Mentoring Disadvantaged Nursing Students Through Technical Writing Workshops

Abstract

Recent studies have identified a problematic gap for nursing students between terse clinical writing and formal academic writing. This gap can create a potential barrier to academic and workplace success, especially for disadvantaged nursing students who have not acquired the disciplinary conventions and sophisticated writing required in upper-level nursing courses. The authors demonstrate the need for writing-in-the-discipline activities to enhance the writing skills of nursing students, describe the technical writing workshops they developed to mentor minority and disadvantaged nursing students, and provide recommendations to stimulate educator dialogue across disciplines and institutions.

Summer undergraduate nursing research experience: Implementing a mentor-based research program for minority nursing undergraduates

“…[22] This was no exception for our SUNRISE students. Though half of this first cohort had previous research experience and all students in SUNRISE had high grade point averages coming into the nursing program and maintain high averages in the BSN program, scientific writing still needs to be developed.…”

Reading and writing in nursing education

“…Previous studies of nursing students' writing [17,18] suggest that nursing students do not transition easily between workplace and school writing. This difficulty is attributed to the different requirements of the two types of writing.…”

“…Anything that a nurse does, even a discussion with a patient over the telephone-for example, with case management-or face-to-face visits, performing care, administering meds, you name it, [it needs to be documented]. (personal communication, 17 March 2012) In a study of academic writing, Johnson et al [30] say nurses who write patient documentation may "chart observations and write in terse phrases, [a] decided contrast to their academic assignments, where faculty anticipate developed sentences, paragraphs and thoughts" (p. 168).…”

How Baccalaureate Nursing Programs Teach Writing

“…Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing to Learn, and Writing in the Disciplines are three general approaches identified in the literature for teaching writing skills to nursing students (Johnson, Symes, Bernard, Landson, & Carroll, 2007; Luthy, Peterson, Lassetter, & Callister, 2009). Although these approaches are frequently cited, not all schools of nursing with writing programs use them.…”