dissonance blog for Eng 701

As a nurse, I read professional journal articles and published studies of medical and nursing research. Nursing research has been criticized as not true research because it is largely ethnographic, descriptive and philosophical. Nursing research is more often about people, their lived experience, rather than controlled trials of some form of treatment. Is it still research and when written, is it rhetoric?

As a graduate student, I will conduct my own research on a topic and develop a thesis. I will need to document and write about my research. As I have stated before, I have not studied composition since the 1980’s, but I have been “instructed” to the appropriate way of writing a research paper. Nursing at UNLV follows the American Psychological Association formula for writing a paper, and, more importantly, documenting the resources referenced in the body of work. Does this make it good composition?

According to the readings we have been doing and about which we have been blogging, scientific writing is a form or mode of discourse called descriptive, narrative or explanatory. Sometimes it is persuasive if the aim of the paper is to promote the treatment or medication based on the statistical success. The research may promote a theory by which other researchers can conduct their research to prove a hypothesis.

Scientific writing is supposed to fit the definition of objective and non-personal (The aim of the early twentieth century writing teachers in the “new College”). This is difficult to do if the study is descriptive.

Since I have been in this course, I have become interested in the various types of writing and curious about how technical writing fits into the concept of rhetoric. I think it will be interesting to discover (or at least review) the types of scientific writings such as random controlled trials, prospective and retrospective studies and other nursing research for the composition styles. Dr. Jablonski has given me some direction as to authors that have reviewed scientific writing, such as Greg Myers’ Writing Biology which, I understand is an analysis of the papers written by two researchers and their efforts to get their papers published. I also want to try to find some information on the writings of Florence Nightingale, the first Nurse researcher. Her contributions to mathematics and statistics gained her a fellowship in the Royal Statistical Society (1858) and The American Statistical Association (1874). It was this work that got the attention of the officials to pay heed to what she cited as the cause of illness and death in the military hospitals in Turkey. She clashed with the military officials, so she went over their heads. She is seen, by some, as a meddlesome, power-hungry socialite who used her Father’s money and influence with the Royal Court to get her way she was also considered a “Feminist Liberal” before the phrase existed. Her writings are from the times we have been reading (the 1850’s through the early 1900’s) I would be curious as to the influence of that era on her writing.

So what will I research for this class? Perhaps the technical writing style of Florence Nightingale compared to present scientific writing? Has it changed? Does anyone care? Nursing has changed and so has the type and volume of research being done. Perhaps researching the various technical purposes of writing for nurses would be more interesting. This is what is being read by nurses today.

Another aspect is technology. Nurses are using communication technology in the hospitals and offices and in the area of education. Many hospitals are using Electronic medical records for interdepartmental communications and nurses need to be savvy with this technology. There is even a specialty of Nursing informatics that involves understanding and being able to use and teach others to use the technology required in a facility. I am also curious to see if more research results are going to be published directly to websites of the researchers rather than wait to be accepted by the various professional journals. If so, how will they be peer reviewed? Will the use of websites change the way research is written and documented? I guess this will be the new Genre of research.

Nurses and nurse educators are using computers to document patient care and PDA’s for resource information at the bedside and in the classroom. There are many programs that make information on medications and the latest treatment modalities available at the fingertips of the nurse and the student. Does this composition style have a name or is it simply another genre of explanatory discourse? I am curious if websites are evaluated for their composition. I know they are evaluated for their accuracy and biases and required to adhere to specific regulations and guidelines developed by the federal government i.e.) Section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001: Public Law 106-554, "Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Organizations" http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/reqs_bestpractices/laws_regs/info_quality.shtml

The more I think about this project, the more I am inclined to look at the writings of Florence Nightingale and compare them to the writings of modern day nurse researchers. I am open to suggestions as to the interests of the class.

I would not want to bore anyone with a dry technical writing topic.