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Our journal The Write Stuff (TWS) publishes expert reports, articles and news items relevant to medical and regulatory writing, editing, and translation as well as biomedical journalism and publication. The journal aims to educate, inform, entertain and provoke debate. Contributions, comments and suggestions from anyone whose input complements these aims are very welcome.

Past issues are archived below. Open access to a limited number of articles from each issue is available upon publication. All articles in the each issue are available from 9 months after publication.

EMWA members receive TWS in paper format direct by post and can view the electronic version in the members only section of the site as a benefit of their membership. Some past issues are available on the public part of the site 9 months after the date of publication. Non-members who wish to subscribe to the journal please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Annual subscription for non-members is only 35 euros in Europe and 50 euros outside Europe.

TWS is also the perfect place to advertise your products, services, and job opportunities. Advertising rates can be found in the latest copy of TWS. Prices range from 100 euros for private individuals (half-page ad) to 1000 euros for companies (full-page ad). For more information, on advertising in The Write Stuff, or to submit articles, letters to the editor or ideas and suggestions please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it me.

List of medical writing articles written by EMWA members in other journals

Elise Langdon-Neuner

Editor-in-chief

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Our Current issue

'SCIENTIFIC' WRITING
Volume 18 Issue 2 (2009)
	Patientspeak: A Spanish-English glossary of lay medical malapropisms–Part 1	Fernando Navarro
	Patientspeak: Spanish-English glossary of lay medical malapropisms (Part 1: A-C)	Fernando Navarro

REGULATORY WRITING
Volume 18 Issue 1 (2009)
	Broad-spectrum medical writer: Nature or nurture?	Alison McIntosh
	Medical writing for early clinical development	Biddy Schilizzi
	The regulatory medical writer: More than a writer, an expert	Mary Jane Lunsford
	Will avian influenza lead to a human pandemic?	Robert Kahn

RULES AND POLICING THEM
Volume 17 Issue 4 (2008)
	4-letter words and others (4)	Alistair Reeves
	A career in regulatory medical writing	Sam Hamilton
	A case history of EC membership—or how I became involved	Helen Baldwin
	A Comment not a Counter	Barbara Grossman
	A report on the European Conference on Scientific Publishing in Biomedicine and Medicine (ECSP2)	Kari Skinningsrud
	Address, key and sorted	Alistair Reeves
	Addressing issues or writing what you mean	Neville W. Goodman
	An informative but not essential or comprehensive guide to units, symbols and abbreviations.	Gregory Morley
	Another myth	Alistair Reeves
	Basic Results Reporting at ClinicalTrials.gov and ‘Prior Publication’	Deborah A. Zarin
	Call for nominations for executive committee positions	Julia Forjanic Klapproth
	Confidentiality, libel, peer review and the law	Elaine Heywood
	CrossRef: From cross-publisher reference linking to cross-publisher plagiarism screening in eight short years	Amy Brand
	De-gendered or de-sexed?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Digital images and the problem of inappropriate manipulation: Can you believe what you see?	Irene Hames
	EMWA Member Satisfaction Survey	Helen Baldwin
	English as the lingua franca of science: A translators view on what’s lost–and what’s gained–in translation	Gabi Berghammer
	False increase	Alistair Reeves
	Freudian commas	Adam Jacobs
	Ghostwriters responsible for the world’s financial crisis?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	GPP2: New ‘Good Publication Practice’ Responsible and ethical clinical publications	Chris Graf Elizabeth (Betts) Field
	How optimal can you get?	Alistair Reeves
	How successful are we at understanding syntactic ambiguity?	Françoise Salager Meyer
	I have seen the future and it works	Geoff Hall
	Inside a research ethics committee	Adam Jacobs
	Invoicing in Germany	Alistair Reeves
	Message from the President	Julia Forjanic Klapproth
	My second year in business: Update on freelance medical writing activities, October 2007 - September 2008	Sam Hamilton
	Orphan drugs	John Carpenter
	Out on our own	Alistair Reeves Sam Hamilton
	Patients with a past ...	Alistair Reeves
	Publication of clinical trial results, and guest authoring and ghost writers	Melanie Lee
	Say no more!	Alistair Reeves
	Say what you mean	Alistair Reeves
	Searching for The Holy Grail How valuable are metrics in medical writing?	Wendy Kingdom
	SOPs–Pitfalls in the process	Ruth Whittington
	Ten questions for …Lutz Gegenheimer	Lutz Gegenheimer
	The event was treated with cortisone ointment	Alistair Reeves
	The secret world of medical slang	Joeyn Flauaus
	Toolkit for freelancers	Ingrid Edsman
	Who’s Who?	Alistair Reeves
	Working from home—The best of both worlds?	Jude Fry
	Would anyone notice if you died at your desk?	Elise Langdon-Neuner

TIME MANAGEMENT
Volume 17 Issue 3 (2008)
	A public consultation paper on paediatric clinical trial disclosure: European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA)	Kathy B. Thomas Claudia Tesch Michael Braun
	A recipe for chaos: Medical writing, time management, and cooking for friends	Wendy Kingdom
	A week in the life of a medical writer	Thomas Mondrup
	Always manage your time: The point of view of the medical writer in the pharmaceutical industry	Andrea Rossi
	Are we nearly there? Resource planning—step by step	Stephen de Looze
	Book reviews in the medical scholarly literature -Part II: "This book portrays the worst form of mental terrorism"	Françoise Salager Meyer
	Burnout	Lydia J. Goutas
	Coordinating medical writing and publishing in the pharmaceutical industry	Christoph Pfannmüller
	Development of reporting guidelines, adequacy of treatment descriptions in manuscripts, and online articles and citation diversity
	Development of reporting guidelines, adequacy of treatment descriptions in manuscripts, and online articles and citation diversity	Nancy Milligan
	Effective scheduling of Clinical Study Reports	Sam Hamilton
	Get more time out of your day	Debbie Jordan
	In the Bookstores... A blissful read	Helen Baldwin
	Message from the President	Julia Forjanic Klapproth
	Some irreverent thoughts on the word ‘Deadline’	Ursula Schoenberg
	Ten questions for … John Carpenter	John Carpenter
	Time management for a novice freelancer	Stefan Lang
	Time management—Who manages YOUR time?	Alistair Reeves
	Webscout: The art of time management	Joeyn Flauaus
	When time is wide open and deadlines do not press	Jack Aslanian

PERSPECTIVES
Volume 17 Issue 2 (2008)
	Academic titles revisited	Raquel Billiones
	Adverse events: More than a mild headache for the medical writer	Linda Donnini
	Be particular about particularly	Alistair Reeves
	Bleeding nuisance	Alistair Reeves
	Book reviews in the medical scholarly literature. Part I: A brief historical incursion	Geoff Hall
	Breast currency	Helen Baldwin
	Can things do anything but develop over time?	Alistair Reeves
	Clinical trial disclosure—focusing on results	Kathy B. Thomas Claudia Tesch
	Corpus-guided translation and editing: Mary Ellen Kerans	Susanne Geercken
	Corrected incorrects are not always correct	Adam Jacobs
	Country-specific tips: Artist(e)s’ Social Fund for freelancers in Germany	Alistair Reeves
	Darwin Award and moles	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Definitely not Shanks’ pony	Alistair Reeves
	Ethics in clinical trials Discussion leader: Art Gertel	Andrea Palluch
	Finding my feet as a freelance writer	Stefan Lang
	Four letter words and others (3)	Alistair Reeves
	French catch English semi-colon disease	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	From the editor’s desk: Perspectives	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Ghostwriting	Adam Jacobs
	Groping for words: A warning	Alistair Reeves
	Hangings at the bmj: How decisions are made to accept or reject research papers	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	How to save three words	Alistair Reeves
	How to shorten text—we owe it to our readers	Alistair Reeves
	If you weren’t at the AGM this year, well, you should have been …	Rosalie Rose
	Improving the safety of translators and interpreters in war zones: The FIT ID Card	Sheryl Hinkkanen
	In the Bookstores... Nice book, useful guide	Marcel Milcent
	Indentify your punctuation mark and vocabulary improvement	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Linguistic validation of questionnaires used in health outcomes: Paz Gómez-Polledo	Laura Russell
	Medical writing educational materials	J. Patrick Barron
	Message from the President	Julia Forjanic Klapproth
	MISSING TITLE	Joy Burrough
	Out on our own: From freelancers for freelancers	Alistair Reeves
	Perils of the slash	Alistair Reeves
	Publishing Clinical Trials: Ethics and the Pharmaceutical Industry	Nancy Milligan Andrew Smith
	Report from the Freelance Business Forum—Barcelona 2008	Alison McIntosh
	Some thoughts on writing slide presentations: Avoiding ‘death by PowerPoint’	Richard Clark
	Ten questions for … Debbie Jordan	Debbie Jordan
	The return of the native: A British perspective	Lutz Gegenheimer
	The return of the native: An American perspective	Kathryn Nelson Emily
	The world of medical devices—serving two masters	Art Gertel Nancy J. Stark
	Three words or one?	Alistair Reeves
	Tools of the Modern Translator’s Trade: Laura Russell	Gabi Berghammer
	Webscout: Getting published	Joeyn Flauaus

Issue 1 Volume 17 10TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE

10TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
Volume 17 Issue 1 (2008)
	5% of medication errors are due to misunderstood abbreviations	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	A special guidebook to science in Barcelona coauthored by Mercè Piqueras presenter of the welcome lecture at the EMWA conference	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Educating medical writers: A personal history	Stephen de Looze
	EMWA’s new website	Shanida Nataraja
	From the guest editor’s desk: 10th Anniversary issue: Remembrance of things past	Barry Drees
	How to create the best environment for good translations, or, the care and feeding of your translator	Laurence Auffret Laura Russell
	How to write web articles that charm readers and search engines	Simon Hillier
	-ic or -ical?	Alistair Reeves
	In the Bookstores... Medical English	Birgit Von Janowsky
	Last myths about English (7)	Alistair Reeves
	Medical writing tips and ‘spin’ in scientific reporting	Nancy Milligan
	Message from the President	Julia Forjanic Klapproth
	Monitoring clinical trials: A gratifying experience	Farhad Handjani
	Native tips for the EMWA Spring Conference in Barcelona	Santiago Rosales
	Out on our own: From freelancers for freelancers	Alistair Reeves Sam Hamilton
	Plagiarism prevention in educational institutions is extending to biomedical journals	Raquel Billiones
	Self-employment in Germany—My first steps into freelance medical writing	Stefan Lang
	So what is a ‘native speaker’?	Alistair Reeves
	Ten questions for … Alison McIntosh	Alison McIntosh
	Tense and voice in medical writing	Valerie A. Elliston
	The culture of mistrust is already with us	Miguel Roig
	The history of EMWA: Personal (and possibly unreliable) recollections	Geoff Hall
	The history of The Write Stuff: 10 years of bringing European medical writers together	Barry Drees
	Thinking of going freelance? Write a business plan!	Linda Liem

TITLES
Volume 16 Issue 4 (2007)
	4-letter words and others	Alistair Reeves
	A title to have and to hold	Raquel Billiones
	Capitalisation in titles: To have or not to have an easy life?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Cohorts, groups, arms and collectives	Alistair Reeves
	Colonic titles!	James Hartley
	Consensus is always general	Alistair Reeves
	From academia to medical writing—And staying there	Raquel Billiones
	In the Bookstores... Good Peer Review Practice Explained	Karen Shashok
	In the Bookstores... Just a click or two away	Aleksandra Mišak
	Legal considerations in the selection of article, book and journal titles	Elaine Heywood Victoria Chandler
	Medicine and linguistics: A necessary symbiosis in medical titles	Valerie A. Elliston
	Message from the President	Julia Forjanic Klapproth
	Myths 31–34 about English (6)	Alistair Reeves
	Not likely!!	Alistair Reeves
	Out on our own: From freelancers for freelancers	Alistair Reeves Sam Hamilton
	Raising the visibility of ‘small journals’: The Venezuelan Association of Biomedical Journal Editors (ASEREME)	Herbert Stegemann
	Report on the Basle Conference Freelance Business Forum—Incorporating contributions from the EMWA Freelance Email Discussion Forum	Alistair Reeves Sam Hamilton
	Spoken and written use of ‘one’ as a noun	Alistair Reeves
	Ten questions for… Wendy Kingdom	Wendy Kingdom
	The final quarter of my first year as a freelance medical writer	Sam Hamilton
	The joy of travelling	Joeyn Flauaus
	The Science Book Prize: What constitutes a good science book?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Title generators	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Titles in medical articles: What do we know about them?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Titles of research articles: Serbian experience	Sofija Micic
	What is a professor?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Would you call a relative of yours ‘that’?	Alistair Reeves
	Yoohoo! Self-marketing for freelancers and wannabes	Ursula Schoenberg

DO WE NEED PROOF?
Volume 16 Issue 3 (2007)
	4-letter words and others	Alistair Reeves
	A continuing personal account of my first year as a freelance medical writer	Sam Hamilton
	Are ‘QA findings’ always negative?	Alistair Reeves
	Authorship guidelines and ghostwriting, and using multiple publications to improve the reception of a single research study	Melanie Lee
	Breaking news	Wendy Kingdom
	Cross-over trials: Painful lessons	Richard Clark
	Do we need proof?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	EMWA Freelance Business Survey 2007	Alistair Reeves Sam Hamilton
	Goggling and Word tips	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Impact factor manipulation	Diana Epstein
	In the Bookstores... A book to squeeze into the gaps on a medical writer’s bookshelf	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	In the Bookstores... Standards on style and guidance on policy for medical journals	Karen Shashok
	Making the most of clinical trials publication	Madeline Frame
	Message from the President	Julia Forjanic Klapproth
	MISSING TITLE	Jenny Fanstone
	More ways editors can improve impact factors	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Multiple problems: Different or more of the same?	Alistair Reeves
	Out on our own: From freelancers for freelancers	Alistair Reeves Sam Hamilton
	Presenting freelance support for the freelance membership…	Sam Hamilton
	Reflections on terminology: Not ‘alternative’ medicine but integrative medicine	Jack Aslanian
	Risky business	Alistair Reeves
	Still more myths about English (5)	Alistair Reeves
	Successful cross-cultural communication requires us to test our assumptions	Geoff Hart
	The awful English language	Alistair Reeves
	To smiley or not to smiley?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Transparency in medical writing: Medical writers leading the way	Karen Shashok
	Webscout: Alternative and complementary therapies	Joeyn Flauaus
	What does scientific language prove?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	What makes science news?	Cathy Holding
	Word 2007—rejected with an invitation to revise and resubmit	Karen Shashok

THE COMMA
Volume 16 Issue 2 (2007)
	5 more myths about English (4)	Alistair Reeves
	Clinical Trial Disclosure: The ongoing debate on public registers for clinical trials	Kathy B. Thomas Claudia Tesch
	Eureka!	Alistair Reeves
	If in doubt, leave them out—or maybe not? Subtitle: Do the best you can!In the Bookstores... A Call to Make Patients Effective Partners in Medical Research	Alistair Reeves
	In the Bookstores...A Call to Make Patients Effective Partners in Medical Research	Karen Shashok
	In the Bookstores...Can You Trust What You Read in Medical Journals?	Karen Shashok
	In the Bookstores...Medical Writing for Managers
	MedDRA ‘preferred’ terms	Alistair Reeves
	Saving a brain drain: The Norwegian-Russian Centre for Medical Studies and a medical writer’s role in grant applications	Kari Skinningsrud
	UK vs US spelling pitfalls	Karen Shashok
	Using some comman sense	Ursula Schoenberg
	Why –ing forms can be confusing, and the power of hyphenation	Karen Shashok
	Why I don’t like using ‘using’	Karen Shashok

Issue 1 Volume 16 LEARNING/TEACHING MEDICAL WRITING

LEARNING/TEACHING MEDICAL WRITING
Volume 16 Issue 1 (2007)
	Conference highlight reports for marketing purposes: A cross between medical writing and journalism	Anita van den Oetelaar Hélène van Moorsel
	Investigative medical writing: Marrying medical writing and journalism	Catherine Mary

SCHWEINEREI
Volume 15 Issue 4 (2006)

BEHIND THE NET
Volume 15 Issue 3 (2006)

MEDICAL TRANSLATORS
Volume 15 Issue 2 (2006)

CLINICAL TRIALS
Volume 15 Issue 1 (2006)
	Behind the Net: Do we know who stands behind the word?	Elise Langdon-Neuner
	Medical writers in drug development and marketing	Keith Dawes Katherine Kauper

STATUS AND HEROES
Volume 14 Issue 4 (2005)
	Medical writing in a contract research organisation	Karen Donnelly

GREETINGS FROM MALTA
Volume 14 Issue 3 (2005)

Full issue was lost but is now FOUND! Thank you Shanida

LEARNING AND TEACHING
Volume 14 Issue 2 (2005)
	Medical journalism - a career move?	Jo Whelan

DIRECTION
Volume 14 Issue 1 (2005)

EDITING AND WRITING
Volume 13 Issue 3 (2004)

Issue 2 Volume 13 ENRICHMENT THROUGH CULTURAL EXCHANGE

ENRICHMENT THROUGH CULTURAL EXCHANGE
Volume 13 Issue 2 (2004)

Issue 1 Volume 13 FREELANCING: GOING IT ALONE

FREELANCING: GOING IT ALONE
Volume 13 Issue 1 (2004)

WHAT DO WE DO?
Volume 12 Issue 3 (2003)

GETTING STARTED
Volume 12 Issue 2 (2003)

PROBLEM MANAGEMENT
Volume 12 Issue 1 (2003)
	From Over the Pond: Writing about HIV/AIDS	Susanna Dodgson
	Message from the President	Julia Cooper

LEARNING NEVER STOPS
Volume 11 Issue 3 (2002)
	Clients are from Mars, Medical Writers are from Venus?	Alison Rapley
	Developing a Workshop for the EPDP	Alison McIntosh
	From Over the Pond: Medical Writing in the Delaware Valley	Susanna Dodgson
	From the Editor's Desk: Can an Old Dog Learn Some New Tricks?	Barry Drees
	Hey, it's Only My Opinion: Membership	Diana Epstein
	In the Bookstores… Good Advice for Getting Published	Karen Shashok
	Message from the President	Julia Cooper
	Murder in the Cathedral	Geoff Hall
	Your University Liaison Officer is on the Hunt for Help and Information	Teresa Roberts

WINTER 2000
Volume 9 Issue 1 (2000)
	A Three-day Conference in one Day . . .	Debbie Jordan Diana Klein-Franke
	Ethics in Medical Writing	Deborah Landry
	In the Bookstores . . . Pride and Pressure to Publish: The Baltimore Affair	Karen Shashok
	Message from the President	Geoff Hall
	The Fastest Pen In The West	Adam Jacobs
	The medical translator's dilemma: shall I, shan't I?	Anne Bartz

AUTUMN 1998
Volume 7 Issue 3 (1998)
	A Ghostly Reply: a Member Replies to "A Ghostly Crew"	Elizabeth Wager
	Democracy and the Professional Communicator	Carrie Nielson
	From the Literature ... a Tale of Old Boys, Journalology and Skulduggery	Elizabeth Wager
	Reversing the Report-Production Process When Teaching Pharmaceutical Writing	Robert Bonk
	View from the South: Medical Writing in South Africa	Daleen Krige
	Why Medical Writing?	Adam Jacobs

JULY 1998
Volume 7 Issue 2 (1998)
	The View from the East	Jing Ping Yeo
	View from the West, or a Boston Yankee in EMWA's Court	Alice Buckley

WINTER 1998
Volume 7 Issue 1 (1998)
	Alternative Medicine in Germany	Anna Kassnel
	From the Literature ... Whizz Bang into the Electronic Age	Elizabeth Wager
	From the President's Desk	Gerold Wilson
	The Future of Medical and Technical Writing	Stephen de Looze
	Traditional Medicine and Healers in South Africa	Daleen Krige
	View from the Past	Mike Mathews

You can contact the journal editor, Elise Langdon-Neuner, at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it