Winning the Publications Game - 4th Edition (2016)

First set yourself a brief 25
clever enough to understand, but almost always the fault
lies with the writer.
Do not expect a clear message to emerge as you write
(unless you are a medical sociologist, because you have
probably been taught the opposite). This is like putting
a pile of bricks together and expecting a house to arise.
There is only one way of ensuring that your writing is
focused on one simple message and that is by defining
this message carefully before you start. To keep it as clear
as possible, you should express it as a simple sentence of
10–14 words, with a verb.
Imagine, for example, that you have spent the past
5 years conducting a trial to see whether Obecalp is an
effective treatment for post- lunchtime amnesia in doctors.
You may think the results are so momentous that
you couldn’t possibly confine them to one sentence. But
try, and you will immediately, and with little difficulty,
come up with a number of alternatives.
1. Obecalp is an effective treatment for post- lunchtime
amnesia.
2. Obecalp is an effective treatment for post- lunchtime
amnesia in doctors if given within 48 hours of onset.
3. This latest piece of research adds to the evidence that
Obecalp may be an effective treatment.
4. Obecalp doesn’t have any advantage over existing
treatment (or, if you are not in thrall to a pharmaceutical
company: Obecalp doesn’t work).
All could be perfectly good messages for a piece of writing.
All are plausible and, presumably, supported by the