One writing advice I heard over the years is to avoid hedging words as these words make your sentences sound uncertain or less confident. When writing promotional materials for pharmaceutical products, however, sometimes you cannot avoid using these “undesirable” words.
What are Hedging Words?
Hedging words are words used to signal caution and show politeness, which are a common practice in academic writing.1 Examples of hedging words include “may,” “can,” “suggest,” “appear,” “seem,” “possibly,” and “likely.”
Academia often use these words in scientific publications, mainly to recognize the boundary and limitations of their findings and to minimize potential challenges from others who interpret the findings differently.1 Hedging words allow the authors to make a broad enough claim of their findings without running the risk of overgeneralization.
Here is one example of hedging words we often see in scientific publications:
This therapy may provide symptom reliefs in patients with migraine.
The word “may” in the above sentence implies that the therapy may not benefit some patients, such as those that did not meet the study criteria.
Compare the above sentence with the one below:
This therapy provides symptom reliefs in patients with migraine.
Eliminating the word “may” makes this sentence sound much more definitive and authoritative than the previous one. This is the power of avoiding hedging words.
Why do You Need Hedging Words in Promotional Writing?
The majority of product claims in promotional materials for a pharmaceutical product are derived from clinical study results, which come with certain limitations. For example, clinical studies typically enroll a particular type of patients, which means the results can only be extrapolated to patients similar to those enrolled in the study. These studies also rarely show definite results: Product efficacy has never reached 100.00% and no study has ever been able to show no adverse events.
To capture the results of clinical trials accurately in promotional materials, the use of hedging words is often unavoidable. The claim “With Product X, remission is possible” is accurate, but “Product X provides remission” is not.
Additionally, promotional materials for pharmaceutical products usually go through medical and regulatory reviews to check for accuracy and completeness. Writing accurate claims will help ensure the materials pass these reviews and reduce the amount of revisions.
How Can You Optimize Hedging Words in Promotional Writing?
One way to avoid hedging words completely is by presenting the detailed results instead of the broader conclusion. For example, you can write: “Product X reduced recurrence in 75% of patients” (detailed result) instead of “Product X may prevent recurrence” (broader conclusion).
If you must use hedging words, try to put the sentences that contain the hedging words in a less conspicuous place such as the body copy instead of the heading or subheading. This will help draw the reader’s attention away from the hedging words while remaining accurate.
If you need to use hedging words as part of your heading, add stronger sentences that contain detailed results in the body copy. For example, if you start with a heading of “With Product X, remission is possible,” you can add a few sentences in the body copy that describe the rates of remission of Product X in detail to add some level of certainty and make the section more compelling.
Conclusion
Hedging words are often needed to maintain accuracy in promotional materials. Minimize the “undesirable” effects of hedging words by presenting the detailed results, putting the sentence in the body copy, or adding stronger sentences to support headings that contain hedging words. Don’t hesitate to use hedging words when you need to. Remember, being accurate in promotional writing is as important as being convincing.
Reference:
- What is Hedging in Academic Writing? Enago website. https://www.enago.com/academy/hedging-in-academic-writing/. Accessed September 3, 2020.
