Many intelligent people with much knowledge to share with their professions think academic writing is like the drudgery of dishwashing, when instead it is more like the joy of dance practice where one thinks and works hard at choreographing (organizing) the details of expression. Writing is about careful thinking rather than quick wit, and Robert Taylor, in this book, is an excellent coach. In Medical Writing, Taylor first offers encouragement and motivation, followed by chapters about important reminders of basic skills, advice related to writer's block, specifics on writing for academic journals, and common pitfalls to understand and avoid. The remaining chapters address writing for specific purposes. He includes guidance on writing book chapters, grants, research protocols, literature reviews, and reports of clinical studies, as well case reports, editorials, and even letters to the editor. The two new chapters in this edition are “How to Write a Research Protocol” and “How to Write a Grant Proposal.” The final chapter is about the actual submission process. The book is indexed and has five appendixes, including a glossary of terminology used by editors and publishers, a page of proofreaders' marks, medical abbreviations, lab reference values for adults, and a glossary of methodological and statistical terms. With its appealing, accessible design and rich content, this book will be useful to beginning writers among researchers, physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals—or anyone else with valuable information to impart to colleagues. The reader's purpose need not be medical to benefit from this compact guide to professional writing. In addition to providing help and encouragement for getting started, this book will also serve as a reference manual one returns to frequently like style manuals, thesauri, or usage guidebooks. The author offers humor, literary references, and relevant inspiring epigraphs that make his advice enjoyably digestible. Throughout Medical Writing, Taylor models what he teaches. He tells the reader how to do something and then he demonstrates it—using his own writing in the book. He begins a paragraph warning against excessive alliteration with: “Alliteration almost always annoys an audience” (p. 58). He also provides excellent examples from other writers. Each chapter begins with a short epigraph from a poet or physician (or the occasional more whimsical source) to inspire the reader onward. Chapter two begins with good advice, “Do not skip this chapter.” In the chapter, he covers the importance of structure and organization, how to develop a paragraph with variety and cadence, differences between active and passive voice, and the correct use of punctuation. He includes an informative section on the “types of words we use” (rather than the sleep-inducing “parts of speech”). He uses metaphors—“Verbosity is a disease” (p. 50)—and similes—“like attempting to build a house without a blueprint” (p. 31)—throughout the book, which enliven the readability of a topic often avoided by those who most need it. Detailed, practical advice is sprinkled throughout with surprises from history and medicine: “bezoar” is the Persian word for antidote (p. 53), and Roget was a physician who first published his thesaurus in 1852 (p. 81). The content is somewhat similar in advice and style to Lester King's Why Not Say It Clearly: A Guide to Scientific Writing (ISBN: 978-0-316-49346-8), but with updated examples and quoted material. Taylor's writing style is that of a friendly mentor and teacher who offers easily absorbable instruction for the nonwriter. Those who need only the motivation might turn instead to Paul Silvia's How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing (ISBN: 978-1-59147-743-3). There are flaws in this book. Taylor's self-reflecting is somewhat overdone. He does not trust his reader to notice his modeling and points it out far too often (once would have been enough). He announces that he “invented” the two-word phrase “thesaurus abuse”—a silly claim in an era of Google. The frequency of typos is more and more common now that spell-check apparently substitutes for copyeditors; this is, however, particularly unfortunate in the second edition of a book about writing. The author states that Google Scholar “seems to let me focus my query better than PubMed” (p. 20), which will be worrisome to librarians who work with scientists but is certainly a reasonable suggestion for medical professionals who write for trade magazines rather than peer-reviewed research journals—at least, he uses Google Scholar, rather than Google. In the final measure, this book is recommended for both academic and public libraries. Practicing physicians and allied health professionals unaffiliated with academic medical centers might also benefit. Taylor is an engaging teacher who will enable the courage of beginners and offer support throughout the process of scholarly communication.
Search from 250 M+ research papersSearch from 250 M+ research papers
Open Access
Mar 18, 2022
N S Maslovskaya 
