Editing of medical periodicals publications: compositial and linquistic-stylistic features

Abstract

In the article the authors analyze editing peculiarities of medicalpublications, find and describe typical composition, linguistic and stylisticmistakes, which are made in medical periodicals, using the magazine PracticeManagement of Medical Setting as an example. The authors also considereditorial work of authors’ material at linguistic-stylistic and compositionallevels.It is determined that peculiarities of composition editing of medicalperiodicals depends on the format of the certain periodic, the articles areprepared for the fixed pattern, determined by editors. Traditionally, editing ofcomposition includes revision of narrative logic, presence of the main parts ofthe text (introduction, main body, conclusion) and connections between them.Material should be followed by appendices, keywords etc.A typical mistake which should be discovered and correct by the editorwith the author’s approval in medical periodic is wrong coherence compositionelements. The most often are used such linguistic reviews as: reorderingtransformation in order to restore logical development in the article; reductionfor eliminating unnecessary elements which are partly connected with the topic.Sometimes the editor should reduce the text not only due to the contentcriterion but also to the page proofs speciality.The authors found out the characteristic of average composition materialscomplexity of the medical periodicals, thus, during composition editing it isbetter not to use subtitle of the third level. The main title of the material has toreflect its whole idea not some aspects, they are worth to be separated intosubtitles.Editorial classification of the text is very important for readers-medicsperception, because text without separated headlined parts is hard for reading, itis time-consuming.The authors pay special attention to the title of the article in medicalperiodic, it should be understandable, clear and without implications, otherwisethe article may be not interested in because of abstractedness and unclear title. Linguistic and stylistic composition of the medical periodic depends ontarget reading audience. Materials in medical academic periodicals intended forgeneral reading and materials in academic professional periodicals for medicswith different qualifications vary in style, terminology complexity andlinguistic constructions.Typical authors’ mistakes are: 1) providing results of obsolete researches,while existing new researches on the issue; 2) fixing some facts for the contentof the article and author’s position; 3) providing nonobjective facts. The author,trying to argue own opinion, provides facts, which are neither refuted norproved this opinion. In such cases the editor should use reduction linguisticreview; 4) inaccuracy in names, titles, units of measurement, quotations.For preventing such mistakes, the editor should use three types of revisingof the material – internal, external and official approval. Internal facts checkincludes finding the correlation between article’s fragments and determiningdiscrepancy. External facts check is more complex and includes addition workwith literatures, medical encyclopedias, handbooks, legally enforceableenactments while using specialized web sites. In some cases the editor shouldalso refer to the officials for providing official request.The authors, having analyzed issues of medical periodical PracticeManagement of Medical Setting, determined main editorial mistakes – wronguse of words, russism, calque, composition inaccuracies etc. The aim of thisdetermination is to pay attentions to the editorial stages of medical periodicalpreparations, where authors and editors may make mistakes