The questions in part C are badly worded

[Joe-Heffer-Shef]

Problem

Users have reported that the four statements in Section C (Linkages and Leadership) are confusing and poorly written. On inspection there are four distinct issues.

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Issue 1 — Subject–verb disagreement (all four statements)

"Our organisation" is a singular noun. All four statements use a plural verb form, which is grammatically incorrect.

Statement	Current	Fix
C1	take part	takes part
C2	take part	takes part
C3	work with	works with
C4	are members of	is a member of

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Issue 2 — Redundant "outside our organisation" (C1 and C4)

C1 says "outside our organisation" when the subject of the sentence is already "Our organisation" — the phrase is self-referential and awkward. C4 repeats the same problem.

Proposed fix: replace with externally / external.

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Issue 3 — C1 and C2 are near-identical (intent unclear)

• C1: "…advisory activities outside our organisation (for example, sitting on ethics committees; funding committees; editorial boards and reviewing papers)"
• C2: "…advisory activities outside organisations" (no examples)

The only difference is "our organisation" vs "organisations" (plural, no "our"). This distinction is opaque to respondents — it reads as a near-duplicate.

C2 needs domain expert clarification before the content can be reworded:

• Is C2 a copy-paste error and should be removed or replaced with a distinct concept?
• Was C2 intended to ask about activities spanning multiple organisations (e.g. NHS networks, national collaboratives) rather than individual external advisory roles?

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Issue 4 — Semicolons instead of commas in C1 example list

The parenthetical in C1 uses semicolons as list separators, which is non-standard for a short inline list.

(for example, sitting on ethics committees; funding committees; editorial boards and reviewing papers)

Fix: use commas with an Oxford comma.

(for example, sitting on ethics committees, funding committees, editorial boards, and reviewing papers)

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Proposed rewrites

C1 (grammar + redundancy + punctuation — ready to merge):

Our organisation takes part in research leadership and advisory activities externally (for example, sitting on ethics committees, funding committees, editorial boards, and reviewing papers)

C2 (grammar fix applied; content reword blocked pending domain expert input):

Our organisation takes part in research leadership and advisory activities outside organisations

C3 (grammar only — ready to merge):

Our organisation works with professional bodies and national and regional policy structures to influence the research agenda

C4 (grammar + redundancy — ready to merge):

Our organisation is a member of external forums which support research activity

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Files affected

All seven sort_only_config*.json files in data/survey_config/ — Part C wording is currently identical across all variants:

• sort_only_config.json
• sort_only_config_ahp.json
• sort_only_config_generic.json
• sort_only_config_midwives.json
• sort_only_config_nmahps.json
• sort_only_config_nurses.json
• sort_only_config_nurses_midwives.json

demography_only_config_*.json files are not affected (no Part C section).

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@Joe-Heffer-Shef — could you confirm the intended meaning of C2 so we can complete that reword?