Barbara Gastel

In keeping with its tagline, “The Resource for Medical Communicators,” the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) provides guidance not only in medical writing but also more broadly in medical communication. Accordingly, its annual conferences include much of interest and use to editors. The current report presents highlights of 3 sessions of the 2025 AMWA annual conference, held November 5–8 in Phoenix, Arizona. Tips and Tricks for Solving Common Grant Proposal Pitfalls By Katherine Hollen This session, led by Crystal Herron, founder and chief visionary officer of Redwood Ink, provided strategies to address common issues encountered when crafting grant proposals. Herron identified a series of problems or pitfalls and presented advice on addressing each. The advice included the following: If a project seems inadequately matched with the funding call, consider adjusting the scope rather than devising a different project. Keep the audience in mind; ensure that the writing is clear, simple, and targeted to reviewers. Tell a story that flows smoothly and logically, with details that support the main message. Avoid disjointed writing that obscures the story. To maximize impact, emphasize long-term goals by bolding them. Also explicitly connect the goals to the proposal’s significance. Present statistical analyses, such as power analyses, clearly and in sufficient detail. Differentiate biological and statistical significance. Ideally, collaborate with a statistician. To help the team appear prepared and strategic, identify potential pitfalls and note alternative approaches. Link outcomes directly to goals; failure to do so can weaken the overall message. Reiterate the impact statement in […]

“Of all the ways to begin a book on medical editing, a poem would not be my first (or second or third) guess,” a review1 of my recent book, Medical Editing: A Guide to Learning the Craft and Building Your Career,2 begins. Fortunately, the reviewer concludes that the lighter touches enhance the book, which is mainly for prospective and beginning medical editors but also can serve others. Both in content (see Box) and approach, the book draws on my learning over the years as editor, writer, and teacher of writing and editing. The following is the tale behind the book, with emphasis on my experience as an “editor as editee.” Box. Contents: Medical Editing: A Guide to Learning the Craft and Building Your Career, by Barbara Gastel (University of Chicago Press, 2025)* Chapter 1: The Scope of Medical Editing Chapter 2: Key Resources for Medical Editors Chapter 3: Approaching an Editing Project Chapter 4: Copyediting: Editing for Mechanics and More Chapter 5: Substantive Editing: Editing for Content and Organization Chapter 6: Editing Conference and Career Communications Chapter 7: Additional Aspects of Medical Manuscript Editing Chapter 8: Ethics: Your Own and Others’ Chapter 9: Careers in Medical Editing *For a detailed table of contents, see https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo257227736.html. The Path to the Book People often ask how long it took me to write the book. Depending on the perspective, the answer could be about 50 years, about 25 years, about 10 years, or intermittently over a few years. My involvement in editing began […]

Addressing topics ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) (of course), to questionable research practices, to editor–freelancer interactions, ScienceWriters2025—organized by the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing—featured virtual-only sessions on October 22–24, 2025 and in-person sessions in Chicago on November 7–9, 2025. The current report presents highlights of the virtual-only sections and selected in-person sessions. The Truth About AI: How to Report on It Without Giving in to Hype and How to Use It in the Newsroom By Kyle Hickman The opening session of ScienceWriters2025 examined how journalists can responsibly report on AI, and how they can thoughtfully incorporate it into newsroom work. Moderated by Brittany Trang, health tech reporter at STAT, the session featured Ari Sen, investigative data journalist at CBS News, and Jeff Hargarten, data journalist at the Minnesota Star Tribune. Sen began by outlining the fundamentals of AI, explaining that many public debates about the technology—whether it will eliminate jobs, cure disease, or pose existential risks—are best approached with a solid understanding of what AI actually is. He distinguished between algorithms, which follow explicit human instructions, and machine learning models, which infer patterns from data. Sen described how modern AI systems use vast amounts of text, image, and audio data to identify relationships, recognize language, and make predictions. Sen encouraged reporters to dig into how AI models are built and tested, noting that their reliability depends on the quality of training data and on which outcomes developers choose to optimize. Evaluation […]

Retaining the structure that had served its recent predecessors, the conference ScienceWriters2024—organized by the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing—consisted of virtual-only sessions on October 17–18, 2024, and in-person components in North Carolina’s Research Triangle on November 8–11. The current report presents highlights of the virtual-only sessions, which were largely panel discussions featuring science writers, science editors, and related professionals. Free Your Data and Your Mind Will Follow: Exploring Journalists’ Role in the Open Data Movement By Rachel Sells Large datasets can be crucial in reporting, but accessing and interpreting them can pose challenges. This issue was explored by a panel moderated by Maggie Koerth (editorial lead, CarbonPlan), with Tyler Dukes (lead editor, AI innovation in journalism, McClatchy), Lisa Sorg (adjunct professor, Wake Forest University, and North Carolina reporter, Inside Climate News), and Max Jones (cloud engineer, Development Seed). The panelists started by discussing journalists’ access to data. As a commodity that businesses rely on, they said, data can be tricky to access. They discussed the need to promote equity in data access through outreach, open data policies, and implementation of accessibility tools. Privatization of data was noted as a concern, and, speaking on a lighter note, Sorg later brought up her frustration with the loss of phone books. The conversation shifted to issues with open data, especially data obscuration. Sorg cited the Duke Energy groundwater contamination incident as an example of intentional obscuration by using an inaccessible format. The panel also […]

Introduction In a thought-provoking post from Retraction Watch on July 29, 2024,1 a surprising comparison posed an arresting question: What do fairytales and scientific papers have in common? The answer highlighted a complex issue: Just as fairytales create an illusion, so too can researchers, sometimes unintentionally, generate an “illusion of novelty” in their findings. This happens particularly when results cling to the edge of statistical significance, suggesting something novel without clear substantive weight. This parallel sheds light on a critical, yet often overlooked, facet of science communication: the way research is crafted, communicated, and perceived, even before it reaches publication. Although distinct in focus, the August 2024 webinar,2 organized and moderated by Eleonora Colangelo, and generously sponsored by Digital Science, resonated strongly with the concerns raised in the Retraction Watch piece. The overall discussion focused on science communication in the prepublication phase, an area where researchers have the opportunity not just to shape narratives but to engage openly in shaping methodologies, analyses, and findings before they are set in academic stone. Our webinar speakers offered insights that push science communication toward inclusivity and innovation, emphasizing the need for accessible language and targeted mentorship programs, particularly for early-career researchers and those from diverse linguistic backgrounds. The conversation examined key themes, such as the role of mentorship in guiding researchers, the benefits of inclusive peer review practices, and new peer review models that incorporate broader perspectives. In unpacking these themes, the discussion reinforced the idea that impactful science communication begins well before […]

Mentoring in CSE and Beyond: Personal Support in Professional Development—Patty Baskin, Leslie Neistadt, and Barbara Gastel have long been leaders for the CSE Mentorship program. Based on a session from the 2024 CSE Annual Meeting in Portland, they have developed a series of articles on mentorship. The other two articles are available here: https://doi.org/10.36591/SE-4704-02, https://doi.org/10.36591/SE-4704-03 Mentorship has existed for millennia, but the current emphasis on mentorship in professional contexts seems relatively recent, as does the sometimes-related concept of imposter syndrome. Although the term “mentor” is based on a character in The Odyssey, the term “mentee” seems to date to 1940.1 A published description of the imposter phenomenon first appeared in 1978, as noted in the accompanying piece2 by Leslie Neistadt. The term “imposter syndrome” seems to have first appeared in 1982.3 My time as a mentee, mentor, and person interested in mentorship has spanned much of this recent era. In this article, I share some experiences, reflections, and suggestions. Some Experiences My experiences as a mentee date back to the late 1960s. A scientist whose laboratory I worked in while in high school became a mentor and a model for my own mentorship style.4 Ditto for an academic physician for whom I worked in summers during college and medical school. Not so for another potential mentor, assigned through a science communication fellowship program. Although we shared an office—where he smoked incessantly, as was still allowed—he barely acknowledged me. I learned from his skillful work but obtained mentorship from others at the […]

“How do you spell _____?” a college friend of mine asked his roommate. “It’s spelled __________!” I (the future editor) yelled back from several doors away. The classmate marveled that I had heard him—and perhaps wondered what else I had overheard. Indeed, as an undergraduate with acute hearing, I overheard more than I probably should have. A few years later, when I chided a fellow medical student for mumbling, he claimed I had poor hearing. However, at a health screening soon after, I learned that my hearing was exceptionally good. As I embarked on decades of university teaching, keen hearing continued to serve me. I could easily understand the most soft-spoken students. Also usefully, I could discern murmured conversations in the back of the classroom. Recently, though, more students seemed to mumble. I attributed the change to the masks being worn in the COVID pandemic. But when the masks came off, these students’ enunciation still seemed lacking. More meeting rooms seemed to have poor acoustics—which I ascribed to ventilation systems enhanced to hinder virus transmission. I found myself mishearing words; in a noisy restaurant, a colleague’s mention of a topless bar turned out to be of a tapas bar. I could no longer hear my old radio clearly. And when I replaced the radio, little improvement ensued. Maybe I, rather than the radio, was having the problem. Perhaps, I thought, I was now experiencing just average hearing. To document my current baseline, I saw an audiologist. He found that, in […]