1 Embracing Professional Writing
As you begin your graduate professional training, you will find a great deal of emphasis placed on learning to communicate effectively. Your verbal and nonverbal communication skills are foundational tools for building solid working relationships with your clients/patients, your colleagues, and your professional community. Many students enter graduate studies believing that they are proficient in these skills through their undergraduate courses or through their life and work experiences. However, this assumes that your learning environments have purposefully modelled effective communication skills. It is possible that you have developed writing habits that you now want to improve. The intent of this resource is to build on your earlier learning by focusing on areas for improvement and fine-tuning your strengths.
1.1 Appreciating Graduate Writing Expectations
There is a qualitative difference in professional writing expectations for students in graduate programs compared to writing expectations in undergraduate programs. As a graduate student, you will be expected to develop your own voice and to engage in more in-depth critical thinking and analysis. You may have gone through your entire undergraduate program without having to take a personal stand or learning to articulate your opinion. You may have cited sources for your papers, but you may not have engaged in systematic critical reflection on the credibility of your sources, the context of their ideas and their relationship to other perspectives, or the themes that emerged through synthesis and analysis across sources. Through this professional writing resource, you will move from reading and thinking about a topic with a critical perspective to choosing a particular position, building effective arguments, drawing on appropriate literature to support those arguments, and pulling together relevant implications and conclusions.
Written communication is one of the primary means of assessing how well students have attained the competencies targeted in any graduate program. Your success will depend, in part, on how well you can present your point of view and how effectively you communicate your ideas in written form, whether in course assignments, postings to online discussion forums, email correspondence, or in culminating experiences in your program (i.e., comprehensive exam, project, course-based exist, thesis). These are all opportunities to demonstrate your preparedness to participate effectively in the professional community where you will be expected to apply your writing skills to client or patient record-keeping, interprofessional communication, report writing, policy development, and so on.
In addition to discipline-specific competencies, graduates of all masters programs from Canadian universities are expected to be able to demonstrate certain foundational transdisciplinary competencies. These transdisciplinary competencies come from a number of sources: notably, the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (2007), Canadian Degree Qualifications Framework. During my time at Athabasca University, I led a project to articulate both disciplinary competencies for the Master of Counselling program and transdiciplinary competencies that were applied across a number of Faculty of Health Disciplines (FHD) programs: Transdisciplinary Program Outcomes. The subset below summarizes the learning outcomes from this resource.
Knowledge acquisition. Evaluate critically and integrate knowledge from a range of scholarly sources and disciplines.
Knowledge application. Analyze critically, synthesize, and competently apply knowledge to academic and professional tasks and roles.
Knowledge transfer. Communicate and share knowledge effectively, professionally, honestly, and with integrity.
Professional capacity & autonomy. Assume responsibility for your own learning, and engage in reflective practice to support continued competency development.
This resource will provide you with practical strategies and tools, as well as exercises and activities, for increasing the effectiveness of your writing. I encourage you to make optimal use of the resources provided. Gaining proficiency in these skills early on will facilitate successful completion of your graduate program and optimize your communication efficacy throughout your career.
1.2 Envisioning the Writing Process
For many graduate students, especially those who have not attended university in a number of years, the thought of writing a 20-page research paper is quite overwhelming. Like most tasks, however, once the process is broken down into a series of smaller steps, the end product becomes more realistic and attainable.
There are several phases in writing a graduate paper, which I have adapted from Fowler et al. (2005) and Neilsen (2019). Even though I will address them sequentially, most people do not follow a strict linear process; instead, they loop back and forth between the following phases.
- Planning. In the first phase, establish a general direction for your research and writing, gather appropriate resources, and organize the ideas from these sources in a meaningful way.
- Drafting. Through critical reading, and analysis of, the professional literature, take a position on the topic, identify the key points you want to make, organize these within the structure of your paper, and then craft your introduction and conclusion.
- Revising. Once you have a draft of your paper, it is time to review and revise the content of the paper. In this phase, you are examining your own critical thinking process and reading the paper with a view to ensuring that you have effectively communicated your ideas.
- Editing. Although editing occurs throughout the entire writing process, you should also plan a deliberate editorial style review of your paper. This includes aligning grammar, writing style, citations and references, tables and figures, and the overall format of your paper with the standards outlined in the current APA manual.
The purpose of this resource is to provide you with principles and practices to support you at each stage of the writing process.
1.3 Developing Your Voice
At the graduate level, you are expected to do more than simply gather information from various sources and reorganize it to meet the assignment criteria. You must review the literature with an evaluative lens, and engage in critical thinking and reflection so that you are able to take a position on a topic or an issue. Your position is expressed as a thesis statement, which then becomes the guide for the rest of your writing process. In Chapter 5, I will explore the process of developing a thesis statement and supporting that thesis with a set of key arguments. At this point, I want to emphasize the difference between descriptive reporting on the perspectives of others and developing your own voice. The active engagement of voice is expressed in the following FHD Program Outcome:
You bring unique experiences, ideas, and perspectives to your graduate program. However, in other contexts, you may have received the message that your own voice is less important than the voices in the published literature or the views of your course instructors or my voice. All of these other voices are really the background against which you can develop your own professional voice. Having said this, it is important to note we expect you to shape your professional voice with careful attention to the values, ethics, guidelines, and practices of the professions you aspire to join. Developing your voice is critical for meeting the following FHD Program Outcomes:
Responsibility & accountability. Exercise initiative, and demonstrate both personal responsibility and accountability.
Intellectual independence. Demonstrate the intellectual independence required for ongoing professional development.
One of the purposes of this introduction to professional writing is to provide you with the tools to integrate new knowledge, critically reflect upon it, and then clearly articulate your views. This recursive, interactive, and reflective process is how new meanings are generated. As you work through this resource, you will gain confidence in your ability to synthesize ideas from others, critically analyze those ideas, and use them to support, challenge, and build your own professional opinions and perspectives.
Writing in the First Person
Many graduate students believe that they should never write in first person (i.e., use I-statements). However, it is important to understand when it is appropriate to speak in the first person as part of developing your professional voice. One of the main criteria for effective writing is to eliminate ambiguity. Use personal pronouns when you are referring to your viewpoint, to your actions, or to activities you were involved in as part of a study or as the author of the paper. Claiming your voice in this way enhances the clarity and precision of your writing. For example, you might write “I analyzed all articles published in the Canadian Journal of Nursing Research between 2015 and 2020 to identify emergent themes,” or “Based on this analysis, I reached the following conclusions,” or “My purpose in this paper is to examine critically the application of solution-focused therapy to work with at-risk youth.” In each case, speaking in the first person makes your voice and intentions clear to the reader.
There is a misconception that speaking in the third person enhances credibility. Instead, it may actually introduce ambiguity, and ambiguity reduces credibility. Consider the examples in Table 1.3.1. In the first column, the reader is left wondering who conducted the analysis and who came to these conclusions. If you want the reader to give you credit for your actions and ideas, you must claim your voice.
Table 1.3.1
First Versus Third Person Voice
| Third Person Voice | First Person Voice |
| An analysis of Journal for Nurse Practitioners between 2014 and 2019 identified emergent themes. | I conducted an analysis of the Journal for Nurse Practitioners between 2014 and 2019 and identified emergent themes. |
| Based on this analysis, the following conclusions were reached. | I reached the following conclusions based on this analysis. |
| One might assume from this analysis that nurse practitioners . . . | From my analysis, I concluded that nurse practitioners . . . |
It is important, however, not to clutter your paper with the extraneous use of phrases such as “I believe,” “in my opinion,” or “it occurred to me.” Consider this sentence: “I can see a relationship between stress and well-being. An increase in stress, in my opinion, can put people at risk of both physical and emotional health problems.” The use of an insertion, such as “in my opinion,” can suggest a lack of confidence in your writing, can imply that yours is an unsubstantiated opinion, and can reflect a failure to acknowledge the sources of your ideas (see Chapter 2 on Intellectual Honestly). In this case, it is far more clear and concise to write in the third person as follows: “There is a relationship between stress and well-being (citations). An increase in stress can put people at risk of both physical and emotional health problems (citations).”
Using Active Versus Passive Voice
Your writing will also improve if you use the active rather than the passive voice wherever possible. Statements in active voice typically begin with the subject of the sentence; whereas, statements in passive voice typically start with the object. In Table 1.3.2, I provide examples of passive voice versus active voice. You introduce further ambiguity and potentially obscure meaning when you use the passive voice.
| Passive Person Voice | Active Person Voice |
| Based on this analysis, the following conclusions were reached. | I reached the following conclusions based on this analysis. |
| It is believed by students that writing style is less important than content. | Students believe that writing style is less important than content. |
| The focus group activity was completed by all group members. | All group members completed the focus group activity. |
One of the main reasons that writers slip into using passive voice is the mistaken belief that it is inappropriate to speak from the first person. In an attempt to speak from the third person, the passive voice is often drawn upon. Did you catch the passive voice in the previous sentence? The fact that there is no clear subject in the sentence is often a signal that the passive voice has been used. I will illustrate first person, active voice: I find it more natural to use active voice when I write from the first person.
A word of caution. Speaking from the first person and using the active voice does not mean expressing your views without reference to the body of knowledge in the health disciplines, your professional codes of ethics, or the context within which you write. Rather, you are positioning yourself as an active contributing member to this professional dialogue. Keep the focus on your subject, and use “I” statements when you need to indicate that you are speaking of your own experience, ideas, or actions.
Exercise 1.3.1
Complete Exercise 1.3.1 to practice using the first person and the active voice. Then check your responses against the Exercise 1.3.1 Feedback.
Modelling Cultural Sensitivity and Eliminating Bias
Nondominant and marginalized populations in Canada and the United States have been widely underrepresented in health research, policy development, and practice. Hook and Watkins (2015), Paré and Sutherland (2016), and Scheel et al. (2018) posit that the theories and practice models in psychology, for example, have functioned to maintain the status quo. Systemic oppression on the basis of gender, gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, ability, religion, language, or other cultural identity factors remains widespread (Collins, 2018b). Even though members of nondominant groups are more likely to experience mental and physical health problems (Singh & Moss, 2016), the professions have a long way to go to prevent cultural oppression and to mediate its effects.
One effort toward reducing bias in theory and practice is reflected in the APA editorial guidelines, which guide against biased language. In both your spoken and written communication, the words you select and the context in which you place them can reveal both intentional and unintentional biases. Healthcare practitioners each have their own assumptions, beliefs, values, and worldviews that influence how they relate to other people as well as to diverse ideas. Reducing bias involves bringing those attitudes into awareness and actively acknowledging and addressing stereotypes, prejudices, or other misperceptions (Ratts et al., 2015, 2016).
In both verbal and written communication, it is important to pay attention to the tone you set through the words you choose. You may believe that you are being persuasive, but your use of language can quickly alienate your reader. You can provide support for your point of view by carefully selecting an appropriate tone. The tone you choose should consider your audience, the ethical and professional guidelines of the health disciplines, and the purpose of your writing project.
Exercise 1.3.2
Take some time to review carefully the content of your current APA manual for guidelines related to bias-free language, sensitivity to labels, and tone. Choose a paper you have written in the past or a current writing project, and evaluate critically the degree to which your writing meets these standards.
