Week 2: Personal Contributions for WebMD/Krames

Over the past couple of weeks with WebMD/Krames, I have had the opportunity to contribute to a number of different projects, both on the editing and writing side and the medical information side. The assignments I have worked on have been both informative and a learning experience, allowing me to use skills I have learned in Jepson and my Journalism major, while also letting me grow by teaching me new abilities. 

One project I have worked on thus far was creating alternative texts for  about 14 different magazines’ images, so those who are unable to see the pictures can listen to what they are showing. I have never done anything like this before, so it was interesting to see how much information I was supposed to include in each description. After completing the first magazine, I got more of a handle on the assignment. I was able to suggest separating the number of images on each page by labeling them as 5A, 5B, etc., rather than number every single picture, as there could have been as many as 100 images in one magazine. My boss gratefully accepted my suggestion, and that is how we will continue to create alternative texts from now on. My efforts for this assignment will be extremely beneficial to the blind or hard of seeing communities, as they often read the content we create, whether it is covering a medical issue regarding eyesight or another potential disability. It reminds me of the fact that the work I am doing is important, and I must keep in mind that my writing or editing has the potential to greatly impact someone’s medical journey.

Another type of assignment I have worked on is writing what is known as a “disguise” for an article. The articles or infographics in our content library are used nationwide, and sometimes a hospital or medical group within the same city or area wants to use the same piece for their booklets or magazines. In order to avoid overlap of our content so that one patient may read the exact same information, we work to create an alternative article or infographic. We use the same sources and facts from the original article, however we rewrite it so that it is completely different and unrecognizable next to the original. I have had the opportunity to work on three of these so far, each one getting longer and more difficult. The most recent one I have written had over 80 pages in sourcing material. By securing more of these types of articles, I hope to prove my writing abilities so that in the future, I may be allowed to write original content. This opportunity would allow me to publish my work outside of a small local or school newspaper. My writing would be within the WebMD content library for any medical establishment nationwide to use. The potential to have that kind of impact drives me to perfect and master how to properly create a “disguise.”