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Why is good writing important?
As a professional nurse, you may be judged on your writing. The way in which you communicate with others is frequently through your writing, whether that be in an email, a report, or a grant application. The ability to state your thoughts clearly in writing is an important skill that you will further develop during your classes at Webster University . Writing is also important in self expression, promoting critical thinking skills, furthering your understanding of content areas, and enhancing your general learning about a subject.
Writing is a process that requires many different steps. One cannot just sit down and write a three or five page paper without some preliminary work. To write a good paper, one must have ideas, be able to think and write about the ideas, and rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite. With each rewrite, you are refining your ideas and becoming more specific. Back to top
How do I get started ?
• In every course, you will have a writing assignment. Read and re-read the assignment. Ask the instructor questions to clarify any part of the assignment with which you are unfamiliar. Click here to view the course syllabus
• Think about what topics might interest you in relationship to the assignment. Generally it is a good idea to have two or three ideas in mind. If there is something you are doing or wondering about at work, or if your topic could turn into a presentation for a group, these are potential papers.
• Once you have your ideas in mind, you should begin to do a literature search. Think of key ideas that describe your topic. For example, if one of your ideas is to write a paper on nursing unions, you might think about the following words to put into your search: unions, collective bargaining, strikes. As you begin to find some articles, you will see that those articles also give you the words under which the article is classified and that will give you further help with words. You will see if there is enough information on a certain topic to write a paper on that topic. You may begin by going to www.library.webster.edu . Under “training and support,” go to research guides, doing research in, and research in nursing. Another place to search are government websites such as www.nih.gov or www.medlineplus.gov .
• If the article is in the Webster University library, go to find it and copy it. If the article is a full text article, you can email it to yourself, save it to a disc, or print it out. If the article is not available in the library or in full text, the Webster University library can get it for you through interlibrary loan. This takes a few days to a week and the article can generally be emailed to you. You should try to get more articles than you need because some of the articles may not contain information that is appropriate to the topic you have selected. Make sure that you get all the identifying data from the articles, because you will need it later.
• Read the articles. Reading the articles will give you an idea of what the literature about your topic says. It will give you an idea about what the arguments for and against something might be. Back to top
How do I plan ?
The beginning of a good paper involves some planning. You need to think about the purpose of the paper, the audience to whom the paper is being written, the length of the paper, and your deadlines. You might begin in one of two ways: listing the ideas about your paper in the order in which they occur to you, or doing a concept map or a clustering of ideas. Then you and your classmates should discuss your ideas so you have the benefit of your classmate's ideas about your topic. Ideas can be generated around questions. Journalists frequently are taught to use the questions Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? More information on concept mapping may be found at
http://classes.aces.uiuc.edu/ACES100/Mind/CMap.html
As you think and talk about your topic, you will begin to see ways of focusing your topic. You will have to make some choices about which focus to take. In many cases, the central idea can be stated in one or two sentences. Such a statement is called the THESIS statement. The thesis statement usually has a few key words or phrases that describe the purpose of the paper and limit the scope of the paper. Information about thesis statements can be found at http://www.dianahacker.com/writersref/flash/wr_menu.asp
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/Thesis.html
Once you have a thesis statement, you need to have either a formal or an informal outline. An informal outline may just be the thesis statement and the major ideas about the thesis statement that will be covered in your paper. More information on outlining is available at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general . Once you have your thesis statement, everything else in your paper should relate to the thesis statement. If you were doing your paper on unionization of nurses, your thesis statement might be something like this. Unions are becoming increasingly prevalent among nurses. What are the reasons for nursing unions? What are the pros and cons of having unions? Whose viewpoint is represented in the debate about unions? Your outline might include the following:
- Introduction
- History of unions
- Purposes of unions
- Pros of unions
- Cons of unions
- Conclusion
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When can I start writing?
Now you can begin to write.
Introduction. The introduction to your topic is usually a paragraph of 50 to 150 words. Try to engage the reader in your topic by asking a question, giving a situation or anecdote, or stating a fact or giving a statistic. The introductory paragraph should contain your thesis statement and it can be at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the paragraph. Exercises on thesis statements and topic sentences can be found at dianahacker.com/writersref.
Body. After you have written your introductory paragraph, you now need to compose the body of the paper. The body will usually consist of the key ideas in your outline. When writing the body of the paper, you should keep in mind the thesis of the paper. All paragraphs in the body of the paper should relate to the thesis statement. The body of the paper is where most of the “meat of the paper will be contained. The body of most college papers consists of several pages which develop and expand on your topic.
Each paragraph should have a main point that it is trying to make. All paragraphs should contain information that supports the paper's thesis. Paragraphs have topic sentences that are usually the first sentence of the paragraph. Any sentence that does not support the topic sentence should not be in that paragraph. Some ways in which paragraphs may be developed include the following: examples, storytelling, description, chronological order, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, classification, and definition.
The sentences in each paragraph need to flow from one another without gaps or shifts in what is being discussed. Also make sure that all paragraphs in the body of your paper relate to one another. Some techniques that help with coherence (the word that describes a paper that is logical and has unity) are as follows:
- repeat key words using variation of the word
- use parallel structures
- maintain consistency in point of view (don't shift from I to you or from the patient to the nurse)
- provide transitions. Transitions are bridges between what has been read and what is in the next sentence or the next paragraph. There are some words or phrases that are frequently thought to be transitional words and phrases. Some of these are http://www.dianahacker.com/writersref/flash/gm_menu.asp
Begin writing your paper. Write an introduction and a few paragraphs of the body of the paper. This will be shared with a writing group in class and then turned in to the instructor. Back to top
How do I revise ?
An important step that is sometimes missed by writers is the revising step. What is revision? The revision process is used to improve writing. Global revisions to a paper involve large portions of the paper. Paragraphs may be condensed or several paragraphs may be combined into one paragraph. Sections may be rearranged or reworked. You may see gaps that need to be filled in, either in terms of content or references.
Consider your audience and whether the content is appropriate for the audience that you are writing for. Some of the questions you might want to ask yourself when revising:
- Thesis. Is my thesis clear and specific? Can I underline it?
- Paragraphs. Do all the paragraphs relate to and/or support the thesis. Does each paragraph have a topic sentence. Do all the ideas and sentences in one paragraph relate to each other? Are paragraphs too short or too long?
- Support. Do I have examples and references that support my ideas?
- Sentences. Do my sentences express my ideas clearly?
- Transitions. Do the parts of the paper relate to one another? Are there transitions between sentences and paragraphs?
- Word Choice. Do the words I have chosen convey the meaning that I wish conveyed? Is terminology used correctly?
- Audience. Does the writing make sense to the audience for which it is intended?
It is generally helpful to have someone with no knowledge of the subject read the paper and have that person tell you what the paper is about. Someone who has no knowledge of the subject will not “fill in the blanks.” Hence, you will have a better idea of whether your paper makes sense. Back to top
How do I edit my paper?
Good grammar and good sentence structure are very important aspects of your paper. These items will affect the clarity of the paper and will also affect your grade. Poor grammar and/or poor sentence structure can detract the reader from what your paper is trying to say.
Most of us make the same grammar and sentence structure mistakes time after time. If we learn our own pattern and eliminate these mistakes, our writing will be better.
Begin editing by using the grammar and spell check on your computer. You may not agree with all their suggestions but this is a good place to start.
The twelve most common grammar mistakes are listed at the website www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook . From there go to grammar and punctuation and then to twelve common errors. This will give you more information about the mistakes and how to correct them. Using this site as a guide, find and correct your grammar mistakes.
Failure to edit your paper may give the instructor the impression that your work is sloppy. Be sure to use spell check and grammar check on your computer. But also be aware that all mistakes will not be picked up by these two tools. For example, spell check will not pick up the difference between where and wear or for and from.
One suggestion that is frequently given for editing is to read your paper outloud. Many times mistakes that you have glossed over as you read will be picked up in this way. Back to top
How do I reference my materials?
One of the most important aspects to a professional paper is References. In many of your professional papers, you are asked to report and comment on what the research literature says about a topic. When you do this, you must give credit to the author who wrote the article you are reading. This is true whether you quote directly or whether you paraphrase (paraphrasing is reading something and then putting it into your own words).
Failure to give credit to your sources is called plagiarism. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense and can result in serious consequences.
In order to avoid plagiarism, develop a system as you are writing for identifying where infomation came from even if you are not directly quoting. If there is one article per author, you can put the author's name after the sentence. If there are two or more authors who agree on something, use both names.
The formatiing system that is used by the Nursing Department at Webster University and throughout Nursing Departments is called APA format. APA format is a system that describes different formatting techniques for a paper. The basics of APA formatiing will be discussed in class and can be found at http://www.vanguard.edu/faculty/ddegelman/index.aspx?doc_id=796
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