A Few Words on Focus

Greetings again. I hope that all is going well.

This week I took part in an American Medical Writers Association regional conference. It was at the Asilomar Conference Grounds, on the California coast.

After giving my sessions, I took a long walk around the site. I enjoyed seeing—and taking photos of—the water, the sand, the plants, a deer, and more.

Some of my photos were OK. But some had poor focus, poor composition, or other problems. Maybe I should have taken fewer photos and spent more time planning each.

I think that many of us have a similar difficulty with our writing. We sometimes spend too little time planning. And so we write papers that lack focus, are poorly organized, or have other problems.

Flying back to Texas after the conference, I read part of a newly published book that can help in writing journal articles that are well focused and well organized. The book is Scientific Writing = Thinking in Words, by David Lindsay.

Lindsay says to state one’s research hypothesis clearly and then keep it in mind when writing each part of the paper. For example, he states that

• The introduction should present the reasoning behind the hypothesis and then the hypothesis.
• The results section should begin with, and focus largely on, results that are highly relevant to the hypothesis.
• Similarly, the discussion section should begin with, and emphasize, arguments strongly related to the hypothesis.

Helpful ideas!

Wishing you a good week— Barbara