John Dixon, independent medical writer and trainer in scientific writing skills, provides a useful tip for medical writers who work in MedComms.

John’s Linkedin page is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndixon-lsc/

John’s web page is at https://librasciencecomms.co.uk

Note these “bites” are recorded online using the zoom.us platform and hence quality may be affected by variability in internet connectivity and quality of webcams. The tips, however, are always first class!

Recorded 4 December 2018. Produced by NetworkPharma.tv

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Transcript

Hi, I’m John Dixon, a trainer in scientific writing, and here’s a bite that I hope may help you with your writing.

Write good paragraphs. [NEXT SLIDE]

I used to think that a paragraph was something you produced by just hitting the return key when you got bored with writing a string of sentences. [NEXT SLIDE]

Like this…

Yes, believe it or not, there are two paragraphs in this introduction – which does look a bit dense to get through! [NEXT SLIDE]

Ideally, a paragraph should have a shape, with care taken to plan its start, content and finish.

Ideally, there is an opening (or topic) sentence, a wrap-up sentence at the end, and the content is in some sort of logical order – for instance most important then least important ideas.

So, when writing, think about your paragraphs, and don’t just hit the return key when you’re bored!

I hope that’s helpful. For more bites to help your writing, visit networkpharma.tv.

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We are building a library of free webcasts and other video content for the global MedComms Community and others at http://www.networkpharma.tv and we’d welcome your suggestions for new content.

[For the avoidance of doubt: this video is intended to be freely accessible to all. Please feel free to share and use however you like. Cheers Peter Llewellyn, Director NetworkPharma Ltd and Founder of the MedComms Networking Community activity at http://www.medcommsnetworking.com]