To expand upon my last post; when I edit the medical articles given to me, they have first gone through two medical editors. So, I am not really responsible for the complicated medical terminology. So when I edit, I am basically looking for comma mistakes, punctuation and grammar errors, as well as sentences that are a bit awkward maybe. As for the style, these articles are written by doctors, for doctors. They are written in very clinical, informative ways. When I say I edit for style, I mean that the Medical Journal that these articles are published in have set style consistencies that they follow. I mentioned the % symbol. They also use serial commas, and numbers are not spelled out. These are some of the style consistencies I have gotten used to looking for already, and I've only edited 4 articles. So when I am editing, I am helping to make sure that the articles fit into the journal, and they are all following the same basic formats.
My rhetorical approach for these articles isn't as developed as I would normally make it. Mostly because I'm told frequently that I am writing for doctors. So this means that I need to write these articles with as much information as possible, but not make it too long. I am also frequently using bullet points just to make short, quick sentences filled with nothing but information. So really, my purpose in writing these articles is to inform, but to make it as easy and quick to read as I can. It's tough. So when I am pulling information out of these articles, I myself am learning exactly what I'm trying to inform these doctors. Sometimes, it's on easy quick topics like a new company that is providing services. Other times, it's much harder. The Obama article I wrote was probably the hardest article I have had to write. He made a speech to the AMA and I had to basically take his whole speech and synthesize it into a three paragraph article.
However, on to week 2. This week has been filled with challenges that differ from last week entirely. On a writing note, I am learning how to take criticism, and also learning that even though I write an article, and my supervisor changes it around a lot, it's not because I did a bad job. Everything written around this office that is going out in a communication is looked over by at least one other person. For example, I had written an article on AMA Policy changes. I had written it over the period of a day and had taken all of the information from the actual policies itself. One of my supervisors, Mary, had taken a look at it over the period of another day and has just given it back to me. A lot of the writing is intact, but she's edited my work, changing a few of my sentences around and such. She's also let me know that I need to include some bullets, because the whole article is just too long.
Another practice that I am trying to get used to is juggling a lot of projects at once. Yesterday was the first day that I've really had to manage my projects because I had three things going on at once. My first task of the day was to interview some of my fellow co-workers on various functions that they had attended for the MSD so that I could write a few short blurbs on them. The three I spoke with assured me that they would get back to me. Then, I had to check on the status of my survey project. My survey project was basically writing a survey in a program called SurveyMonkey. This survey was to ask the Medical Society's members whether or not they used a legal document called Letter of Protection. I had sent the document to be looked over by another co-worker. Then I had to work on writing up a biography for the speaker at the Annual Meeting that the MSD will hold in the fall. All of these projects were interchanged throughout the day. I'd begin work on the survey, have to wait, and then switch around to writing the speaker article. Then, the survey would need more work, so I'd switch again. I've begun to make a list of my projects and their current status, because I couldn't keep track of what I was doing. It's helped a lot, and has made me feel a little more organized.
I've also been learning how to cope with waiting. Some of my projects, like the survey, can't be finished in one day. I needed to write out all the questions and answers, like you would in a normal survey. Then I needed to insert "logics" which skip some questions if you answer them a certain way. For example, if you answered no to a question, and the next question was about you answering yes, the logic would skip that survey taker to the question after. But, this had to be tested by myself, and two other people. I had to wait for the survey to be tested by my co-workers, and then I tested it again and wrote up the accompanying e-mail. This e-mail had to be revised by another co-worker, the links for the survey tested, the survey tested again etc. Over a course of three days, I worked on this survey, in addition to all the other projects. I finally sent it out this morning, in a huge mass e-mail, but waiting for my co-workers to finish their parts after I had completed mine is something to get used to.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Week 1:The Beginning
Even though I am now in the second week of my internship, I want to go back and talk about the first experiences I had last week. First of all, I chose to intern at the Medical Society of Delaware for my Captstone. The Medical Society of Delaware is a community situated in a small office. Their job is to aid and inform the physicians of the Delaware area. I am currently working in the Communications area of the Society. This area deals more with written communications, such as the Delaware Medical Journal, newsletters, e-mails, broadcast faxes and more.
My first day at the Medical Society of Delaware was an exciting, interesting and terrifying day for me. I was a little nervous coming into a position I had never had any experience with. I was given a tour, introduced to all the people and, with helpful explanation, asked to complete my first task. Most of what I did the first day included editing, although I did create a subscription form for the MSD's journal, of which I am quite proud of. It looks like a subscription form you might find in a magazine, and gives information about the journal itself, as well as how to order it.
In addition to the editing, and subscription form, I was asked to write my first articles for a broadcast fax, and to write my first full article about President Obama's speech at the American Medical Association's Annual Meeting. I want to expand briefly on all these tasks.
The editing that I am required to do I find the easiest and the most enjoyable. I like being about to sit and read through these medical articles, although most are filled with medical language I am completely unfamiliar with. Mostly, I edit for style, although I do pick up grammar and punctuation errors along the way. One of the best examples of this is the % symbol. Many of the physicians use this symbol, but in the MSD Journal, they consistently use the word "percent". I feel like I picked up their consistencies very quickly. However, I am still missing some editing mistakes. I am trying, with advice from my supervisors, to take my time and edit much slower, going over the article more than twice.
In regards to the articles I am writing, I find that it is incredibly hard for me to sit down with a brief news article, and glean information from that to write my own article. For one, I'm not really familiar with what I'm writing about, and secondly, I feel like I'm plagiarizing from these articles, even if I only take a few of the words they use and spin them around. It's a very vexing part of what I have to do. I feel like I can not write well enough for these articles, and I'm terrified of plagiarizing something accidentally and having someone call the Medical Society about it. Now I want to be clear, I'm checked by my supervisors. But, I still find it increasingly hard to just write these articles in a manner to which satisfies me.
I hope to discuss this at the weekly meeting I attend with my supervisors tomorrow. But I am definitely learning that writing is a lot harder than coming up with papers for class. In addition, I've already learned a lot about bulk mail, (I even went on a field trip to the post office), broadcast faxes, medical journals and business meetings. I feel like each task I do provides me with a new challenge, and something new I can learn from it. And while I'm starting to reevaluate exactly what I consider my strengths and weakness, I can definitely say with supreme confidence, that just because you can write, doesn't mean you know all there is about writing.
My first day at the Medical Society of Delaware was an exciting, interesting and terrifying day for me. I was a little nervous coming into a position I had never had any experience with. I was given a tour, introduced to all the people and, with helpful explanation, asked to complete my first task. Most of what I did the first day included editing, although I did create a subscription form for the MSD's journal, of which I am quite proud of. It looks like a subscription form you might find in a magazine, and gives information about the journal itself, as well as how to order it.
In addition to the editing, and subscription form, I was asked to write my first articles for a broadcast fax, and to write my first full article about President Obama's speech at the American Medical Association's Annual Meeting. I want to expand briefly on all these tasks.
The editing that I am required to do I find the easiest and the most enjoyable. I like being about to sit and read through these medical articles, although most are filled with medical language I am completely unfamiliar with. Mostly, I edit for style, although I do pick up grammar and punctuation errors along the way. One of the best examples of this is the % symbol. Many of the physicians use this symbol, but in the MSD Journal, they consistently use the word "percent". I feel like I picked up their consistencies very quickly. However, I am still missing some editing mistakes. I am trying, with advice from my supervisors, to take my time and edit much slower, going over the article more than twice.
In regards to the articles I am writing, I find that it is incredibly hard for me to sit down with a brief news article, and glean information from that to write my own article. For one, I'm not really familiar with what I'm writing about, and secondly, I feel like I'm plagiarizing from these articles, even if I only take a few of the words they use and spin them around. It's a very vexing part of what I have to do. I feel like I can not write well enough for these articles, and I'm terrified of plagiarizing something accidentally and having someone call the Medical Society about it. Now I want to be clear, I'm checked by my supervisors. But, I still find it increasingly hard to just write these articles in a manner to which satisfies me.
I hope to discuss this at the weekly meeting I attend with my supervisors tomorrow. But I am definitely learning that writing is a lot harder than coming up with papers for class. In addition, I've already learned a lot about bulk mail, (I even went on a field trip to the post office), broadcast faxes, medical journals and business meetings. I feel like each task I do provides me with a new challenge, and something new I can learn from it. And while I'm starting to reevaluate exactly what I consider my strengths and weakness, I can definitely say with supreme confidence, that just because you can write, doesn't mean you know all there is about writing.
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