The Ulutas Medical Journal p-ISSN 2149-0430 e-ISSN 2149-388X

Common mistakes in medical English

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This journal publishes in English and asks for manuscripts written in clear English (see the Instructions for Authors). Small, repeated errors make a text harder to read and can hide what you mean. This guide focuses on a few problems that are easy to fix once you know them. The advice draws mainly on the guidelines of the European Association of Science Editors (EASE), written for authors and translators whose first language is not English.

Tense in methods and results

EASE gives a simple rule: in general, use the past tense to describe how you did your study, what you found and what other researchers did; use the present tense for general statements and interpretations, such as conclusions, and when describing what your article, tables and figures show.

  • Methods: "Patients were randomised to two groups." Not "Patients are randomised…".
  • Results: "Mortality was lower in group A (Table 2)." The table itself: "Table 2 shows the outcomes."
  • Discussion: "These findings suggest that early treatment is beneficial."
  • Earlier work: "Smith et al. reported a similar rate."

EASE also advises against calling yourself "the author(s)", which is ambiguous; write "we", or use phrases such as "in this study" or "our results". Use "this study" only for your own new results; for a study cited in the previous sentence, write "that study".

Articles and plurals

A 2023 analysis of English abstracts by Turkish researchers in sports sciences found grammatical errors to be the most frequent category, with errors in verb forms, prepositions, singular and plural nouns and articles among them. The authors note that articles and prepositions are problematic areas of English for non-native writers. The Purdue Online Writing Lab summarises the basics:

  • "the" refers to a specific, known item: "the patients in our cohort", "the drug described above";
  • "a/an" refers to any one, non-specific member of a group: "a patient presented with…"; choose "a" or "an" by the sound of the next word: "an MRI scan", "a urinary catheter";
  • non-count nouns cannot take "a/an": write "information" or "equipment", never "an information" or "an equipment";
  • a non-count noun used in a general sense takes no article.

Plurals need attention too. EASE lists irregular plurals from Latin and Greek that appear in every medical paper:

  • criterion – criteria; phenomenon – phenomena;
  • datum – data (in scientific writing, "data" is plural: "the data were analysed");
  • bacterium – bacteria; fungus – fungi; hypothesis – hypotheses; index – indices (or indexes); appendix – appendices (or appendixes);
  • species and series are the same in the singular and plural.

EASE adds that some everyday nouns, such as equipment, information and news, have no plural form. It also reminds authors to check that every verb agrees with its subject, which it describes as crucial in translated texts.

Words that are often confused

Some errors are not grammar but meaning. EASE gives several medical examples:

  • sex and gender: "gender" applies mainly to social and linguistic contexts; in medicine and biology, when you mean biological differences, "sex" is usually the correct word;
  • trimester means a period of three months, usually a third of a human pregnancy, and should not be used loosely for "a third" of something else;
  • which and that: in scientific texts, "which" introduces non-defining clauses (usually after a comma) and "that" introduces defining clauses;
  • "empty" words: EASE warns that words such as "important", "treated", "reacted well" or "low blood pressure" leave the reader to guess. Write what was given, what changed and the actual value: "blood pressure was 90/60 mm Hg".

Be consistent in spelling. EASE advises following either British or American conventions throughout, for example "haematology" and "diarrhoea" or "hematology" and "diarrhea", and setting your spell checker accordingly. For Turkish-specific traps, such as words that look like English but mean something else, see our guide on Turkish–English medical translation errors.

Getting language help

The journal encourages authors whose first language is not English to have the manuscript checked by a fluent speaker or a professional editing service before submission. It does not recommend any specific provider, and using such a service does not guarantee acceptance (see the Instructions for Authors).

Practical steps, based on EASE:

  • ask a thoughtful colleague to read the whole text and mark any sentence they had to read twice;
  • read the text aloud to check punctuation;
  • check the meaning of a term in an English dictionary if in doubt, and prefer terms used in texts written by native English speakers;
  • define abbreviations at first use, use few of them, and keep them out of the abstract;
  • acknowledge language editors and translators in the Acknowledgements, as EASE recommends for people who helped with the manuscript.

If you use a generative AI tool to improve the language, the journal asks you to declare it under Declarations; see the journal's AI Policy. You remain responsible for every sentence.

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