Reuters Health Executive Editor Ivan Oransky issued this memo in July 2009.
1) Numbers: Always include the number of patients in a given study. Particularly for MED, consider noting how many were recruited, how many didn’t meet criteria, and how many dropped out – and whether there was a proper intention-to-treat analysis.
2) Conveying risks: Let’s do everything we can to include some sort of absolute risk or percentages in both MED and ELINE stories, in addition to relative risks or percentages. I realize that sometimes that’s difficult for epidemiology studies, but we can at least use a population benchmark for those. And many times, the data is right in a table, even if it’s not highlighted in text.
3) Ledes: In general, our ledes – that’s journalism-speak for first paragraphs -- for both MED and ELINE could be shorter. This isn’t an absolute, but if we’re all thinking about that, the average will come down a bit.
4) More on ledes: Have a bit of fun with ledes, make them conversational, punchy, etc. Use generalized statements, where appropriate, eg “Important news for men with prostate cancer: first, the cancer tends to grow so slowly that only a fraction of patients actually die from it,” rather than always going with “Many prostate cancers grow so slowly that only a fraction of patients actually die of the disease, according to a new study.” That’s an ELINE lede, but no reason why MED can’t be similar.
5) Keep it short, part two: Don’t join two pieces of sentences together to make one, unless they are next to each other. Keep sentences to less than 50 words, if possible.
6) Making things active: It’s always better to lead with the results, rather than “A study has concluded that…” Again, not an absolute, but something to consider.
7) Attribution of quotes: We should be precise, and also brief. So the choices for fresh quotes should be “told Reuters Health by e-mail,” “told Reuters Health in a telephone interview,” or “told Reuters Health at [[]] conference.” When it comes from a statement, it should be “said in a statement” or “said in a [journal/university/company] statement.” When a comment comes from a paper, we should not use “says” or “said,” for clarity. Whenever appropriate, let’s include the journal source of a given Reuters story when we clone it. (This is really for those who edit eLine to keep in mind, rather than the writers.)
8) More on quotes: Don’t repeat what has already been stated. Author quotes don’t always have to go at the end (often 2nd paragraph is a good place for them.) If the quote isn’t clean or if it’s awkward (from interview or paper), paraphrase it. (Don’t rewrite except for typos in emailed quotes.) Although we can include medical jargon on MED, don’t go overboard --- it’s news and should be easy to read.
9) Guideline stories: In “new/updated guideline” stories, the headline and lede should be what’s new about them, eg “Women over 50 should be treated for hypertension aggressively, according to new guidelines from the American Hypertension Society,” rather than “The American Hypertension Society issued new guidelines for treating women with high blood pressure yesterday.”
10) Source journals: Whenever appropriate, let’s include the journal source of a given Reuters story when we clone it. (This is really for those who edit ELINE to keep in mind, rather than the write.) Also remember to use Index Medicus to abbreviate the MED citation at the bottom.
11) Endless acronyms: Don’t use every acronym in the paper. Even in MED stories, if they all are familiar to docs, limit yourself to one or two (or none.)
12) The archive: If the topic is an ongoing one, check the archives and include a brief reference to earlier studies. (eg Vioxx is good vs Vioxx is bad….) We’re working on a good way to link to old stories (and to other background material), but for now write the following: (See Reuters Health report, July 29, 2009.)
13) Fact-checking: Use brackets at the end of quotes and other material to note where in the paper you got it – eg [p 454, col 2, para 2].
14) Those pesky articles: Sometimes articles (parts of speech) can disappear. Make (part of speech) seem to be disappearing. For instance: Patients reported… should often be The patients reported….
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About the Author
- Nancy Ehrlich Lapid
- Nancy has edited hundreds of papers for medical researchers around the world. She also helped develop a major new manual of pre- and post-operative care for the American College of Surgeons. Nancy wrote (with Patricia A. Sheiner, MD) Data presentation: how to write and submit abstracts and papers for Surgical Research (Wilmore DW, Souba WW, Eds. Academic Press, San Diego, 2001). These days Nancy edits news stories for Reuters Health, a division of Thomson Reuters. Nancy has a B.A. in economics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She was a Science Writing Fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Wood's Hole, MA.