing, because it is often easier to say what is bad about a piece of writing than what is good. This sentiment is shared by Bernard Dixon, who compiled a collection of unarguably well-written scientific articles from past and present. In his preface, he says of bad writing, ‘We can learn important lessons by inspecting such specimens, just as pathologists learn from even the most unattractive objects and tissues that arrive in their laboratories.’ This book contains collections of these specimens and a record of their dissections.
What constitutes good or bad writing is not easy to define. How to distinguish between good and bad without sounding didactic or arrogant is a challenge.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Medical WritingA Prescription for Clarity, pp. 3 - 4Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006