Corruption of Medical Language

This article, published in Ideas in Ecology and Evolution, argues that we should incorporate touches of humor and beauty into academic writing, and suggests how to do so. While scientists are often exhorted to write better, it is not entirely obvious what “better” means. Largely undiscussed is the question of whether our goal of clarity in academic writing precludes us from making our writing enjoyable – by incorporating touches of whimsy, humanity, humor, and beauty.…

This letter, published in Journal of Systems and Software, is a humorous take on the woes of the manuscript writing and review process.  

This article, published in Effective Clinical Practice, provides a framework for writing academic manuscripts. Themes from the framework include: 1) start writing before your project is completed; 2) focus your attention on what readers are most likely to look at: the title, abstract, tables, and figures; 3) develop a systematic approach to the introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections; and 4) improve the paper by learning how to get and incorporate useful feedback.