Q--the Quality of Much of the Health-Related Writing on the Web is Poor. Is There Any Way Freelance Medical Writers can Improve the Situation? (Freelance Forum)

A--There is a lot of bad writing out there, especially in the health care field and particularly on the Web. I do believe there are opportunities for freelance medical writers to help correct this problem, but it won't be easy. Like the first step in a 12-Step program, I believe the greatest barrier to improving the quality of health-related writing on the Web is getting the culprits (that is, the Web site owners, not the writers) to recognize they have a problem. I define the Web site owners as the culprits because there will always be bad writers, and what we need to do is get the owners of poorly written Web sites to stop hiring bad writers and to reject poorly written content. We need to open the eyes of Web site owners to the problem, teach them that good writing produces better results, and show them that better freelance medical writers (who are more expensive) are more valuable and therefore worth the investment.