The document provides guidance on writing for academic and professional purposes. It discusses why people write as well as common barriers to writing. Some key points covered include choosing topics you are interested in; developing ideas through discussion, current issues, and REM sleep; focusing topics; and structuring articles with outlines and paragraphs. The document also emphasizes using active voice and varying sentence structure to engage readers. Overall, the document offers advice on the writing process from developing ideas to structuring articles for different types of writing.

3. Writing
 Writing Why?
 Academic
 Research
 Compulsion

4. Why we don’t write
 Not enough time
 Nothing to write about
 No one to work with in writing
 Lack of secretarial support
 Lack of knowledge as to how to research information
 No mentor for writing activities
 No motivation
 No self-confidence
 Don’t know how to start
 “I hate writing!”
 Ghost writing

5. What to write?
 Write on what you know about and what interests
you
 This helps maintain your interest and also helps focus
your writing on the topic that will move your career
along.

6. Basics of writing
Idea Development
 A good idea is the most important thing a medical
writer can have.
 How to get?
 Discussion – Colleagues, Area of expertise
 Clinical implications of current public issues

7. Incubate the Idea
 Thoughts randomly come during various time points
 Accumulation of odd facts, phrases and connections
 During REM sleep
 Record all the points in a document for further
reference

8. Focusing the Idea
 Topic should not be too broad
 It should create interest
 Diagnosis of Headache – Too broad
 Migraine, Cluster, Tension type – Too broad
 In specific groups, use of various imaging – interesting
but not specific
 A Topic “When Diagnostic Imaging needed in
Childhood Headache”

9. Crisp writing
 The astute writer avoids telling too much.
This helps prevent “overwriting”—producing an article
much too long for any journal and thus in need of
ruthless pruning.
 Jotting notes and focusing the topic help move you to
the next step
 planning the concept and structure of your article.

10. Article Structure
Type of writing
Research Article….
IMRAD approach
Review Article…
Each Type has its own structure
 The secret of structuring an article is finding the
topic’s component parts.
 In the end, the focused topic and presentation concept
should evolve into an outline

11. Concept and Outline
 Having good idea and concept is important
 How to handle this concept is paramount
 Outline:
 Without Outline - Not possible for new writers
 Need to have outline on the side when you are writing
the article

12. Downside…
 Outline with Too many major headings without
expansion of many headings
 Concept and Outline is clear , but the blue print is not
followed.
 Editor will be able it pick up when one strays from the
highway.

13.  Beginning to write the manuscript without thinking
the project through.
 This will only lead to much painful rewriting later.
 Clear writing comes from clear thinking.
 See the completed project in your mind before
starting the first paragraph.

14. Paragraph Development
 A paragraph is a collection of sentences that all relate
to a common theme.
 In a sense, each paragraph is a small essay.
 This means that one should follow the basic rules for
writing an essay:
 Tell your reader what you are trying to say early in the
essay, develop the theme using some concrete
examples, then conclude in a thoughtful way.

15. Organizing the Paragraph
 Thoughts in a paragraph must be presented in an
orderly fashion, not jumbled like a bag of toys.
 Sentences can be arranged in a chronology of what
happens. (or)
 Decide to order sentences by rank of importance or
Reverse ranking order like current treatment to
potential new treatment

16. Being Considerate to Readers
 Making your paragraphs not too long, not too short,
and not too dense.
 Whenever you find a paragraph that continues for
more than eight or 10 sentences.
 Look and see whether there is a logical break in the
middle or try to make one.

17.  If a paragraph covers two or more topics, it almost
certainly needs to be divided into two.
 Too short paragraphs – Too often will not please the
readers.
 Dense – White Space in printed paragraphs are
pleasing

18. Active Vs Passive Voice
 “We identified a need in the curriculum. We
developed and presented a six-week clerkship for the
students. At the end of the year, we evaluated the
outcome of the endeavour”
 Suggested for Revision as Passive Voice

19. It was published like this
 “A need was identified for an addition to the
curriculum. A clerkship was developed and presented.
The outcomes were evaluated at the end of the year.”
 Lacked the punch

20.  It may seem easier to express our thoughts in passive
voice, and perhaps we thereby take a little less
responsibility for them when “I” or “we” is not stated.
 It might be more likely that we might use active voice
when we feel confident about positive results in
research and passive voice when our confidence is
lacking or the results are equivocal.
 Erroneous idea – Using active voice is impolite

21.  We are definitely moving toward using more active
voice in medical writing, especially in reporting
original research.
 From The Lancet (2004;363:112–118):
 “We followed up children once a day for diarrhoea and
a month for anthropometry. . .”

22.  From the New England Journal of Medicine (2004;
350:114–124):
 “We enrolled 518 patient with polycythemia vera, . . .”
 From the British Medical Journal (2001;323:382–386):
 “I searched the Cochrane Library, Medline, and
Embase to identify studies of common pathological
findings in . . .”

23.  There are, of course, times when the use of passive
voice is best.
 The classical example is when and who does
something is less important than the recipient of the
action.
 In this instance it may be better to say that “the
patient was injected with the test drug” rather than
“we injected the test drug into the patient.”

24.  “The patient was transported to the hospital by
ambulance,”
 it does not matter who drove the vehicle.

25. Other important aspects
 Words per verb
 Using Variety in your sentences
 Sentence density
 Punctuations: Commas, Periods, and More
 Sentences with verbose Phrases
“Fewer in number” = Less

26. Prospects
 Academic publishing
 Medical writing companies
 Catering to Pharma. Industries, Publication houses
 Medico Marketing
 Scientific forums
 Continuing education of health providers groups
 Media