Five Steps for More Effective Document Reviews
In medical writing there is no higher praise from a reviewer or a publisher than to be told that your document is beautiful. Beauty isn’t everything, but in regulatory and clinical writing it is an essential aspect of making sure that your message is received.
To a certain extent data can stand on its own and tell a story, but shaping how those data are presented help nudge that story in the optimal direction. Readers (reviewers or end users) can easily be distracted by poorly written or formatted documents. Confused or distracted (or worse, irritated) reviewers may lose sight of (or never see at all) the story or message that the document aims to share.
How your document looks is important for achieving effective reviews. Particularly in longer documents as reviewer fatigue is a real concern.
The challenges to an author are to recognize that your document may not be showing itself well and to put yourself in position to correct it. Doing better is simple.
1. Time. The most important tip - budget your development time to allot for a reconciliation step prior to any review.
2. Tracks and comments. Make sure that only essential comments are displayed and that there are no areas of overlapping, unresolved, or uninterpretable commentary. Layering in multiple changes for the sake of transparency can backfire if the reader cannot make sense of the passage. If tracked changes are needed, ensure they all come from one source (the author) and appear as the same color.
3. Formatting. Increase your proficiency with your writing software to make editing speedier. Take the extra time before sending out a draft to ensure your formatting and styles are as clean as possible.
4. Editing. If the formatting gene eludes you, enlist the help of a technical editor to smooth over problematic spots in your document.
5. Templates. Regulatory writing templates are valuable when it comes to efficiently producing beautiful documents. Your templates should include an integrated ribbon that allows you to easily and consistently style your documents. Invest in software solutions (like this one!) that can help you handle the technical challenges that affect the impact of your message.
A messily formatted or heavily tracked document routinely obscures what the baseline text is trying to say. As clinical developers it is important to remember the benefit of working with clean and presentable documents. Delivering a quality document that can be called beautiful helps your story be told.
VP, Acumen Medical Communications
