Day 1

09.15-11.00

Introduction - what do we mean by good writing?      

The writing process - researching, planning, writing and revising. Briefing and information-gathering. Key questions to ask. Some basic principles of style, which can be thought of simply as reader‑friendly writing. We are writing to be understood, and clear thinking is the key to clear writing. Rules for clear and lively writing. Avoiding wordiness and pomposity, worn out words, active versus passive. Some thoughts on sentences and paragraphs. Style points illustrated by mini-exercises

11.00-11.15

Break

11.15-13.00

How to write a good primary paper

Group session in which participants share their knowledge on how to write each section

Materials and methods: A ‘recipe’ for the study. Preferred sequences for different kinds of research. Being precise but concise. Signalling the organization visually and verbally. Using tables and flow charts. Results: The core of the paper. Organization. Relating results to methods. Selecting the best/most representative results. Graphs, tables and illustrations. General principles e.g. comparisons across not down, meaningful decimal points only, avoiding excessive amounts of data. Table titles and figure captions. The commonest statistical errors. Introduction: presentation of the problem, definition of the hypothesis or area of investigation. Discussion and conclusions: Establishing general principles and relationships with reference to the literature.  Dealing with inconsistencies and surprising findings. Applications, implications, and speculations. How to argue your case while remaining scientifically accurate. The take-home message.

References: selecting and citing them. Exercises - analysis of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ writing in papers

13.00-13.45

Lunch

13.45-14.45

Exercise – the abstract as a model of concise writing

Participants write an abstract for a paper and correct each others’ work

Giving your paper a good title

Participants devise titles for primary papers (this is also an exercise in extracting key points from a paper!)

14.45-15.00

Break

15.00-16.45

Correct writing

Common mistakes of grammar and English and how to avoid them e.g. sentence fragments, run-on sentences, subject-verb mismatches, singulars and plurals, wrongly used auxiliary verbs, dangling participles and misplaced modifiers, wrongly used tenses, I and me, who and whom, position of ‘only’, parallelism.

Grammar and usage quiz

                                                                       Day 2

09.15-11.00

Coping with complexity

Addressing more complex projects such as training materials, monographs and reviews. Obvious and not-so-obvious information sources. How to read a paper. What type of paper/study is it? Getting your bearings. Going straight to the bottom line. Assessing quality – objective and subjective issues. Note-taking and managing your references. Classical principles of argumentation. Exercise – mind-mapping in groups

11.00-11.15

Break

11.15-12.30

Refining your style

Pitching your writing at different audiences e.g. reps, GPs, specialists, nurses, patients. Ruthless writing for small spaces. How to construct more elegant sentences using parallel structures. Adding drama - without overdoing it. Rhetorical questions. Cliches - seek and destroy. Using language expressively. Rhythm. Rhetorical techniques. Metaphor and simile in technical and scientific writing. Alliteration and the 'rule of three'. Persuasive writing for pharmaceutical marketing

Making promotion plausible and ethical. Reconciling the company's and the readers' interests. Showing empathy Mood and tone - challenging vs comforting. Seven rules for persuasive writing. Accentuating the positive. Stressing benefits, not features. The 12 most persuasive words in the English language? Showing how your ideas will work in practice. Using examples to make your point. Making your copy acceptable to the approvals committee and the ABPI. Essential and non-essential hedging.

Short exercises to illustrate key points

12.30-13.15

Lunch

13.15-15.00

Slides – planning and preparation

Differences between speakers’ slides and slides for slide kits. Numbers of slides. Balance between graphics and text slides. Rules for creating text slides, tables, graphs and other illustrations. Exercise – commenting on ‘rogues’ gallery of bad slides.

15.00-15.15

Break

15.15-16.45

Introduction to posters

How do people read posters? Key elements of posters – how does a poster differ from a paper? Principles of data selection for posters. How to write the text for a poster Principles of poster design. Exercise – the poster beauty parade.

Perfecting your document

Editing and proofreading skills. Exercises – how good a proofreader are you? Time for questions