#8: How do I get started on an event highlights?

So, you’re now sitting right in front of your computer, with the relevant materials – an audio recording and a copy of the powerpoint slides (or any other format) from the lecture – to help you write your first event highlights. Can’t wait any longer to hit your keyboard, huh?

But wait! Before you start typing the first word, why not spend a few minutes to get a clear idea of what you need to do and plan your work.

What is an event highlights?
An event highlights (or highlights bulletin, symposium highlights, meeting highlights, etc) is basically a summary of a presentation, talk, or lecture. It contains not just words only, but also some visuals, such as graphs, charts or tables, to illustrate complex scientific information in a simpler format.

Although the nature of this type of publication is semi-promotional, as to help clients market their products, it is also the writer’s task to make it educational for readers, including doctors and pharmacists.

To get an idea of how an event highlights look like, it’s good to read up some samples produced by your fellow writers.

Understand the topic
While you don’t have to delve into every nook and cranny of the particular subject, try to acquire a general understanding of the topic that you are dealing with. This helps you to write in a clear and succinct manner that your readers will enjoy (and not left with more questions!).

Unlike in the olden days where you might have to refer to text books, dictionaries or encyclopedias for information, we can retrieve information quite easily and conveniently through internet nowadays.

Make an outline
It is important to make an outline for your article before you start writing. Ask yourself: What are the key points? Which graphs or charts are worth featuring? How many words do you need to write?

Always have an introduction paragraph at the beginning and a conclusion at the end. Divide your article into different sections and give them headings. This will help build an easy-to-read structure for your article.

Listen and transcribe
Unless you have super memory, you definitely need to listen to the recording of the lecture again to recall what the speaker had presented. As you are listening, you can refer to the presentation slides, so it’s as if you were ‘attending’ the event again.

Depending on the skill, experience, or preference of the writer, some may just jot down important notes or quotes from the speaker, while some may transcribe the whole lecture (ie, word-by-word of the speaker’s speech).

The advantage of having a transcript is that you won’t have to revert to the audio recording to find out what exactly the speaker said about slide no. 15 at 22 minutes. Of course, the negative point is that it’s a time-consuming task; you may have to repetitively play and rewind the audio file to even get a sentence completely transcribed.

--~~--

All the above can be considered as the ‘preparation’ work to the next step – writing the article – which I will share with you in the coming post.