NU703 Unit 6 Writing Seminar Reflection Example

Ninety Words In, Three Kinds of Comment Out: A Seminar Reflection on Revising One Paragraph About Discharge Phone Calls for a Doctoral Reader

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

NU703: Professional Role Development of the DNP-Prepared Nurse

Unit 6 Seminar Reflection

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The author, classmates and facilitator are composite; word counts are bracketed.

The Paragraph I Brought

This is the paragraph as I submitted it to the seminar, about [90] words:

"TFU by RNs post-DC proves effective for reducing readmits. Harrison et al. (2011) shows pts who got TFU had fewer readmits within 30 days. Mistiaen and Poot (2006) reviewed TFU and found pts like the calls. The calls also help with med rec and s/sx education. Therefore, RN-led TFU should be implemented on all med-surg units to decrease readmits and improve pt outcomes, as the evidence clearly shows."

When I wrote it, I thought it was efficient. I had read both sources carefully, and the paragraph said what I believed they showed.

What the Seminar Said

The comments came from three people and fell into three groups.

The first came from [Classmate A.], a nurse executive, who circled [six] abbreviations: TFU, post-DC, readmits, pts, med rec and s/sx. She said she knew what most of them meant, but a reader from outside nursing, such as a hospital finance officer, would not, and even she had to stop and decode "s/sx." Her point was that I had written for nurses at the bedside, not for the doctoral readers the assignment named.

The second came from [Classmate B.], a researcher by background, who asked a simple question: "Which study proved what?" She pointed out that I had written "proves" and "clearly shows" about an observational study and a review. When I went back to the review, I found that its authors had concluded that the number and quality of studies were too limited to draw firm conclusions about the effects of follow-up calls (Mistiaen & Poot, 2006). I had remembered that patients appreciated the calls and forgotten that the review could not show they worked. The other study compared patients who received calls with those who did not in a health plan's data, and found fewer readmissions among those called, but it was not a randomized trial (Harrison et al., 2011). Neither source could prove what I had claimed.

The third came from the facilitator, who wrote in the margin: "Three sources, three sentences, no relationship." She meant that I had reported each study in turn without saying how they related to each other or to my claim.

I had been writing a list of what I read, in the order I read it, and calling it a synthesis.

The Revised Paragraph

This is the revision, about [120] words:

"Telephone follow-up by nurses after hospital discharge may reduce readmissions, but the evidence is not yet strong enough to show it. An observational study in a health plan found fewer 30-day readmissions among patients who received follow-up calls than among those who did not (Harrison et al., 2011), while an earlier systematic review, finding few studies of limited quality, could not draw firm conclusions about effectiveness (Mistiaen & Poot, 2006). Read together, these sources suggest that the calls are feasible and welcomed by patients, and that their effect on readmissions deserves a controlled test before they are adopted on every medical-surgical unit."

What Each Change Was and Why

I made five changes. I spelled out every abbreviation, because doctoral writing is read by people outside my specialty, and APA style asks writers to limit abbreviations to those that help the reader (American Psychological Association, 2020). I replaced "proves" and "clearly shows" with "may" and "suggest," because the evidence was observational. I opened with a claim rather than a study, so the reader knows why the sources appear. I related the two sources with "while" and "read together," so they speak to each other rather than taking turns. And I changed the recommendation from "should be implemented" to "deserves a controlled test," because my own sources did not support wholesale adoption.

What I Learned About My Writing

The abbreviations were easy to fix and taught me little beyond remembering my reader. The hedging taught me more: I had been writing what I wanted the evidence to say. The facilitator's comment taught me the most. When I looked at the rest of my draft synthesis, I found the same pattern in almost every paragraph: one sentence per source, in the order I had read them.

I now have a practical check for catching this habit. Before I revise any paragraph, I underline the first sentence and ask whether it makes a claim or reports a study. If it reports a study, I rewrite it. Then I count how many sentences contain two citations or a word relating sources, such as "while," "similarly" or "in contrast." A synthesis paragraph with none is a list. I have applied this check to the rest of my draft, and it has changed most of the paragraphs.

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Harrison, P. L., Hara, P. A., Pope, J. E., Young, M. C., & Rula, E. Y. (2011). The impact of postdischarge telephonic follow-up on hospital readmissions. Population Health Management, 14(1), 27-32. https://doi.org/10.1089/pop.2009.0076

Mistiaen, P., & Poot, E. (2006). Telephone follow-up, initiated by a hospital-based health professional, for postdischarge problems in patients discharged from hospital to home. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2006(4), Article CD004510. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD004510.pub3