Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, References...........

The written word is one of man kinds biggest achievements. Writing for me can be a bit tedious. This has stemmed from the inordinate amount of scientific writing I do for my career. It has taken about 9 years for me to fine tune my writing for medical journals. This writing comes naturally to me now and my manuscripts read well. My last paper was 'clear, concise and well written' according to a referee. I have published 7 papers to date in the area of endocrinology in top journals in my field. My last paper published in Molecular Endocrinology was selected as a translational highlight by the Endocrine Society no mean feat for a junior scientist. Absolutely fantastic for my research career but I have a problem that has stemmed from this. Scientific writing consists of short and concise sentences. It is a very structured type of approach to writing, almost military like. No room for any type of poetic licence tactics. Serious is the word to best convey the sense of the writing. Not that it is lacking style. When you love the research it can be a joy to read a very well written and savvy article. I live my life through bar charts, standard errors, anovas, t-tests, scatter plots, DNA sequences, protein sequences as a way of discussing what I do. Recently I decided that I would like to sit the MCAT exam required for admission to medical school. I am not sure if my desire to be a medical doctor outweighs being a doctor of research but I am a person that likes to keep my options open. In years to come I do not wish to look back and say I failed to try the exam or that I closed that option regardless of what I decide to do. One more road to choose at that intersection is no harm. My main problem in regards to the MCAT exam is writing. Not scientific writing but as we in the lab like to call it 'flowery writing'. Sometimes in scientific writing a person can become a little loose within the text and hence 'flowery writing'. The MCAT essay section requires the candidate to write a well balanced essay incorporating various aspects of general knowledge into a passage that is punchy, witty, intelligent, sharp, humorous and shows the candidates humanity. Also grammar is a factor and this I must work on. Scientific journals tend to fix most grammatical errors at the editing phase post acceptance of the article. I am drowning myself in history, geography, social science, the humanities, literature and many other subjects at present. The MCAT requires passages not written in an extremely loose format but balances a definate structured approach with a twist. I need to find out how to do the twist, this is the problem! One of the reasons I started this blog was to start to remove the barriers that confine me to the world of scientific writing and let the river flow a little in a different direction for the sake of sitting this exam. There will be no defined theme during my time in blogger land as I will broach a number of different subjects. But it will give a platform to sit and try my hand at free form writing