New developments! Re: http://www.cyber-medicine.org - Enhancing Health Uses of the Internet Across All Areas of Medicine
Kim Solez, M.D.
http://www.cyber-medicine.org . I found the correspondence below
about simplifying the language on the site to make it more broadly
accessible very interesting. I wonder how many subscribers give
attention to this "no greater than a 6th Grade level" consideration
in the creation of their own sites. I suppose most government sites
have already met this criterion.
We have received many suggestions for additional sites, which we will
be adding tomorrow. On the http://www.kidneyatlas.org site we now
have statistics that from the UK with a ADSL connection the PDF files
download at an average of 125 kB/sec. (range 97-177) while the .ppt
files average 89kB/sec. (range 49-161) and the difference is even
more dramatic on the US east coast, so we will be moving to .ppt
files to the server on which the PDF files reside probably within the
next ten days.
Anyway, please keep the suggestions coming and we will have a greatly
enhanced site by Monday afternoon!
All the best. - Kim
>From: "Judanne" <ju...@hotkey.net.au>
>To: "Kim Solez, M.D." <Kim....@ualberta.ca>
>Subject: Re: language needs to be simplified Re:
>http://www.cyber-medicine.org - Enhancing Health Uses of the
>Internet Across All Areas of Medicine
>Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 17:28:59 +1000
>X-Priority: 3
>Status: O
>
>Dr. Solenz,
>
>See below. My additions in [ ]. I used to work for an Australian
>Commonwealth Dept and it was made clear to us that all written
>communications with the public should be in no greater than a 6th Grade
>level of English. That's why I think you'll either lose or alienate some
>members of the public.
>
>Judanne
>Do you need Health, Financial or Time Freedom?
>Receive a valuable FREE gift, just for looking.
>http://www.wellthmaker.com/Judanne
>
>
>
>>support.lupus,sci.med.telemedicine,sci.med.immunology,sci.med.cardiology,sc
>i
>> >.med.pathology,sci.med.laboratory
>> >Sent: Friday, 18 August 2000 3:43pm
>> >Subject: http://www.cyber-medicine.org - Enhancing Health Uses of the
>> >Internet Across All Areas of Medicine
>> >
>> >
>> >> We have created just today the WWW site http://www.cyber-medicine.org
>> >> (note the hyphen!) devoted to enhancing health uses of the Internet
>> >> across all areas of medicine.
>
>[This is a bit longer, but brings the language down a level or 2: "We have
>created, just today, the www site http://www.cyber-medicine.org(note the
>hyphen!) which has been specially set up to help people discover better
>health uses of the Internet,
>across all areas of medicine."
>
>
> We invite you to go to the site and react
>> >> to the information already there by sharing ideas about innovative
> > >> approaches using on line resources and the sites you have found most
> > >> useful and novel to add to the list.
>
>[this is a very "wordy" sentence and, I feel, is unclear in its meaning.
>Try this: "We invite you to go to the site and tell us what you think about
>the information you find there. Also, please let us know about any other
>site you may have found this is useful, unusual or interesting and that you
>think we might want to add to our list"]
>
>
>I think there is something of
>> >> interest [here] to everyone since we have statistics on every area of
>medicine.
>> >> We would [get rid of "would"] welcome input[,] either sent privately
>to me or, if the comments [are]
>> >> of broad general interest, posted on this group. We look forward to
>> >> hearing from all of you and working with you to make this new site the
>> >> best it can possibly be and making things better for all of us! [This
>is fine]
>> >>
>> >> Below is the starting text of the page so you can get the flavor of
>it. [and this is where you'll lose most of them]
>> >>
>> >> All the best. - Kim Solez, M.D.
>> >> Director, NKF cyberNephrology
>> >> http://www.cybernephrology.org
>> >>
>> >> http://www.cyber-medicine.org
>> >>
>> >> cyberMedicine - Enhancing Health Uses of the Internet Across All Areas
>> >> of Medicine
>> >>
>> >> The Rationale for this site: Cross-fertilization! Just think of what
>the
> > >> medical disciplines can accomplish using Internet resources if we all
> > >> share our experience[s] with [ replace 'with' with 'of'] what has been
>successful in our own areas!
>> >>
>> >> The Present Reality: There is tremendous *heterogeneity* in the
>successful use of Internet resources in various medical disciplines.
>
>[now really, how many people are going to know what that means!? Even
>though I have the dictionary open in front of me, I'm still finding it hard
>to simplify this one.
>How about: "There is a tremendous difference in the way that various
>medical disciplines are using internet resources." ]
>
> Strong
>> >> evidence for this emerges from an analysis of the data on Medical
>Matrix
>> >> (see link below).
>
>The Medical Matrix assessment cannot accurately
>> >> capture the situation with regard to forum and Email discussion group
>> >> resources where one has to be in the field and subscribe to fully
>assess
>> >> the resources, and where WWW page references to discussion groups can
>> >> live on for years after the groups themselves have died!
>
>[I'm not sure about this, but how about something like: "The Medical
>Matrix, however, is only accurate for persons who are subscribers in the
>field (of what?) and doesn't really take into effect the discussions that
>take place by email or on forums. Some of the references found (where?) to
>www sites can also be years out of date."
>I find its best to say what something DOES rather than what it DOESN'T do.]
>
>Regardless of
>> >> this flaw there are very valuable lessons that disciplines can learn
>> >> from each other in the creation and use of on-line resources, but up
>> >> until now there has been no vehicle for such sharing of information.
>> > >
>> > > How You Can Help
>> > > Medical Matrix Data
>> > > MEDWEBMASTERS-L Discussion of
>> >cyber-Medicine.org
>>
>
>
>[Get the picture?]
>
>Judanne