Effective Writing for Health Care

With feedback from a Capstone Reviewer, each participant of Effective Writing for Health Care will develop a submission-ready paper:

• Participants of the Writing for Medical and Scientific Journals track create an article and abstract for submission to a medical or scientific journal
• Participants of the Writing for the Public track create a submission-ready article for a magazine, or opinion piece. 

Participants of each specialized track of Effective Writing for Health Care come together throughout the yearlong learning experience for the Core Curriculum, which is designed to improve writing with a focus on:

Foundational Skills

• Essential and strategic grammar
• Say more with fewer words
• Structure writing elements to meet your goals: sentences, paragraphs, and passages
• Communicate with greater clarity and precision
• Usage, style, and syntax
• Make your writing readily comprehensible
• Sequence your ideas for greater reader impact
• Transitions, topic sentences, and other signposting devices

 

Quality and Impact

• Strategies and best practices for scholarly writing and argumentation
• Good storytelling in non-scholarly writing
• Write persuasively
• Package your work
• Formulate hypotheses to support your specific evidence and analysis
• Write about moral and ethical issues
• Patient-focused writing
• Develop and refine your personal writing style
• Respond to reviewer and peer feedback
• Compose compelling introductions, abstracts, summaries, and conclusions
• Ground your claims, hypotheses, and ideas in evidence
• Evoke emotional responses from readers
• Assess and addressing weaknesses in your arguments, messages, and writing
• When and how to tap into your personal voice

 

Reach

• Get published in internationally and nationally acclaimed journals, newspapers, magazines, and reviews
• Write with dexterity to connect with a broad array of audiences
• Make your science accessible
• Leverage social media to amplify your message
• Engage with co-authors
• Understand what your audience wants

 

Integrity

• Search the biomedical literature
• Understand and avoid plagiarism in its various forms
• Reference management tools for scientific writing
• Develop bibliographies

 

Productivity

• Achieve higher yield and throughput
• Manage your writing focus
• Approach writing projects more efficiently: design, timelines, and milestones
• Cultivate more effective writing habits
• Avoid common writing pitfalls
• Write collaboratively
• Time management strategies
• Navigate writer’s block

 

Process

• Optimize the ideation and planning of your writing project
• Move from idea to structure map to a first draft
• Elicit constructive feedback from peers
• Incorporate feedback
• Revise and refine your writing
• Manage reviewer expectations
• Maintain progress

• Review and revise a final full draft

 

Promotion

• Assess publication options
• Strategies to avoid article rejection
• Pitch your ideas
• Prepare Press releases
• Self-promotion and elevating your personal brand
• Leverage social media

Each specialized track of Effective Writing for Health Care is tailored for your learning experience to your specific writing and career goals. This includes:

• Writing skills-development exercises
• Written feedback at key points from your Assignment Editor
• Assignment of your Capstone Reviewer
• Selection of your final capstone project

Every participant of Effective Writing for Health Care is paired with an Assignment Editor. Assignment Editors are chosen for their writing teaching experience at Harvard University. Your Assignment Editor will provide written feedback as you develop your first two major assignments, a Comparative Paper and a Literature Review, including: 

• Providing feedback on the outlines of your papers 
• Providing feedback on the first drafts of your papers 
• Providing feedback on the revised drafts of your papers 
• Reviewing the final drafts of your papers

Every participant of Effective Writing for Health Care is paired with a Capstone Reviewer who is chosen based upon the reviewer’s expertise in publishing manuscripts or writing for the public.

Your Capstone Reviewer will provide guidance for your capstone project, including: 

• Providing feedback on the pitch and outline of your capstone 
• Providing feedback on the first draft of your capstone
• Providing feedback on the revised draft of your capstone
• Reviewing the final revision of your capstone and providing guidance to help you optimize its value to you and/or your institution

All participants must complete the following academic and attendance requirements in order to be granted a Certificate of Completion from Harvard Medical School.

Attendance at Workshops

• The program features three 4-day intensive workshops. Learners are required to attend and actively engage in all three workshops.

 

Individual Assignments

• The program requires learners to complete and submit on time all individual course-related assignments including writing assignments and quizzes. Learners must obtain a "pass" on the final submission of their Comparative Paper, Literature Review, and capstone Project.

 

Attendance at Webinars

• Live, interactive webinars will be held throughout the program. Learners are required to attend 75% of all required live webinars. If a learner cannot attend a webinar due to an occasional scheduling conflict, it will be possible to view a recorded version and submit an accompanying assignment.