{"id":1249,"date":"2016-02-26T20:49:50","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T19:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/adc\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2016-02-02T10:51:42","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T09:51:42","slug":"practical-authorship-keeping-it-brief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/adc\/2016\/02\/26\/practical-authorship-keeping-it-brief\/","title":{"rendered":"Practical Authorship: Keeping it Brief"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Quill_pen\"You’ll have read, or have been taught about haiku, the highly stylised Japanese three line poetry which has five, seven and five syllables per line. \u00a0 What you don’t hear is people saying “Oh, haiku are great; I just wish they were a bit longer”.<\/p>\n

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In fact there are many other rules about haiku, some of which claim to come from the original Japanese rules, many of which are ignored, and lots of which are hotly disputed by aficionados – just take a look at the mess of this Wikipedia page<\/a>. \u00a0But the point stands – there aren’t many folk who try to argue that haiku should be several pages long.<\/p>\n

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When you undertake a medical consultation, even the most optimistic clinician will agree that only two or three points will be taken away by the patient or family. \u00a0 If you listen to\u00a0young people – well expressed in this blog post<\/a>, you will hear some important truths – “Get to the point”, “I don’t understand some of the words”. \u00a0Unless your readers are incredibly clever, and in a trance like state of concentration or flow<\/a>\u00a0then why should they be much different? \u00a0I don’t get times of quiet to read – I fit it in around other things, including my family and non-work life. \u00a0Why would you expect otherwise from your readers?<\/p>\n

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When you read this paper<\/a>\u00a0you don’t think “Oh, but history would have been even more changed if they’d had 1500 words instead of 700”. \u00a0On a rather less grand scale, when you read one of our “Fifteen Minute Consultation<\/a>” papers, do you think “Oh, I wish that had gone on for half an hour?”<\/p>\n

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So, here is the challenge. \u00a0You think of the 2500 words for a paper as a constraint. \u00a0You think of 1500 words to write a Fifteen Minute consultation as a constraint. \u00a0But what you actually need to do is think of it as a virtue – something which will, like the haiku, make your writing the thing it is. And so this is why, I’m sorry, you can’t have any more words.*<\/p>\n