Hi, I’m Betsy Miller.
I write both nonfiction and fiction. I recently wrote a nonfiction piece for the International Hip Dysplasia Institute (IHDI). You can read it at the following link:
http://www.hipdysplasia.org/Patient-Stories/Infant-and-Child/Isabelle/default.aspx
Some parents wanted to share their experiences with their young daughter Isabelle’s hip dysplasia treatments. This sort of content can be tremendously helpful to other parents, but it can be confusing, especially in this case since several surgeries were involved.
To make this piece easier to navigate and less confusing, this is what I did.
- Wrote a hopeful title for the piece.
- Edited the parents’ comments for length, conciseness, and sequence being careful to maintain their meaning and focus.
- Recommended where to put images to support the text.
- Put in headings for the different treatments.
- Wrote text explaining what the surgeries entailed, revising content from the surgeon into everyday language as much as possible. I asked that this content be formatted differently from the personal experience text. The IHDI decided to set off the explanatory text with a different color background.
I’m really pleased with how it turned out. This is a work for hire piece. That is a common arrangement for website content. The finished piece belongs to the IHDI, which paid me when the work was done. There’s no byline, which is also common in work for hire arrangements with businesses or organizations.