5 Important Tips for Submitting a Successful Mythbusters Article
Science writing can be a tough job—it takes a lot of thought, focus and patience! Communicating complex ideas and “setting the record straight” is especially important in the realm of health services management and policy. Mythbusters—a series of reader-friendly research summaries addressing today’s major debates in Canadian healthcare—is one of the tools that the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) uses to slay those recurring “zombies” with the best available evidence.
To foster the science writing skill set, CHSRF began holding the Mythbusters Award competition in 2008. The competition invites applicants to submit an original Mythbusters article for their chance at a cash prize, plus travel, accommodations and registration to a prominent health services and policy research conference. In addition to the award, winners are provided the opportunity to work with CHSRF staff to prepare their Mythbusters topic for publication.
We’ve seen a lot of submissions come through our door, but each year only one or two myth-busters come away with the spoils. So, for anyone interested in writing a CHSRF-style Mythbusters article, we’ve compiled a short list of important tips to give you that competitive edge.
1. BE ORIGINAL.
Too many myths exist about Canada’s healthcare systems, and sometimes the hardest task is identifying the myth you’re going to bust with evidence. Seeing as CHSRF has been in the myth-busting business for over 10 years (having busted almost 30 myths since the series launched), it makes good sense to ensure your topic hasn’t already been covered.
Check out the series!
2. WRITE IN PLAIN-LANGUAGE.
Articles in the series summarize the evidence and communicate actionable messages to policy-makers, managers and others in a conversational, easy-to-read format. It is really important that any
Mythbusters be free of jargon and understandable to an educated public. At the very least, any complicated language must be defined.
3. BACK UP YOUR CLAIMS WITH HIGH-QUALITY EVIDENCE.
The foundation of a good
Mythbuster is high-quality evidence. We often say that our only real bias is the best available evidence, and we encourage all myth-busters to ensure that their arguments are air-tight, backed by a compelling menu of research studies, reports and other credible literature. This can take strong critical appraisal skills, so it might be an idea to run your idea (or finished product) by an expert you may know to make sure the evidence base is robust.
4. MAKE SURE YOUR TOPIC IS RELEVANT TO HEALTHCARE FINANCING, MANAGEMENT AND DELIVERY.
Some submissions in previous years have suffered from being too “clinical” in focus. We’re really interested in health services, population-based myths. It’d be a good idea to
refer to previous issues on our website to get ideas; however, don’t forget important tip number 1!
5. CHECK OUT CHSRF’S PROGRAMMING AREAS.
For an added competitive edge, it helps if the myth you are busting has relevance for our current areas of programming: population aging; healthcare financing; and primary healthcare. Sometimes it might not seem as though the particular myth you are busting is relevant to these areas, but you might be surprised at the ways in which many issues overlap.