Why Using Similar Terms Strengthens Your Scientific and Medical Writing

Many of us had an English teacher who encouraged (or perhaps berated) us to use different words to make our writing more interesting. They may have said that repeating words is boring or repetitive. That opinion may be true to some extent. But using different words can confuse readers, especially when those words are technical terms.

Words vs Terms

A key concept to understand is that words and terms are not the same. A word is language that is officially accepted, has an official definition, and is generally understood by everyone. In other words, words are common and well-known by most people in most fields. For example, suggest, study, discover, increase, and measure are all words. No matter what field you study, you likely know the meanings of these words.

On the other hand, a term is language that may be understood by some people or a specific group of people. In other words, terms are not as common and are only well-known by people in a particular field. For example, phosphorylate, overexpress, differentiate, anastomosis, and polymerize are all terms that are unique to certain fields. If you are a chemist, you may not know what anastamosis means. Or if you are a psychologist, you may not know what polymerize means.

Because words and terms are different, you want to treat them differently in your writing to add clarity and interest to the prose.

Similar Terms Add Clarity

When readers encounter terms that are unfamiliar to them, they will perceive those terms as jargon. And jargon erodes clarity.

What’s worse is that authors will use inconsistent terms to try to add interest to their writing. But in the eyes of an unfamiliar reader, these inconsistencies only add more jargon that leads to more confusion.

When you use similar terms consistently, you can help readers navigate and understand new information. Also, when you repeat key concepts with the same words, you send a gentle signal to readers that the topic is important. These features help to make the writing clearer and the reader’s job easier.

Consider the following example.

Example 1.1

By reducing the number of avoidable hospital days, we also reduced the length of stay. Decreased time in the hospital has been associated with improved patient outcomes. Moreover, decreasing patient hospitalization increases hospital capacity to care for patients.

In this example, the terms length of stay, time in hospital, and patient hospitalization mean similar things. But the different wording can be confusing for readers.

To make this example clearer, we can use the same term, length of stay, throughout the text.

Example 1.2

By reducing the number of avoidable hospital days, we also reduced the length of stay. Decreased length of stay has been associated with improved patient outcomes. Moreover, decreasing length of stay increases hospital capacity to care for patients.

Different Words Add Interest

To add interest to your writing, you can use different words that are familiar to readers. For example, you could substitute the word improve with enhance or augment. Or you can switch from hypothesize to posit. Or you can revise alter to change. These revised words will vary the energy in the writing to make the prose more interesting and engaging for readers.

Consider the following example.

Example 2.1

We studied differences in the quality of care for patients with heart failure. We found gaps in the quality of care related to scheduling follow-up appointments at discharge. We also found substantial differences in the quality of care among hospitals.

This example repeats two common words: differences and found. To make the writing more interesting and engaging, we can substitute alternative words. We can change the first instance of differences to variability and keep the second instance of differences. We can also change the first use of found to identify and keep the second use of found.

With these changes, we get the following revision.

Example 2.2

We studied variability in the quality of care for patients with heart failure. We identified gaps in the quality of care related to scheduling follow-up appointments at discharge. We also found substantial differences in the quality of care among hospitals.

Similar Terms, Different Words

In Example 2.2, you may have noticed that we kept the term quality of care the same throughout the text. This consistency in technical terms helps to make the reader's job easy. And the different words (variability/differences, identify/found) add interest to make the reader’s job more enjoyable. This balance of similar terms and different words is key to crafting clear and compelling writing.