Effective writing skills
Writing is one of the most tools used to communicate and pass ideas across. Despite the lack of a universally accepted way of writing, writers need to put across their point and relay the information. An excellent article requires a combination of good content and good writing skills. In most cases, it is easy to create good content since most people have interesting things to say (Ballantyne, 2015). However, a good writing technique is what lacks, and in most cases, makes an article fall flat. When writing for the health field, it is important to develop a piece that shifts away from the complicated medical jargon and procedures to a content that is easy to understand and can be understood by the average reader. This article will analyze Issel, L. Michele Ph.D.’s “It’s health care, not healthcare” article, which was published in the Health Care Management Review-Journal to put across some of the main writing skills adopted by the writer. The article is one of the most popular article in the journal, and the health sciences articles as a whole.
The author generally targeted the general audience for the article but refereed explicitly to an author for inconsistent use of the word ‘Healthcare’ instead of Health care. The main author’s point in the article is to state the correct use of the words based on their grammatical meanings as contained in the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster’s dictionary. To put across the main idea, she employs a range of writing techniques that holistically adds up to the interesting article she puts across.
First, the article was done in a simplistic manner, which minimized the barrier to entry for the audience. The article was also done in a short stylistic and appealing manner. The short paragraphs notwithstanding, the article was able to deliver its message accurately and cohesively. The author did give not only their opinion on the subject matter but also drew a background of the grammatical meaning from the dictionary. To a large extent, the article was relevant to the field since the term health care has widely been used in writing and also in reference to the entire sector. Besides, the article is also a unique one, as there have been no many people who have attempted to write on the abnormalities in the use of the terms. As such, a good piece of writing should adhere to these five writing tips stated by Southerland & Settlage (2018). (1) Accuracy (2) Cohesiveness (3) Uniqueness, (4) Relevance, and (5) Simplicity.
Other than content and techniques, reading goes a great deal to improve a person’s writing skills. That is, the more one reads, the better writer they become. According to (Küçükoğlu (2013), the following are some of the ways that reading helps a person improve their writing skills (1) Reading helps one improve their grasp of vocabulary. (2) It improves writing through connection with our own experiences and emotions. (3) According to William Faulkner, there is nothing that inspires writers, like reading someone else’s words. (4) To a large extent, in-depth reading activates the brain’s centers for speech, vision, and hearing, all of which together help us speak, read, and write. Besides, deep reading improves a writer’s empathy. It gives them a chance to appreciate all the qualities that contribute to a fascinating and meaningful piece of writing, which ultimately adds to their ability to write on a deeper level.
References
Ballantyne, H. (2015). Writing an article. Nursing Standard, 29(35), 49-49. doi: 10.7748/ns.29.35.49.s44
Küçükoğlu, H. (2013). Improving Reading Skills through Effective Reading Strategies. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 70, 709-714. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.113
Southerland, S., & Settlage, J. (2018). Writing worth reading: Science methods textbooks and science education articles. Science Education, 102(3), 447-451. doi: 10.1002/sce.21342