Four Medical Writing Tips For Writing Engaging Content

November 7th, 2012 by

If you’re a medical professional, medical writing might seem to be right up your alley. Sure it is, as long as you know some medical writing tips that can get you started.

Why Do You Need Medical Writing Tips?

To start with, understand that writing for the web is entirely different from conventional writing.

  • The content needs to be universal, for everyone to understand easily.
  • The information should be targeted, in terms of the subject and the audience.

Medical content writing is a niche affair, and your experience and expertise will play a big role in how you shape your articles. With the right medical writing tips, you should easily be able to get started.

Medical Writing Tips

Proper research ranks supreme among medical writing tips you should follow

Medical Writing Tips You Should Know

Medical Writing Tip 1: Get Your Facts Right

Writing medical content is a serious task, as people will make important life decisions based on what you’ve written.

Good writers don’t just write fancy lines, they do effective research too.

While researching, ensure that you compile information from legitimate websites that can be trusted, like acclaimed medical websites and medical reports/PDFs that you find online. Avoid websites where the information is not verified – this is a skill that you should develop with time.

An eye for judging what data to use and what to avoid is an essential skill that a medical content writer should possess.

Medical Writing Tip 2: Keep It Simple And Concise 

While writing for the web, remember that you are talking to people through your words.

Keep your tone conversational, and avoid words that you wouldn’t use naturally. Writers often use terms like ‘therefore’, ‘thus’, and ‘hence’ – not only are these archaic, they prevent them from connecting with the readers. These words feature prominently in most Indian academic books, so writers assume that it’s alright to use them – which is wrong.

The attention span of most online readers is very low, so shorten your sentences and keep them crisp. If you can use one word in the place of four, go ahead and do it!

Convoluted lines give way to grammar errors, so the simpler your lines are, the lesser you’ll have to worry about grammatical perfection.

Medical Writing Tip 3: Break Down Medical Terminology

Remember, it’s highly unlikely that your readers are medical professionals. They might not understand terms that sound common to you.

There are millions of health-related articles on the web, so why should anyone read yours?

Give them a reason. Simplify.

Don’t tell them that heart failure can cause pulmonary edema. Rather, explain what pulmonary edema is, so that the impact of your statement is greater. They’ll pay more attention when they learn that fluid can fill up their lungs.

Break down complex medical terms and conditions and explain them to laymen in a simple manner. Use your experience in the field to focus on what’s important.

Medical Writing Tip 4: Structure The Article Well

Again, online readers have low attention spans, so you should spice things up for them. Framing a catchy title is a good way to grab a reader’s attention. Search engines through up thousands of results for every query, and a targeted title will give them a reason to click on yours.

Consider this title for an article on the causes behind epileptic seizures.

‘Epileptic Seizures Explained’

Seems pretty straightforward, right? Wrong. The target here is muddled, and there’s an element of uncertainty about the content of the article.

Consider this title for the same topic.

 ‘Five Triggers That Cause Epileptic Seizures’

This title clearly states that you’re going to talk only about five key causes, so readers know what to expect. This title will naturally attract attention.

Always try and take a reader’s perspective to understand how to approach a subject. Give your article a structure, and create a content map. This is the simplest content map of them all:

  • What?
  • Why?
  • Core Information
  • What Next?

Now, let’s just sync this with the topic we discussed earlier – the causes behind epileptic attacks.

The content map will be:

  • What Is An Epileptic Attack? (Introduction)
  • Why Should Readers Know The Causes?
  • The Causes Behind Epileptic Attacks (Core Information)
  • What Next? (Conclusion)

Subheadings are important.

Visualizations have shown that readers browse through a web-page in an F-shaped pattern, reading the initial lines (horizontally) first and scrolling down (vertically) to decide whether the article is worth the read.

If your article has informative subheadings and bulleted lists, chances are high that they’ll stick to the page. Ultimately, nothing works better than valuable content, so try and add value (through experience and research) to every article that you write.

These medical writing tips will help your article attract attention, and once this is done, it’s up to you to reward the readers with good content.

If you’ve gone through these medical writing tips and are ready to get started, apply for our medical writing jobs!


Wordplay Content is a full-service content writing agency. Our content writing India business provides content writing services for a plethora of customers. Reach out if you want to hire us for your inbound marketing campaign!

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