The Toolkit of Formal Writing

• Advanced medical manuscripts require a formal register. We review nominalisation, the passive voice, hedging, and cohesive devices to elevate your prose.
• Technique
• Informal / Direct
• Formal / Advanced
• Nominalisation
• We investigated the tissue.
• Investigation of the tissue was conducted.
• Passive Voice
• Researchers found no differences.
• No differences were found.
• Hedging
• This causes the disease.
• This tends to give rise to the pathology.
• Remember
• Use nominalisation to turn verbs into nouns, making sentences more objective.
• Employ the passive voice to focus on the action or result rather than the experimenter.
• Apply hedging verbs and modal adverbs to temper absolute claims.
• Ensure cohesion by utilizing discourse markers such as 'arguably' and 'admittedly'.
• Examples
• Evaluation of the patient cohort was performed in Boston.
• It would appear that the intervention reduces mortality.
• Such data must be interpreted with caution.
• Common mistakes
• We think this drug is working great.
• It is suggested that this pharmaceutical agent functions efficaciously.

Complete the sentences

• Rigorous (analyse) ____ of the Chicago data was carried out.
• It (seem) ____ that the Boston trial yielded superior outcomes.
• The results (attribute) ____ to improved surgical techniques in London.
• Measurement of blood pressure (perform) ____ twice daily.
• These findings (tend) ____ to support the prevailing hypothesis.
• Such anomalies (explain) ____ through methodical observation.

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