Friday, January 8, 2010

The Anatomy Of Medical/Scientific Articles



Dear readers,

Before I begin, here's wishing the all of you a very happy, healthy and a prosperous new year! The year 2009 provided me the chance to try out different genres of projects. Some of them were technical and completely new to me. One similar category was that of medical writing, or simply said, article pertaining to diseases or medicine. There are some points which are required to be kept in mind when writing the content for these medical articles.

1. Since these are medical articles therefore it is very important to get the facts correct and verified. If the internet is used to carry out research then it is extremely important to validate the website that you are using to source the data/information for your article. There are several reputed medical websites that you can use for your research. These include www.webmd.com; www.healthline.com and www.nlm.nih.gov.

2. There is very little scope of playing around with the content here as most of these articles have a strict vocabulary that they need to adhere too.

3. It is generally preferred that these kind of articles have with them the list of references that were used/ consulted while drafting its content. This would make it easy for the readers to go back and consult the original paper if they seek any further clarifications.

4. There are strict principles to be followed when one goes ahead and writes the references. There is a fixed pattern to be followed while doing so. Ideally the reference should include; the authors name, the title of the work, a sub title if any, the publisher and the date when it was published. An example here world be Tierney, John (2006) Criminology: Theory and Context. 2nd Ed. Harlow:
Pearson/Longman. It is very important to remain consistent with the pattern that you follow.

5. Most of these medical articles include in them several definitions. It is very important not to alter the terms and language of these definitions and to try and use them as they are. It would be just like trying to formulate Newtons Law Of Motion in your own words! Pure catastrophe.

Keep these tips in mind and writing medical essays will no longer be a dreaded nightmare. Believe me.. I am the perfect case of been there seen all!! :)


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