Medical Writing Essentials

This list of medical writing resources is updated as new resources become available or I become aware of them. If a link is no longer working or something is missing, I’d be happy to update the list. Just let me know.

Professional Associations and Certifications

• Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions (acehp.org)
• American Medical Writers Association (amwa.org)
• Board Editors in the Life Sciences (bels.org)
• Council of Science Editors (councilscienceeditors.org)
• Drug Information Association (diahome.org)
• European Medical Writers Association (emwa.org)
• International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ismpp.org)
• National Organization of Research Development Professionals (nordp.org)
• Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (raps.org)

Guidelines

• AMWA-EMWA-ISMPP Joint Statement on the Role of Professional Medical Writers
• COPE Guidelines – publication ethics guidelines including authorship, peer review, and retractions
• EQUATOR Network – data reporting guidelines, summarized by study type
• FDA reprint guidelines – distribution of medical publications on unapproved uses
• GPP3 – publication guidelines for company sponsored research
• ICH Guidelines – international guidelines for pharmaceutical regulatory documents
• ICMJE Recommendations – authorship, editing, publishing, and peer review guidelines
• National Guideline Clearinghouse – compilation of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines at AHRQ
• PhRMA Principles – guidelines for conducting clinical trials and communicating results

Reference Library

Writing and Editing Guides

• Greene AE. Writing Science in Plain English. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 2013.
• Health Literacy – information and resources compiled by the University of Rochester Library
• Higgins JPT, Green S, eds. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 [updated March 2011]. The Cochrane Collaboration, 2011. Available from www.cochrane-handbook.org.
• Lang T, Secic M. How to Report Statistics in Medicine: Annotated Guidelines for Authors, Editors, and Reviewers. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: American College of Physicians; 2006.
• Publications Primer. International Society for Medical Publication Professionals; 2016. [for ISMPP members]
• Tufte ER. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2nd ed. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press; 2001.
• Wager E, Smith R. Getting Research Published: An A-Z of Publication Strategy. 3rd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press; 2015.
• Zieger M. Essentials of Writing Biomedical Research Papers. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2000.

Style Manuals

• Iverson C. American Medical Association Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. 10th ed. New York: Oxford University Press; 2007.
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 2010.
• Sabin W. The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting. 11th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2010.
• Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers. 7th ed. New York: The Rockefeller University Press; 2006.

Medicine and Science

• Brunton L, Chabner B, Knollman B, eds. Goodman and Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 12th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2011.
• Hall JE. Guyton and Hall Textbook of Medical Physiology. 13th ed. Philadelphia: WB Saunders; 2015
• Porter RS, Kaplan JL, eds. The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. 19th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons; 2011.
• Stedman’s Medical Dictionary. 28th ed. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; 2006.

Grant Writing

• Kienholz ML, Berg JM. How the NIH Can Help You Get Funded. New York: Oxford University Press; 2014.
• Morrison DC, Russell SW. The Grant Application Writer’s Workbook. Versions for NIH, NSF, USDA, and any agency.
• National Institutes of Health – NIH RePORTER, CSR Applicant Resources, and a presentation on NIH Peer Review.

Continuing Medical Education

• SACME Resources – ethics guidelines, toolkits, and information on gap analysis among other topics
• CME Educational Resource Library – instructional design, regulations, and more from Jacob Coverstone

Literature Search

• Biosis Previews
• Embase
• Google Scholar
• PubMed
• Ovid
• Scopus
• Web of Science
• AMWA members can access my webinar “Publish that Paper Now: Successfully prepare manuscripts that get published” and a Pocket Training “How to Find the Best Journal for Your Scientific Manuscript.”