Devil’s advocate (the case against preprints in biomedical science)

~ Brooke Morriswood ~ Leave a comment

I’m a preprint fan. All the research papers from my final period in academia were posted as preprints before being submitted to journals, and I’ve also utilised preprint peer review services at Research Commons and eLife.

But in my present work as a medial writer, where I’m involved in the publication and dissemination of industry-funded biomedical research, I am slowly realising that many of the things that make preprints so fantastic in the biological sciences simply don’t apply in biomedical science, or not to the same extent.

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MedComms is not SciComm

~ Brooke Morriswood ~ Leave a comment

When scientists assess career options outside academia, there’s a prevailing misconception that MedComms is a variant of SciComm. 

The trap, after all, is right there in the name. SciComm = science communication, MedComms = medical communications, so MedComms must basically be the same activity but dealing with medicine instead of scientific research, right?

Wrong. Here’s why. 

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One of the scapegoats

~ Brooke Morriswood ~ 4 Comments

I’m a white, cisgendered, heterosexual male. I was born in an affluent Western country and lucky enough to get an elite education. I have all the attendant privileges and instinctive reassurance that comes from those accidents of birth and genetics, but in one quite profound respect I’m minoritised: I have spent 19 years – more than two-thirds of my adult life – as an immigrant.

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