Major Goals of this class

1. Investigate what we already know about writing
2.. Research and learn more about writing as a comparison to original knowledge
3. Practice writing skills to become successful
4. Learn a variety of ways to improve your writing skills; critique others and learn by them also!
5. Pass this class! and utilize what I have learned in my future studies

Notes on "One Writing Style to rule them all"

Writing styles always tend to depending on the Rhetorical situation.
Keys:

• figure out your reasons for writing
• your audience
• the noise that keeps your audience from understanding your message

KISS- Keep It Simple, Stupid!

SVO<24->

Good writing starts with good sentence structure. This is also called "right branching sentence"

10 Guidelines to Clearer Writing:

1. One idea per sentence
2. Limit sentences to 23-25 words
3. S-V-O Don't use a lot of commas
4. Use strong verbs and an active voice
5. Reduce difficult words to simple terms
6. Don't back into a sentence
7. Don't use more than three numbers in one sentence
8. Use no more than three prepositional phrases in one sentence
9. Choose the precise word
10. KISS

Notes on how professionals write

• most (90%) writers write during the morning; some (40%) in the afternoon also. 30% during the night; 10% worked during all three times. Afternoons are known as "dead time".
• 50% have a specific start time; usually before 8:30. Most do not work in the afternoon/evening. Several mentioned that they were productive during the late night hrs and sleep during the day, but this wasn't condusive to normal society.
• 60% described a quiet environment as their choice. Magazine writers can write in any environment.
• 50% have a ritual before writing
• most drink lots of coffee
• most write in isolation; many with no phone/internet

Writer's advice to students:

• Spread out your work over several days. This will increase the chances of your work being fresh.
• Get up early
• Start the day with a mini-ritual- coffee, breakfast, etc. make it short
• Go to an isolated place
• Read over what you have written
• Work for 2-3 hrs
• Don't write during other times

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Notes on how to write a good Writing Inventory

Before starting a writing project, you should always take an inventory of what you already know. Then, you can add to this information with additional info that you have gathered from other sources, through reading, writing about your reading and research.
This building and adding is part of a process:

1. You articulate what you know
2. You learn to talk about writing with knowledge
3. You identify gaps in your knowledge and you fill these in , one at a time.
4. You learn to apply the above concepts and continuously add in small increments

Key: Good writing isn't about a product, it's about the process in place, which produces successful writing. (S. Brandon)

Process Paper- Improving Patient Satisfaction in a hospital setting

Our hospitals utilize a company that polls our patients to determine the degree of their satisfaction with our services during their hospital stay. This is known as "Patient Satisfaction". Despite the fact that every patient that comes through the Endoscopy Department at MRMC receives top notch care is not always evident in the scores. Our Administration only looks at the Percentile ranking to determine how we are doing. This ranking is the comparison of our unit's scores against another like facility. The scores many be within points of one another, but the rank is the entire focus. Despite the fact that we have good scores about 60% of our patients rank us as "Excellent" with the remainder ranking us as "Very Good", our percentile ranking is low. The goal is to reach the 90th percentile ranking. We are working on the following to help impact our scores and encourage the "Excellent" scores:

1. The management team meets biweekly with Administration to look at the scores and look for improvements in the scores
2. The Administration sends out the weekly scores via email to the management teams
3. We (the managment team) have developed additional measures in order to affect and improve our departmental scores

• Initate Team Cards that are given to the patients at the discharge point of their care. These cards thank the patients for utilizing our services with the signature of each staff member that took care of them during their procedure. It also gives the Administrative contacts if the patient or family would like to notify us of concerns or compliments of a staff member.
• Share and post scores with the staff members so that they are aware of the Key Drivers (the areas that are our most focus) and the progress that the team is making.
• Leadership rounding on the patients and families to find out what we could do to improve our services and care. This will also give us the opportunity to improve the services before the patient leaves the facility.
• Inform our patients that our goal is to "Provide Excellent Care". We do this with the team card and by informing them of our goals during rounding. Also, our staff use the "Excellent" word while delivering care to the patient.
• Leadership teams walk around and look for ways to improve our services. Whether it is cosmetically or work in teams to improve processes that are within the dept or work with another dept.
• Update scripting used by staff during the post procedure phone call to the patient.
• Have the staff sign up and attend the "Lighting the Way" series classes to improve customer service.

Responses to Class blogs- English 111- Feb 4th week

Writing Process:
Most of my nursing career has been in Endoscopy, so the "verbal constipation" phrase really caught my eye as we attempt to write a draft of papers!!! This was a nice, concise explanation of the writing process.
Kaizen:
I was especially interested in this topic regarding Kaizen, as I am about to participate in an actual Kaizen within my departments!! I was not familiar with this word until about a month ago. Your description is absolutely clear and I can relate it so well to my work situation. We have already submitted a list of participants and are in the planning stages of the event. I am working with a consultant to break down the steps involved in the surgical process. ie the patient goes to the MD office, PreAdmission Testing, Holding (day of surgery), Operating Room, PACU (Recovery Room) The outcome or goal is to improve the efficiency for the patient moving through this entire process. I really enjoyed reading your description and didn't really know the "big picture" of the project yet, but now am more informed. Thanks
Procrastination:
I usually do not have much of a problem with procrastination, since I am quite the opposite. I usually drive myself crazy trying to "get it all done." Motivation has never been a problem for me. I have been challenged though, with this new concept of an on line class. The technology has challenged me and I will be greatly relieved once it is all more comfortable for me to use. I am not use to having to resource others in order to get my work completed. Asking a young adult daughter to assist me is not only humbling, but she is very inpatient for some reason. I have tried to equate this to the fact that I am a constant "Mother and Nurse" resource to every member of the family!! Anyway, the only other thing that I have been known to procrastinate about is exercise. I enjoy walking, but do not put it as a top priority, as I have so many "mandatory" responsibilities. Your tips were helpful on this subject. It also made me thankful for my obsessive personality and the fact that I usually do not struggle with this problem! I typically fall under the self-destructive mode.
I have actually saved the articles about the Ten steps to writing and the 24 hr librarian, as I think that they will be helpful to me in the future!

Reading Response to Chapter 4

Minute Paper
After reading this Chapter, I have definately realized the amount of preparation and difficulty that is present in writing a true article, paper, etc. Writing about a topic of interest has always been fairly easy for me, but it is much more involved than I originally realized. It seems that the focus should be on organizing your thoughts. This organization brings out a better product.

This brings up a personal question for me. Am I going to be successful given this new challenge of writing? Perhaps, this is why I didn't pass the CLEP involved for this class!

Summary
The act of writing about an experience helps the writer because the act of writing requires reflection. This is a powerful tool for gaining insight and understanding about life.

Rhetorical Knowledge
You need to consider the following:

• Audience- Make your experience relevant to them. Ask yourself: Who is your primary audience? Who might be interested in the subject?
• Purpose- entertain the audience or inform/persuade them. You can have more than one purpose.
• Rhetorical situation- consider the factors affecting what you are writing. ie. the audience, yourself, the topic, your purpose.
• Writer's voice/tone- your attitude toward the topic. Examples include: amusing, sarcastic, neutral, regretful, etc. Depending on the assignment, you a may/may not be major character in your narrative. If you are a participant, you are the writer and also the major character. If you are not a participant, you might write in the 3rd person. Your attitude toward the characters will help determine your tone.
• Context, medium and genre- all affect your writing decisions. You need to understand the situation that creates the occasion to write. How will the writing be used? What is the most effective way to present your information?
• Consider what your audience may already know about the subject
• Significant point-fresh, usually unexpected. You can show significance by explaining in great detail; how the event you are telling about changed you, affected you or improved your life.

Critical thinking, reading and writing
Writing about experiences can have several qualities- a clear sense of purpose, a significant point, a narrative or an honest representation. You have to also respect the privacy of those that you are writing about.

• Learning- you need to learn in order to share experiences so that your writing is effective
• Responsibilities- you have the responsibility to write your experiences with accuracy and sensitivity towards others
• Reading and research- utilize your own memories or that of others, photos, documents and ideas from your reading
• Narrative writing- writing about experiences. Usually engages readers and keeps them interested. Incorporating diaglogue increases the engagement of the reader.
• Lively narrative- the foundation for writing about experiences. Answers the questions Who? What? Where? Why? How?
• Dialogue- what people have to say. Brings a narrative to life. Can also reveal something about the character of the people involved.
• Vivid description- detailed descriptions of the people/characters involved.
• Point of view- first person is the most often used (I, me). Third person may be a more interesting or effective way to tell a story. It could be the point of view of another participant at the event or an observer.
• Climax or crisis- an effective narrative that leads to something; usually makes a point or an idea that the writer wants to explain or a concept the writer wants the reader to understand.
• Honest representation- it is importnat to represent the characters as accurately as possible. Present the events without unnecessary embellishments.

Writing Processes

• Invention- choose the strategies that help you to recall the details of your experiences. Use the strategies on Pg. 98
• Research
• Organize your details and ideas- organize in a series of events. Who is your audience? Why might they be interested? or how can you make them interested? What is your main purpose of writing? Consider utilizing a "flashback". Something that happened in the past is shown "just the way it happened", then the narrator returns to the present to reflect on it's significance.
• Constructing a complete draft-Introduction- (start with a surprising event or dialogue, interesting details or a comment that might startle your readers), Body, Conclusion, Title.
• Revising- read your work with a critical eye.
• Work with peers- classmates offer you comments or questions about your work. You need to carefully consider what the reader has to say. Remember: YOU are the writer and are responsible for dealing with the responses to your work! Use ?? on Pg. 112.
• Editing- Make changes to the sentence structure and word choice to improve your style to make your writing clearer and more concise. Check your work for grammer, usage, punctuation, mechanics and spelling.
• Recursive- to revisit each stage numerous times as you work.

Steps that it includes:

• Topic
• Audience
• Develop the topic
• Figure out what you want to say
• Figure out the order to present your ideas
• Write a rough draft (often the most difficult) "Verbal constipation"
• Revision- multiple drafts/changes to check for the right tone. Also, include examples, evidence, etc.
• Edit- (proof read) check for grammer, usage and spelling
• Review- judge what you have done.

Conventions

• Editing- utilizing dialogue to share the experience
• Genres for sharing experiences- includes personal essay, autobiography, magazine or newspaper essay, blog, letters, accident reports, etc.
• Documentation- list sources that were utilized using the correct style

I especially enjoyed the writing of the Farm Girl. Reading the transitions that the paper took on was quite interesting. I really liked how she changed/modified the story after she obtained feedback from others.

Kristi Seay

English 111/DL02