Introduzione
This workshop takes the considerable challenge of writing scientific content suitable for a lay or nontechnical audience: lay summaries of research and clinical evaluations, technical instructions for equipment use, newsletters, web-based articles, instructions, consent forms … and many more.
Writing readable science for a lay audience is a challenge for scientists!
Communicating complex ideas to the public requires us to think even harder about our audience: their level of understanding, vocabulary that they are comfortable with and the messages we wish them to take home.
We need a knowledge of the tactics that improve readability: logical presentation of relevant ideas, clear and simple writing style, good organisation of documents, and attractive and helpful formatting – to include appropriate visual aids when appropriate.
Can we measure readability and therefore have quantitative targets against which to benchmark our writing?
Are there tools to help us write more readably?
We’ll consider examples of both readable and problematic text and aim to adopt best practice when writing for a lay audience.
In this workshop, we will:
- Define ‘readability’ and consider what influences readability
- Consider the importance of readability
- Review ‘best practice’ tactics to improve readability: good sentence construction, familiar words, typography, ways to communicate numbers and risk, things to avoid and much more…
- Consider the best approach to writing a lay text
- Explore quantitative ways to measure readability: readability formulas and statistics
- Critically assess the use of readability statistics
- Review other tools designed to analyse text and improve readability
Practical elements of the workshop will include:
- Analysis of participants’ own writing using readability statistics
- Critique of poorly written material – how readability could be improved
- Critique of well-written lay summaries – how readability has been achieved
This workshop is for those of you who want to learn more about readability, particularly when your role involves writing about science for a nonexpert audience.
Participant experience
Participants should have some experience in writing and editing scientific text, but do not need specialised knowledge.
The workshop is intended to be a ‘two-way’ learning and discussion experience; questions and subsequent discussion are welcome at any time during the workshop.
Docente/i
Diana Ribeiro
Diana started her career as a pharmacy technician, then completed her training as a pharmacist in the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon. She also obtained a post-graduate degree in Phytotherapy and a professional certification as a Clinical Research Associate.
After working in healthcare for more than 15 years, Diana became a freelance medical writer in 2019, working on both medical communications and regulatory documents.
To keep updated with the latest developments and further her knowledge in the medical writing and regulatory areas, Diana is an active member of both the European Medical Writing Association (EMWA) and the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS).
She is also a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ), where she gains valuable insights about communicating with the public.
This online training consists of 1 module:
07 July 2025 from 2:00 pm to 06:00 pm CEST
Some days before the online training you will receive all details about the connection.
The course will proceed with a minimum number of participants. Should this number not be reached the registered participants will be notified one week prior to the commencement of the course.
Early Bird: € 480,00* until 16/06/2025
Ordinary: € 610,00*
Freelance – Individual – Academy – Public Administration**: € 390,00*
*for Italian companies: +22% VAT
**Early Bird discount not applicable to Freelance – Individual – Academy – Public Administration fee
The fee includes: tuition, organizational office assistance, teaching materials and attendance certificate that will be sent after the training via e-mail.
Newsletter
Mara Claudia Algarotti
Training Manager & MW Operations
Cosa saprai fare dopo il corso
Online interactive training on Zoom platform.
LS Academy will provide the access link to the virtual platform a few days before the training.
