I have always loved to read. When I started, I remember being in awe of the characters created within the stories — how I could be a witness to their thoughts and emotions, how I felt like they were my friends and, in a way, how I could find pieces of myself in each of them. Naturally, my love of reading turned into a passion for writing.
Writing can be a challenge, even for those with a lot of experience. The 2022-23 ASDA Editorial Board creates and facilitates content for Contour magazine and ASDA Blog. Here, they offer their advice for improving your writing skills and getting that first draft done.
Each year, ASDA publishes nearly 300 articles in Contour magazine and the Mouthing Off blog combined — planned, written and edited by dental students. Each piece of student-written content can be considered for a Gold Crown Award in the media category, which honors excellence in chapter publications, social media and websites, and outstanding contributions to ASDA national publications.
You may be thinking, “How could skills with a pen translate to skills with a perio probe?” It may sound tongue-in-cheek, but journalism had me convincing people to open their mouths years before dentistry. Hear me out. The central focus for both dentistry and writing is people. There is no story without a person, nor is there a procedure without a patient. Yes, that can be said for anything from business to baseball, but what dentistry and writing share is unique.
Each year, ASDA members publish more than 100 articles in ASDA News, more than 50 articles in Mouth and at least 156 posts to this blog. That’s a lot of content. Behind the scenes of these publications is ASDA’s Editorial Board–eight dental students who dedicate their time to planning, writing and editing your ASDA publications. It’s thanks to them that you read about millennials, creative diagnosis, and lasers this past year. They are also the folks that bring you Life Hacks Week and “just for fun” posts here on the blog.
ASDA’s Editorial Board sifted through all the articles and blog posts of 2015 to narrow down nominees for three Gold Crown Awards: Best News Article, Best Feature Article and Best Blog Post. Criteria included relevance, originality, research and presentation. For blog posts, number of visits, social shares and Facebook likes were also weighed in the decision. Here are the nominees for the 2016 Gold Crown Awards for best articles and blog post…
