Author Archive for Cindy Powers

popular vs. common

Papers often make statements about the prevalence of the disease or condition being studied.  These statements may be specific to changes in the rate, such as: “There has been a sharp increase in stomach cancer rates in people over the age of 50.” or specific to the age group (or nationality or gender or other patient factor): “Most people diagnosed…

Describing patients

There are countless adjectives that can be used to describe patients: elderly patients (age) cancer patients (specific disease or condition) our patients/their patients (pronoun) 17 patients (number) Japanese patients (nationality) Certainly when there is only one adjective being used, the description is quite simple.  But sometimes it is necessary to describe two or more facts about the patient.  In such…

guess vs. speculate

In daily life, it is common to experience situations where information is unclear or uncertain.  And in such cases, we generally express our uncertainty using the word “guess”.  For example: “I don’t know his age, but I guess he’s around 30.” or “I’m not sure when we’ll arrive, but I guess it will be after 6 pm.” In science, an…

suffer from, suffer

In daily speech, people often describe themselves, their friends or family members as “suffering from a disease” or “suffering an injury”. For example: “My father suffers from diabetes.” or “My son suffered a broken leg when he fell off his bike” This wording focuses attention on the feelings of distress experienced by the sick person as well as expressing the…

Spell checkers and spell checking

Word processors are a wonderful invention.  Word processing programs make it simple to move paragraphs around, re-organize text and re-write sentences as needed until your document is complete. There is no doubt that a spell checker is a great help — obviously, they can catch a great many spelling errors. And since MS Word offers separate language settings for US,…

British vs. American English

One of the most frustrating areas for English-language learners is the difference in spelling and grammar rules between British and American English.  Native speakers learn a consistent set of grammar and spelling rules that apply in their country and only later learn that other spellings, other grammar rules may be applied elsewhere.  Second language-learners are confronted with both systems from…

Writing a Case Report

A medical case study report is an article that describes a particular patient’s diagnosis and treatment plan. These articles lack the systematic rigors of research articles and are presented as descriptive articles. They may be called Case Reports, Clinical Observations or Clinical Notes and published as special articles, special communications or Letters to the Editor. While some journals publish such…

Writing Journal Articles: the beginning steps

The first step in writing your manuscript is selecting the correct format for presenting your findings. Therefore, this first series of blog entries will discuss the various formats used for observational studies, review articles, case reports, posters, slide lectures and other presentations. Observational or experimental studies present and interpret data obtained under carefully defined conditions. Since information can be interpreted…