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Our book, Plain English for Doctors, has been highlighted on Oxford Medicine Online's list of Clinical Skills books.
The books on the list were chosen to "help you develop and hone the essential clinical skills that every medical professional needs." https://oxfordmedicine.com/page/clinical-skills
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"Writing Medical Science in Plain English" Talk at DePauw University & University of Akron10/22/2018  We had two really great talks this month with Pre-med students from the Phi Delta Epsilon International Medical Fraternity at DePauw University & the University of Akron.
What they had to say:
Oxford University Press has published an excerpt from our book, Plain English for Doctors and Other Medical Scientists, on their blog.
The article, "Ten Reason to Write in Plain English," is available now. Read it here: https://blog.oup.com/2018/05/ten-reasons-to-write-in-plain-english-excerpt/
The homepage for Oxford Medicine Online, this month, features our article on writing medical science in plain English.
The article, Medicus Incomprehensibilis - Writing in Plain English, is available for free at: oxfordmedicine.com 
We are very happy to announce our new book Plain English for Doctors and Other Medical Scientists will be officially released in E-book on March 15th and in Paperback on April 12th. The book is now available for pre-order through various booksellers around the world. For more information on where to pre-order check out: www.pe4d.com/pre-order.html 
Our new article in the Michigan Bar Journal is now online: "Plain English Helps Explain Medical Issues Clearly." www.michbar.org/file/barjournal/article/documents/pdf4article3039.pdf
This blog post looks at an excerpt from an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine. (1) We underlined the long words. The generalizability of these results is limited, however, because we excluded men with a high risk of prostate cancer and men with moderately severe urinary tract symptoms. Furthermore, the sample size was inadequate to assess reliably the effect of testosterone on the risk of these conditions. (WSEG = 46/23.0/23.4/15.6) The WSEG score shows: this 46-word excerpt has an average sentence length of 23.0. Its reading ease score is 23.4 and grade level, 15.6. To us, this looks like garden-variety medical writing. We understand it, but it isn’t as clear as it might be. Revising to improve reading easeHow might we revise to improve reading ease? For one thing, we would expect a text written in plain English to use sentences closer to 15 words average, and 25 words at most. The first sentence is 27 words long; we can easily split it in two. This excerpt also uses more long words than it needs to. Nine of the 45 words, or 20%, have three syllables or more (9/46 = 20%). We can also replace some of the long words with shorter ones. In the excerpt, we underlined the long words and bolded the essential scientific terms. The table below shows our thoughts on replacing long words with shorter ones. Trying to replace long words with shorter words
Precise vs. Accurate As we looked for shorter words, it led us to ask, What does assess reliably mean here? The definition of assess is to estimate or judge the value, character, etc., of; evaluate (e.g., to assess one's efforts.)(2) In this context, the word assess alone implies a sound assessment. Therefore, the phrase assess reliably seems redundant. Does it mean the assessment is precise, accurate or both? Precise means repeated measurements show the same results. Accurate means measurements come close to the true value. (3) Since we weren’t sure what the excerpt was trying to say, we left out the word reliably. Our RevisionHere is our attempt to revise to improve reading ease.
We reduced long words to just 13% (6/45 = 13%). Is this the best revision? Perhaps you can think of something better. The point is: when you try, you can often improve reading ease a lot. How much does reading ease change?The chart below shows before and after WSEG scores.
These data show a reader would find the revision much easier to read. If the whole article were revised in plain English, it could reach a much wider audience. ConclusionIn this blog post, we looked at an excerpt that used long sentences and long words —two classic symptoms of medicus incomprehensibilis. We revised to fix these issues. We talk more about reading ease in Chapters 1 and 2 of Plain English for Doctors and Other Medical Scientists (Oxford University Press, 2017).
This blog post is fourth in a series on the Symptoms of Medicus Incomprehensibilis. ---- (1) Snyder P, et al., “Effects of Testosterone Treatment in Older Men,” NEJM 374, no. 7 (2016): 622. (2) Dictionary.com, s.v. “Assess," http://www.dictionary.com/browse/assess?s=t. (3) Wikipedia, s.v. “Accuracy and precision,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision (accessed 1/23/17). One symptom of medicus incomprehensibilis is passive voice. Passive voice means that the subject of the sentence receives the action rather than doing the action. Passive voice can be a useful writing technique, but it works best when you use it sparingly. Sometimes, it can make a sentence sound vague, wordy or abstract. Medical writing tends to overuse passive voice. For this post, we look at an excerpt from an article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association(1) that uses three sentences in passive voice and one in active voice. We underlined the words in each sentence that make it passive. Mammograms from women attending routine breast cancer screening at these centers during the study period were included. These were arranged into batches of approximately 40 women pursuant to standard practice in the United Kingdom. All mammograms taken during the study period were included in the trial, regardless of when they were examined. Each batch contained all cases from a single mammography acquisition machine in a single day. (WSEG = 67/16.7/ 35.7/12.5) Note that the first and third sentences both say that mammograms … were included. The mammograms didn’t do anything. Instead, somebody did something with them. Passive voice often involves a form of the verb to be plus a past particle. The first sentence uses the word were, the past tense of to be, and included, the past participle of to include. In the second and third sentences, the words, were arranged, were included, and were examined show they also use passive voice. Can we revise the excerpt to improve reading ease? The only special terms we see are mammogram and mammography, and they are commonly understood. Therefore, we think we can probably revise to improve reading ease. Our RevisionHere is our attempt to revise the excerpt to use less passive voice and improve reading ease.
In our revision, only the third sentence has its main clause in passive voice (i.e., they were arranged). The second sentence also uses a dependent clause in passive voice (i.e., they were read). We did this to keep a consistent subject with the previous sentence. Is this a good paraphrase of the original? Do you find it easier to grasp? Perhaps, you can think of a better way to say the same thing. Comparing WSEG ScoresLet’s compare WSEG scores for the original and our revised version.
These data show a reader would likely find the revision easier to read. If the whole article were revised in plain English, it could reach a wider audience. ConclusionIn this post, we looked at an excerpt that used passive voice—one symptom of medicus incomprehensibilis. We showed how we would revise to use less passive voice and make it easier to read. We talk about passive voice in Chapter 4 of Plain English for Doctors and Other Medical Scientists (Oxford University Press, Spring 2017).
This post is third in a series on Symptoms of Medicus Incomprehensibilis. ---- (1) Taylor-Phillips S, et al. “Effect of Using the Same vs Different Order for Second Readings of Screening Mammograms on Rates of Breast Cancer Detection: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” JAMA 315, no. 18 (2016): 1957. |
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