Welcome!

HCOM 511:Writing about Health

and Medicine

Today’s Class

• Course Overview• Introductions• What does it mean to write well?– In class activity

• This week’s homework

Course Overview

• HCOM 511 - Writing about Health and Medicine

• Designed to teach the skills necessary to write about health and medicine– Not a grammar review

Course Goal

• Writers will have the skills needed to produce high-quality, accurate, readable written materials about health and medicine

• Writers will have several high-quality “clips”

Course Design• Plain Language and Health Literacy• Planning and Research Methods • Selecting Topics• Evaluating Information and Presenting Risk

• Deconstructing an Article• Editing and Ethics• Interviewing, Writing for the Web• Wrapping-Up• Career Panel

Textbooks• Health Writer’s Handbook, 2nd Ed.• Woe is I. The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, second edition

• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Ed. (optional)– available on Amazon.com (note both are second editions)

– on reserve at the library

Class Time• Meet Thursdays from 5:30 to 7:30 pm• Class time consists of

– Homework review– Lecture– In-class activity– New homework assignment

• Out-of-class discussions and other communication at our class website (http://sites.tufts.edu/aliabucciarelli)

Grading• Minimal-marking policy

– Highlight lines that contain errors– Will try to distinguish between grammar and style problems

• Writers should•Pore over drafts with a “reader’s eye”•Use “Woe is I”•Keep lists of typical errors

Grading Scale• Papers will be evaluated for the following:

– Organization– Grammar and Mechanics– Clarity and Style– Content and Accuracy– Bibliography

• All assignments must indicate:– Audience– Word count– Sources– Readability stats

Rewrites

• Are encouraged!• Must be substantively different from the original for an improved grade

• Must be submitted within two weeks of receipt

A bit of philosophy:How is writing

related to critical thinking?*

*Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. John C. Bean. Jossey-Bass Publishers. San Fransisco. 1996

Writing is both a process of critical

thinking and a product of communicating the results of critical

thinking

Writing and Critical Thinking

• If writing is merely a communication skill, then we primarily ask of it,– Is the writing clear?

• If writing is critical thinking, we ask– Is the writing interesting– Does it show a mind actively engaged with a problem

– Does it bring something new to readers– Does it make an argument

Traditional Writing Instruction

• Leads to a view of writing as a set of isolated skills unconnected to an authentic desire to converse with interested readers about real ideas

Introductions

Who Are You?• What is your writing experience?

– how much have you done academically, professionally, creatively?

• What is your experience with writing?– do you like or loathe writing?

• What is your writing style?– academic, scientific, business?

• Have you taken Epidemiology and Biostastics?

• What do you like to read?

Break!

Quality Writing

Who writes about health and medicine?

• Newspaper reporters• Magazine writers• Freelancers• Bloggers• Public information and public relations staff

• Editors• Ad agency members• Broadcast media• Who else?

Types of Health Writing

• Press releases• Journal articles• Patient materials• Proposals• Grants• Magazine/newsletter articles

• White paper/backgrounder

• Newspapers• Project reports• CME• What else?

What makes high-quality health

writing?

• Good health writing is at heart good writing.

• How do you characterize good writing?

Good Writing Has…• Ideas that are interesting and important.• Organization that is logical and effective.

• Voice that is individual and appropriate.• Word choice that is specific and memorable.

• Sentence fluency that is smooth and expressive.

• Conventions that are correct and communicative.

Activity

• Read a health article and indicate if it meets the criteria in the Good Health Writing Checklist.

• Report back to class– Did it meet criteria?– What did you like/dislike about the health article?

Homework• Reading assignment:

– Federal Plain Language Guidelines (skip marked sections)

– Gastel ch. 10 (about style and usage)– On-line discussion on reading

• Writing assignment:– Write a 750-word personal essay about what brought you to Tufts

– due by 5:30 pm, Jan. 27 by email