Interlude: Persuasive Patterns, Modifiers, and Jargon

Here's my latest curated round-up of the best tips, tools, and resources on scientific and medical writing.

💌 Round-up

💻 From My Desk

8 Powerful Patterns to Persuade Your Reviewers
Persuasive writing is a powerful approach to communicating information and motivating readers. With some language patterns in your toolbelt, you can craft persuasive arguments that influence your readers and compel them to take action.

How the Location of Modifier Words Ensures Clarity in Your Writing
Modifiers can add emphasis or important details to your writing. But misplaced modifiers can cause confusion by conveying a different (and sometimes humorous) meaning. To ensure clarity in your writing, put modifiers next (or as close as possible) to the word or phrase they modify.
 

📆 Upcoming

The Anatomy of a Grant Proposal
In a few weeks, I'm heading to the University of San Francisco to speak about the anatomy of a grant proposal. I'm looking forward to meeting with the faculty in the Center for Research, Artistic, and Scholarly Excellence and hearing about their exciting research projects.

Scientific Writing Masterclass - Summer 2022
The Scientific Writing Masterclass is underway! If you are interested in joining the next group of participants, add your email to the mailing list or simply reply to this email with "Interested" in the subject line.

👓 Reading

Online archives where scientists post their research spark information revolution
This article does a great job of summarizing the peer-review process. It also covers the pros and cons of pre-print servers, including why posting a study on a preprint server is appealing, whether preprint articles should be trusted, and what nonscientists need to consider when covering preprint articles.

Publishing of COVID-19 preprints in peer-reviewed journals, preprinting trends, public discussion and quality issues
"COVID-19-related preprints were more publicly discussed and favored for publishing in peer-reviewed journals, typically with a shorter peer-review process, which might have possible repercussions on the quality of journal-published articles."

Patient-driven innovations reported in peer-reviewed journals: a scoping review
"Peer-reviewed publications on patient-driven innovations are increasing and we see an important opportunity for researchers and clinicians to support patient innovators’ research while being mindful of taking over the work of the innovators themselves."

🧰 Tools

De-Jargonizer
Jargon is a top predictor of readability (and has been correlated with imposter syndrome). To ensure your writing is accessible, especially for a general audience, check out this free tool to identify jargon in your writing.

💬 Quote

“Persuasion occurs when trust and confidence meet belief, risk tolerance, and safety.” — Jeffrey Gitomer
 

Thank you so much for reading.

Warmly,

Crystal