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 25 October 2019. 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.

Be careful using ‘because’ after a negative statement [NEXT SLIDE]

‘Because’ is a subordinating conjunction
It links an independent clause to a dependent clause and would usually not be preceded by a comma [NEXT]
For example … The trial failed to prove X is more effective than Y because there was an inadequate number of participants. [NEXT SLIDE]

So here, the independent clause is … The trial failed to prove X is more effective than Y [NEXT SLIDE]

… and after ‘because’, the dependent clause is … there was an inadequate number of participants [NEXT]

Here, when the independent clause is followed by ‘because’ with no comma, the following dependent clause is essential to the meaning of the whole sentence, i.e. it modifies (restricts) the meaning of the sentence [NEXT]

So this statement clearly and unambiguously states the reason why the trial failed [NEXT SLIDE]

But take this sentence that begins with a negative statement

… The trial did not prove that X is more effective than Y because there was an inadequate number of participants. [NEXT]

If you read this sentence carefully, it seems that an inadequate number of participants does not explain the findings of the trial
But this statement is ambiguous … and we may well assume that there is another explanation [NEXT SLIDE]

Here’s an alternative and unambiguous explanation:
… The trial did not prove X to be more effective than Y, … PAUSE … because the dose of X was insufficient to achieve therapeutic thresholds in male participants [NEXT]
… note the comma before the because [NEXT]
Here, we now know why X was not found to be more effective than Y
We’ve avoided ambiguity after a negative statement by using a comma before ‘because’ [NEXT]

Well, I hope that’s helpful. For more bites, visit NetworkPharma.tv

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[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]