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The Importance of Precision in Language: Communication Research and (So-Called) Alternative Medicine

Holistic (alternative) medical systems and techniques are used so extensively in the United States, it necessitates that health communication researchers include these practices in the corpus of literature. In this essay, I interrogate the terminology that is used to describe holistic medical practice in the United States. There are important distinctions between the use of such terms as holistic and alternative by virtue of the way that the medical systems themselves are constructed and evaluated. I advocate that the terms biomedical and holistic be used to refer to explanatory models and offer additional suggestions for language use throughout the research process. In the article, I conclude with a discussion of the consequences of discursive choices for research and for health care consumers.