New Year’s Greetings (and More)

Greetings again! I hope 2008 has started well for you.

The year started with the following happy news for me: This blog is now receiving comments. I’m delighted at how encouraging the comments have been.

For me, 2007 also ended happily–with work helping international authors to publish. The work was in China, where I first taught writing to international researchers almost 25 years ago. During my recent visit, I enjoyed seeing former students and learning about their successes. I also enjoyed lecturing to new researchers.

Much of this recent lecturing was at a symposium on scientific writing. The other main lecturer was Tom Lang, an American editor with particular expertise in editing statistical content. Tom Lang’s lecture material was largely on the use and presentation of statistics, an important and often difficult aspect of scientific writing.

Let me end this post by mentioning a helpful article Tom Lang has written: “Twenty Statistical Errors Even YOU Can Find in Biomedical Research Articles” (Croatian Medical Journal 2004;45(4):361-370; http://www.cmj.hr/2004/45/4/15311405.pdf). This article can be useful to researchers in any of a variety of fields.

Well, that’s enough for now. I hope to provide another post soon. And I hope you’ll continue sending comments.

Barbara