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Writing medical papers

Writing medical papers. Lessons from the masters. Why should we write?. Words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions think. Lord Byron 1788 - 1824. Why should you record your findings in print?.

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Writing medical papers

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  1. Writing medical papers Lessons from the masters

  2. Why should we write? Words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions think. Lord Byron 1788 - 1824

  3. Why should you record your findings in print? In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer 1564 - 1642

  4. Skill The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. Edwin Schlossberg, designer 1945 -

  5. Travails when writing a paper • Travail: painful or laborious effort • From medieval Latin trepalium: instrument of torture

  6. Travails when writing a paper ‘Writing is easy. All you have to do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.’ Gene Fowler, author 1890 - 1960

  7. Travails… Churchill’s recipe, more comprehensive than that offered by Gene Fowler, can be used to advantage when writing a paper: ‘… blood, toil, tears and sweat…’ Winston Churchill, 13 May 1940

  8. A test for good writing Our admiration for fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease. Charles Caleb Colton, clergyman and author 1780-1832

  9. Creativity Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. Charles Mingus, jazz artist 1922 - 1979

  10. Basic principles If words are to enter men’s minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words, shaped cunningly to pass men’s defences and explode silently and effectively in their minds. J. B. Phillips 1906-1982, famed for making the Bible come ‘extraordinarily alive’

  11. Basic principles That writer of merit is praiseworthy whose words, free from the bias of likes and dislikes, are firmly established in the narration of things as they happened. Kalhana in Rajatarangini (around 1148 AD)

  12. Basic principles ‘Begin at the beginning’, the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end. Then stop.’ Lewis Carroll (Alice’s adventures in wonderland)

  13. Clarity of thought If any man wishes to write in a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet and scientist, 1749 - 1832

  14. Brevity It is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. Robert Southey, British Poet Laureate, 1744 - 1843

  15. Brevity It does not require many words to speak the truth. Chief Joseph, American Indian leader 1840 - 1904

  16. Brevity Do not display diarrhoea of the pen and constipation of the mind. Anonymous

  17. Simplicity He has never been known to use a word that may send the reader to the dictionary. William Faulkner (1897 - 1962) on Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)

  18. Simplicity I am a bear of little brain and long words bother me. A. A. Milne in ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’

  19. Style People think I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say and say it clearly. That is the only secret of style. Mathew Arnold 1822 - 1888

  20. Style The most perfect technique is that which is not noticed at all. Pablo Casals, cellist 1876 - 1973

  21. Style An author knows that he nears perfection not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to take away. Antoine St. Exupery, French aviator and author 1900 - 1944

  22. Misuse of statistics • Statistics can be used to prove anything - even the truth. - Anonymous • He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than illumination. - Andrew Lang 1844 - 1912 • There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics! - Benjamin Disraeli

  23. Masking untruth • The only ‘ism’ some medical authors believe in is plagiarism. - Anonymous • To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to do so from many is research. - Anonymous • That’s not a lie - it’s a terminological inexactitude. - Alexander Haig, US Secretary of State • Most authors regard truth as their most cherished possession and are therefore most economical in their use of it. - Mark Twain

  24. Beautiful writing We ascribe beauty to that which is simple, which has no superfluous parts, which exactly answers its ends, which stands related to all things and is the mean of many extremes. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 - 1882

  25. Captivating writing His writing is lucid because language almost disappears. What remains is the idea. I think that is the height of good writing - to express creatively without the weight of English literature imposing itself. R. K. Laxman on R. K. Narayan’s prose

  26. Humour My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity. - George Bernard Shaw

  27. Humour • Some of Dr. Richard Asher’s papers: • Why are medical journals so dull?(BMJ 23 August 1958) • A woman with the stiff-man syndrome. (BMJ 1 February 1958) • The dangers of going to bed. (BMJ 13 December 1947) • Collected papers: • Asher R: Talking Sense London: Pitman Medical 1972 Richard Asher 1912 - 1969

  28. ‘He has published 2000 papers!’ • ‘His work is not so much the product of fecundity as of incontinence.’ A reviewer in Le Monde commenting on an author who had published a large number of papers • ‘The dust of dead words clings to thee. Wash thy soul in silence.’ Rabindranath Tagore in Stray birds

  29. Sound advice So perhaps, after all, it’s as well to be quiet If you’ve nothing you think is worth saying in prose, Than to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet To the critics, by publishing, as you propose. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. 1809 - 1894

  30. Summing up A writer should represent the embodiment of a rishi - one who celebrates virtue and intelligence, remains steadfastly aloof from the temptations of a celebrity-driven society, regards clarity and elegance of expression as attributes of a neat and robust mind and who strives to treat readers with the respect they so richly deserve. From tribute to Sham Lal by Dileep Padgaonkar

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