Participants in the roundtable I led discussed the positives and negatives of well-known association Web sites and of individual freelance writers’’editors’ Web sites. We were surprised to see that the Web sites of some of the most prominent consumer/professional associations are less than user friendly. Part of the problem may be the need to create a Web site for two disparate audiences.

Nonetheless, participants identified certain components that work and fail, formatting that enhances or detracts, and wording and formatting that increases or decreases user participation in a Web site. The feedback from participants led me to re-evaluate my own Web site—a site that’s always in transition to meet the needs of my audience.

Kudos went to the Web site of an AMWA member, Lori Alexander, whose Web site’s style, formatting, navigation, and function was deemed to far surpass those of much larger health care association and those of other writers and editors.

A recent health issue of my husband’s is a case in point, and he has the emergency department visits and battery of unnecessary diagnostic tests to prove it. Two years ago, a GI doc gave him the diagnosis of Barrett’s esophagus after an endoscopy showed erosion from stomach acid. The doc prescribed Nexium and a year later, a second endoscopy showed no erosions. The doc said, “Good news. No Barrett’s.” The continued use of Nexium would prevent future problems.

However, soon after being told that the Barrett’s was clear, he went to the emergency department (ED) with chest pains. A cardiologist found a clog in a small artery in the heart. A stent was placed, meds were prescribed, and home he went. But, he continued to have chest pain, a feeling like he couldn’t breathe or swallow right, and tightening in his chest. He returned to the cardiologist who did a second catheterization, exercise and nuclear stress tests, an echocardiogram, chest x-rays, and more. The cardiologist reported that there were no signs of cardiovascular disease, and the stent was open and clear.

For the past year, the problem has continued—chest pain, inability to breathe, a feeling of fullness in his throat, and difficulty breathing. Another trip to the ED, during which he was told his heart and arteries were fine, led my husband to feel foolish and me to suspect that the next doc on the list of specialists should be a shrink. But not wanting to be proven wrong (don’t want to find myself reading a tombstone that states, “I told you so. It WAS the big one”), I urged him to visit the GI doc again.

So he did, convinced that the Barrett’s was back. As it turns out, the GI doc, after hearing the symptoms, said, “Well, that’s your hiatal hernia.” Hmmm. “My what?” my husband said. It turns out that as far back as 2 years ago, the GI doc noted in capital letters in his chart “HIATAL HERNIA.” But not once was that message communicated to us.
During two hospitalizations and after reviewing results of numerous x-rays, nuclear tests, and scans, did no one else notice the hernia? Maybe they did, but didn’t want to bother the patient with the information. And why did the GI doc keep this information a secret for 2 years?

A failure to communicate this simple information and give advice on how to combat the symptoms could have saved several trips to the ED, my husband’s fear that he was having a heart attack, and his conviction that the cardiologist now believes him to be a hypochondriac—a diagnosis I too am fairly certain the cardiologist has made. (Hence, here’s hoping “the big one” doesn’t occur.)

Having knowledge eases a patient’s anxiety, allows the person to take preventive action, and saves use of precious and expensive health care resources.

Our family has a rather unique schedule in that I work from a barn in the back of our property (the chickens that occupied the barn before me have long ago met their maker courtesy of Mr. Perdue), and my husband works as a train conductor. Working for the railroad means that he has a split shift. He leaves before the crack of dawn, takes a train in and out of NYC, and then comes home for a layover. He later goes back to work and returns home after dark.

So, he is home in the middle of the day when I am trying hard to concentrate on my work and my clients, who are at their desks demanding my attention in mid-day. My husband, however, is asking “What’s for lunch?”

His schedule allows us to spend quality time in the middle of the day, but creates a glitch in my workday schedule. Yet, isn’t that why I’m freelancing—so that if I choose to work at 1 am, that’s when I can work, rather than at 12 noon? But, invariably, I sit down to lunch with my husband at noon, and my office phone rings in the house (that may be part of my problem—I set up my business phone to ring in the barn office AND the house), interrupting mealtime and disturbing my digestion.

Separating work and home is a problem for anyone who has both family responsibilities and work responsibilities. But it becomes even harder when working from home.

While at my previous full-time position, I viewed freelance work as the greener pasture. Now on the freelance side, I look back at the full-time position and realize—at least there was a fence separating the pastures.

And yet I find myself, even in these times, faced with a dilemma—or is it a dilemma? My work is moving in many directions. I’m an editor, a copy editor, a writer, a managing editor, a reference librarian, and a market researcher. I am all of these and more. And I enjoy all of them. There are benefits to being diversified—there are always incoming projects, both short-term and long-term, large and small; there’s little chance of becoming bored; the revenue stream is steady; and the opportunity to learn new skills is nearly always available. The dilemma is that I wonder if I’m too diversified. Is that possible in economic times like these?

Is there greater value in finding a niche? Or does finding a niche create the possibility of landing in very dry times? Do I let go of some clients and keep only others? Or do I just stop trolling for new clients and hold on dearly to those who have been valuable to me throughout the years?

Those are my quandaries and I’ve decided to take my dilemma “by the horns,” so to speak, and get the advice of a mentor. This is my first step in working with a mentor—a mentor I found through the Editorial Freelancers Association. I’ll let you know how it goes.

The plagiarism I see seems to stem, in large part, from the use of information found on the Internet. Apparently, some writers believe that what’s on the Internet is up for grabs—as though the entire Internet is public domain, which it is not. I find I waste an incredible amount of time as an editor “googling” sentences to see where they pop up on the Internet and then either rewriting or chastising the author about flagrant “lifting” of copy from Web sites or others’ articles. Perhaps what is needed is a reminder to writers of what they should have learned in high school English class. Below are two articles available “free” on the Internet (but, note, their status as “free” does not mean they are in the public domain) that discuss plagiarism, particularly as it relates to medical/scientific writing.

In the article “Plagiarism and Medical Writing,” Vasumathi Sriganesh and Parvati Iyer address the particular issues plaguing medical writers and offer simple advice for avoiding this serious offense. They also explain “public domain” and differentiate it from what is simply “free” on the Web.¹

Lisa Cicutto writes in Chest about the problem of self-plagiarism, which seems to be a particular problem for medical and science writers. She explains the three major areas that gives writers trouble: “(1) the publication of one article that overlaps substantially with another article published elsewhere, typically without acknowledgment; (2) the partitioning of a large study, which could have been reported in a single article into smaller published articles/studies; this practice is also known as salami science or salami slicing; and (3) the potential for copyright infringement of previously published material that can occur with duplicate or redundant publications.”² Cicutto also offers succinct steps to help authors avoid self-plagiarism, in particular.

References

1. Cicutta L. Plagiarism.^* Avoiding the Peril in Scientific Writing. Chest. 2008;133(2):579-581. doi: 10.1378/chest.07-2326. http://www.chestjournal.org/content/133/2/579.full. Accessed March 17, 2009.

2. Sriganesh V, Iyer P. Plagiarism and medical writing. Ind J Radiol Imag. 2007;17(3):147-147. ISSN 0971-3026. http://www.ijri.org/article.asp?issn=0971-3026;year=2007;volume=17;issue=3;spage=146;epage=147;aulast=Sriganesh. Accessed March 17, 2009.

I’m ready for a futuristic scannable computer chip to be embedded in my iris or whatever part of my eye is stationary and solid. In fact, I will accept a chip sewn into the center of my forehead, creating a speed-bump effect like that a Klingon on Star Trek.  I want that chip to be readable by every bank account, Web site, e-mail program, and ATM card I have. I can no longer remember hundreds of passwords, some of which must be changed to a never-before-used combination of letters, numbers, and symbols, capped and lowercased, every 45 days—none of which is supposed to be identical to other passwords and cannot be the names of the cat, dog, or neighbor’s children.

I would like to purchase a copy of an article from an online publication without having to log onto the site. I’d like to make a used book purchase from Amazon without logging in. I’d like to search for the answer to why my Blackberry won’t accept e-mails without having to create an account with the support site.  And I’d like to be able to view the pix-flix friends and families have sent to my Blackberry  (which, incidentally, doesn’t accept pictures). Yes, I know, I could view them on my service provider’s Web site—if I could remember my logon and password, the phone number I registered with the site, and the answers to my three secret questions.

The conversation with myself happens when there are too many looming deadlines: a 750-page clinical article due in 2 days, a 20-page clinical editing job due in 3 hours in which I have to “dummy” down the copy so that a healthcare worker who reads at a 6th grade level can understand it (ee gads, that’s a scary thought, right?), a press release due in 1 day, and a final proofreading of a 48-page journal due in 1 day. It happens when I am asked for a 1-day turnaround on a job I promised to complete but that came in 2 days late and is now on a crash course with another deadline.

An editor friend and I have a running joke about a copyeditor we once knew whose “real job” was decorating cakes. Her copyediting skills reflected this fact. But we often say, “Wouldn’t life be easier if we had to lop off a burnt cake crust rather than cut 500 words down to 250? Wouldn’t it be easier to embellish with icing than stretch a scant 100 words into a full-page journal article? Would anyone question our use of the comma or semicolon? Would we have to provide a treatise on why hyphens are used in double-word adjectives that precede the noun but not when they follow the noun?

The desire to freelance is based on the need to be one’s own boss, to call the shots, to nap in the middle of the day, to watch a child’s school play at 11 am, to be flexible. But how flexible can a freelance really be? Of course, we can turn down a job that requires a fast turnaround. But how many times can we turn down a client and expect to hear from the client again when we’re good and ready for more work?

Clients need their work completed when they need it, not when I, as a freelance, feel moved to do it. How does my freelance status really differ from that of full-time employees? Whether I do the work at 6 am or at 8 pm, I still have to do the work. And I find that my hours are far longer as a freelance than they were when I worked full-time. And I realize there’s no such thing as a 9-to-5 job these days. Everyone I know works far more than the 40-hour work week.

But as a freelance, I find my work becoming ME, or ME becoming my WORK, far more than occurred when I worked for someone else. Is the need to work freelance tied to a type-A personality? Are we compelled to say yes to every job offer we get and to perfect that job no matter how many hours of sleep we lose? I think so.

My faith has been restored in this designer’s grammar knowledge. In my blogging, I will likely continue to use the semicolon; however, in Web copy for instructional programs, I will limit its use.

If you’d like to visit my Web site, go to www.MaybinHealthCommunications.com.

Apparently, Web readers are unable to discern the meaning of the “winking eye,” and writers are unable to use the semicolon correctly—or so said my ID. Numerous angry e-mails flew from my computer in defense of the semicolon’s rightful place in a grammatically correct world. It was necessary to enlist the backing of higher ups in the organization, some of whom, I’m quite sure, have no idea what a semicolon is. In the end, the semicolon was reinstated to its proper place in the writing world. A sigh of editorial relief.

However, a week later, I received an email from an editorial list serve in which the discussion of the semicolon was front and center. Oh no! Not again. Not others trying to slay the defenseless semicolon!

The emails were responding to the February 18, 2008, report by Sam Roberts in The New York Times, in which he wrote about the appearance of a semicolon on a billboard, “Semicolon sightings in the city are unusual, period, much less in exhortations drafted by committees of civil servants. In literature and journalism, not to mention in advertising, the semicolon has been largely jettisoned as a pretentious anachronism.” Really? Literature mavens and journalists have jettisoned the pretentious semicolon? Where have I been?

According to NYT’s Rogers, “Americans, in particular, prefer shorter sentences without, as style books advise, that distinct division between statements that are closely related but require a separation more prolonged than a conjunction and more emphatic than a comma.”

Apparently, several well-known writers have weighed in against the semicolon, among them Richard Hugo, Kurt Vonnegut, and George Orwell.

“No semicolons. Semicolons indicate relationships that only idiots need defined by punctuation. Besides, they are ugly.”—Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing

“…do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”—Kurt Vonnegut

“I had decided about this time that the semicolon is an unnecessary stop and that I would write my next book without one.”—George Orwell, quoted in Lynne Truss’s, Eats, Shoots & Leaves

In defense of the semicolon is Michel Volkovitch, French author, poet, and translator, who says,

“The point-virgule is precious when the subject matter is complex. For constructing a piece properly, distinguishing themes, sections and sub-sections—in short, for dissipating any haziness or imprecision of thought. It puts things in order; it clarifies. But it’s precious, too, for adding a little softness, a little lightness; it can stop a sentence from touching the ground, from grinding to a halt; keeps it suspended, awake. It is a most upmarket punctuation mark.”

Of course, we can all get through life without using a semicolon—ever. But how much richer is our writing, and by extension, our thinking, when we embrace the semicolon. Long live the semicolon—in both print and online writing. In future posts, I’ll whine in support of the correct use of the em-dash! A hyphen it is not!