Interlude: Finding Your People, Comprehensive Checklists, and AI Admissions
At the AMWA conference last week, I was reminded of a lesson I learned when I attended my first AMWA conference in 2019.
Find your people.
Early in my editing career, I worked on a small team of 2 editors that supported hundreds of researchers. Needless to say, we were busy. Thankfully, we had each other to share the workload, navigate challenges, and solve problems together. But I still felt isolated—like we were the only two word wranglers in the world.
Much later in my career, after I started Redwood Ink, I attended my first AMWA conference. I wanted to take the BELS exam, which was held at the conference. And because I was already there, I figured that I might as well attend the conference and see if I might get something valuable out of it. And I did.
I found my people.
I found a warm, welcoming, and supportive community of medical communicators. Since that first conference, I’ve attended every annual AWMA conference, joined other professional organizations, and connected with some truly incredible people. I am grateful for them and the larger community every day.
I’m sharing this story with you because writing is a solitary practice. And a lot of the projects we work on are confidential and proprietary, which only amplifies the feeling of isolation. So I want to encourage you to find your people. Whether it’s a community of medical communicators, a group of researchers, or a circle of trusted colleagues.
Find the people who inspire, energize, and motivate you. And nurture those relationships. Because their impact is immeasurable.
Now onto this week's round-up...
💌 Round-up
💻 From My Desk
Turn Basic Checklists into Powerful Productivity Tools
Are checklists just glorified to-do lists, or can they truly transform your workflow? In this video, I share my thoughts on the new book Clarity by Design: Comprehensive Checklists in Medical Communication by Kelly Schrank. With Kelly's checklist strategy, I've streamlined my processes, accelerated my workflow, boosted my efficiency, and even recognized the scope and value of my work.
📆 Upcoming
Ask Me Anything About Grants – November 18, 2025 @ 11 am PT
Have questions about writing federal or foundation grants? Get your questions answered in this free live Q&A session. Can't make it live? Add your questions to the registration from and watch the replay. Learn more and register
👓 Reading
AI Helps Flag Potentially Problematic Journals for the First Time
"Acuña and his team came up with an AI-based platform to catch potentially problematic journals. The new tool could detect questionable journals with about 75 percent accuracy, and its assessments were largely consistent with those of manual reviewers. Their work...could increase the speed and efficiency of existing efforts to flag potentially problematic journals—these typically rely on manual review by volunteers.
Far More Authors Use AI to Write Science Papers than Admit It, Publisher Reports
". . . new evidence from one publisher suggests four times as many authors use AI as admit to it—and that peer reviewers are using it, too, even though they are asked not to. . . He speculates authors are not disclosing AI use because they fear journals will reject their manuscript, even though using AI for editing manuscripts and other purposes can be valid. Some evidence supports that reviewers penalize this use."
💬 Quote
“Everyone searches for opportunities while running from problems, missing that they're the same thing. Problems aren't obstacles to opportunity, they ARE the opportunity.” – Shane Parrish
Thank you so much for reading.
Warmly,
Crystal
