This blog post is in reference to my article in the May 2023 edition of the Lancet Psychiatry – Lithium Story: Eight Guidelines, Eight Recommendations. It is adapted from notes I sent to one of the editors when constructing the article

The blog post discusses the issue of imprecise language in scientific literature, specifically in the context of lithium pharmacokinetics. Alex provides two examples of unclear messaging from the literature and suggests solutions to improve clarity. Example 3 involves the lack of specificity about the timing of serum concentration values mentioned in a paper by Grandjean and Aubry, while Example 4 highlights a graph by R Hunter that is misleading due to the use of two scales on the x-axis and unclear labelling of subjects. Alex suggests that authors should provide clear and concise statements to remove ambiguity in their writing and improve the accuracy of their research.

In a previous blog post, I looked at two examples of imprecise language in a Grandjean and Aubry paper about lithium pharmacokinetics (which I used in my May 2023 Lancet Psychiatry article). In this post, to show that the problem is not limited to a single paragraph in a single review paper, I have included a couple more examples of unclear messaging.

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