4 lessons corporate communicators can le...

I’ve never been overly fond of sports metaphors, but I recently discovered how much you can learn about communications by watching my son practice soccer. My son’s soccer coach is an ideal communicator. He’s firm and direct when he’s teaching the team new skills, but also supportive as they practice what they’ve learned. He encourages the boys to try new things and provides candid feedback about their efforts. Coach Marcus also does all this with an audience of highly competitive, yet easily distracted nine-year-old boys. Below is advice he gives from the...

5 ways to push past writer’s block

There’s an old New Yorker cartoon on a bulletin board above my desk. It shows a kid who’s just built a sand castle. An adult standing next to him says of the castle, “It’s brilliant.” But the thought bubble from the kid says, “Then why do I feel like such a hack?” This week, I feel like a hack. I’ve struggled to complete the simplest writing tasks. Who was it that said, “I hate writing, but I love having written”? Rather than stare blankly at my laptop and grow increasingly frustrated, I reviewed my previous posts on overcoming writer’s block and...

Is there a stronger alternative to “impa...

“Impact” as a verb . . . go ahead, roll your eyes accordingly. Last week, we had a request to change the verb “affects” to “impacts” in a headline. The requestor thought “impact” was the better choice because it was a stronger verb. Original headline: Recent court decision affects physicians. Requested headline: Recent court decision impacts physicians. Once we explained that using “impact” as a verb is not proper usage, we were asked if there was stronger verb than “affects.” The alternatives were: Recent court decision concerns physicians. Recent...

Improve your writing with precise and me...

I recently met a fellow writer at a party. But she’s not technical writer, a PR pro or corporate communicator. She’s a food critic. I was immediately curious about her approach to writing. As a medical writer, I would be at a complete loss if I had to describe how something tastes. I simply don’t have the command of adjectives and adverbs required for that type of writing. She told me that in her work, she’s very attentive to how the food tastes and how it’s cooked, and she’s very deliberate in how she describes the food. She also said that it helps to have a...

17 complicated medical terms and their s...

I’ve written before about the value of using simple words in place of complex ones. The use of complex terms interferes with comprehension and frustrates your readers. But when it comes to medical writing, using simpler terms is not always possible. Medical terminology is notoriously complicated, given the Latin and Greek origins of many medical terms. Then there are the eponyms (words derived from someone’s name), such as listeriosis or Guillain–Barré syndrome. Below is a list of complicated medical terms and their simpler explanations. (Definitions from Medline...

Is exclusively using “he” a ...

This week, I was asked to fact check and update one of my company’s older publications. The content had been written by a freelance writer who was now retired. The information in the piece was still valid, so it didn’t appear that there was much for me to do. Then I read this sentence in the introduction: “The author recognizes there are as many female doctors and patients as there are males. The use of ‘he’ includes both masculine and feminine genders. It is not meant to offend the reader but rather to avoid a cumbersome writing style.” Hmmmm. I have...

11 corporate terms and what they mean to...

I once worked for a company where the HR department insisted that we use the term “full-time equivalents” instead of “employees” or “staff.” They’d say, “Our full-time equivalents are our most valuable asset.” To HR staff, the term “full-time equivalents” has a specific meaning, so that’s why they use it. To corporate communicators, “full-time equivalents” is just another dehumanizing HR term that we advise HR staff not to use. (Same with “human assets” or “human capital.”) Below is list of other such corporate terms and what they...

A brief guide to using “a” a...

Determining whether to use “a” versus “an” should not be confusing, but it is. This week, I had a prolonged discussion with a co-worker about why “an MRI” is correct and “a MRI” is not. It turns out that many of us were taught the wrong rules for use of the indefinite articles. I remember being told to use “an” when the word preceding it starts with a vowel and to use “a” when the word preceding it starts with a consonant. The rules actually say to use “an” before any word beginning with a vowel sound and to use “a” before any word...