M e d i c i n e A ve 2 the perfect turn of phrase or that art directors can spend weeks trying to find the ideal visual imagery and/or design style. It means that three or four other jobs may be completed during this same time-frame, thanks to the new, innovative technology. 3. Employing Cut-and-Paste Copywriting—Meeting the New Standard Thanks to an increasingly complex medical/ legal/regulatory review process, now many ''new" promotion pieces use copy claims that have previously been approved for other materials. But instead of having to go to a storage room and dust off an old physical copy of a detail aid, a copywriter can consult her own electronic files or those of the agency where previously approved materials are conveniently stored on a computer. In fact, today many prescription drugs have a "brand book" of existing copy claims, references, and other brand elements such as logos, charts, and graphs that can easily be copied and dropped into a newly developed piece. This has led to more cut-and-paste tactics than before the computer era, as copywriters have become expert at copy recycling. Even for new claims, however, our G e rd a to n writer no longer has to traipse over to a library to conduct research. More often than not, a simple online Google inquiry will fill the bill; for more complex issues, the pharma copywriter's go-to source is the NIH's Medline or PubMed, where just a few hours of electronic searching will unearth what used to take days or weeks of digging. Where writers write has also undergone considerable change. Far from those pre-computer days when copywriters wrote on pads of paper, or at typewriters with inked ribbons and carbon paper, copywriters have progressed through an era of electric 100
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