Researched Critical Analysis Essay – Adam Chouman FIQWS Portfolio

In the Research Critical Analysis essay, I was assigned to break down the topic further by analyzing other perspectives while exploring the significance.

Annotated Bibliography

Adam Chouman

FIQWS Language and literacy

Prof. Rodwell

11/17/2020

Annotated Bibliography

Bernard, Andrew, et al. “Impact of Language Barrier on Acute Care Medical Professionals Is Dependent Upon Role.” Journal of Professional Nursing, vol. 22, no. 6, 30 Nov. 2006, pp. 355–358. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.profnurs.2006.09.001.

In this article, Bernard highlights the effects of the language barrier/ gap on nursing professionals. Through providing data and statistics it is proven that the language barriers in the health care system could hinder the communication between nurses and patients and cause potential health risks. In terms of the language barrier, this article seems to indicate that stress correlates with the level of communication amongst nurses and patients. This source will be beneficial towards the research essay because it can explain the reason as to why there is low level communication in the nursing field in certain clinical contexts. Therefore, some statistics and quotes from this text would be used to highlight the effects of the language barriers on proper language communication between nurses and patients.

Chan, Engle Angela, et al. “Patients’ Perceptions of Their Experiences with Nurse-Patient Communication in Oncology Settings: A Focused Ethnographic Study.” Plos One, vol. 13, no. 6, 18 June 2018, pp. 1–17. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0199183.

Throughout this article, Chan lays emphasis on the patients views and reaction towards the communication they receive from nursing. One of the key arguments that came out of this text is that there may be some organizational barriers that would get in the way of the nurse fully communicating with the nurse. Those organizational barriers that affected nurses from communicating with their best ability consisted of a large workload alongside within a short timeframe and a crowded / unstable working environment with distractions. By using this article, I could use some evidence of patient surveys and responses to highlight the effectiveness of the nurse communication. This would help decrease the bias significantly in the paper because it would help support the fact that nurses communicate well to patients but could be restrained by the organizational environment.

Hull, Melodie. “Medical Language Proficiency: A Discussion of Interprofessional Language Competencies and Potential for Patient Risk.” International Journal of Nursing Studies, vol. 54, Feb. 2016, pp. 158–72. Elsevier BV, doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2015.02.015.

Throughout this article, Hull laid emphasis on the need for nurses to have medical language proficiency in order to communicate effectively with patients and staff. To add on, Hull argues that medical languages require the use of both layman and standardized language because those are two essential forms to communicate the health complications to the patients. By doing so, Hull argues that nurses could solve the communication barriers along the way. Therefore, some evidence could be used from this text in order to fully highlight the connection between medical language and the communication between nurses / patients. This could also be used when discussing nurses who have English as their second language because language proficiency needs to be emphasized in the nursing profession.

McCabe, Catherine. “Nurse–Patient Communication: an Exploration of Patients’ Experiences.” Journal of Clinical Nursing, Vol.13(1), 22 Dec. 2003, pp. 41-49. Wiley Online Library, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2004.00817.x.

In this research article, McCabe focuses directly on the fact that nurses can communicate properly to patients and goes against the views that nurses can’t communicate language efficiently to their patients. In doing so, she argues that nurses have some lack of communication and do not share as much information with patients because there is not a strong patient centered approach/guideline in some clinics. In terms of the patient reviews of nurse communication she makes a claim that some nurses avoid properly communicating and speaking directly to patients due to the tasks that they must fulfill. I will use this source in my research essay by having 1 quote from a patient’s experience and further explaining and analyzing why nurses must rely on communication to effectively ensure that a patient understands their health.

O’Neill, F. “From language classroom to clinical context: The role of language and

culture in communication for nurses using English as a second language.” International Journal of Nursing Studies, Vol 48(9), 28 Feb. 2011, pp. 1120-1128. Elsevier BV, doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2011.02.008.

In this text, O’Neill emphasizes the importance of language proficiency and communication for international students who seek to become nurses in the future. O’Neill argues that communicating in the nursing field requires people to reshape their cultural and social identity in order to effectively connect with patients. To add on, he lays key importance about the social and linguistic decisions that nurses need to make in order to facilitate their own environment with proper care. Evidence from this text could be used in the research essay because it would support the argument that medical proficiency increases the value of nursing communication. To add on, it would also show the certain decisions nurses make when communicating with patients which could be another reason I could analyze.

Pfeiffer, Danika, et al. “A National Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists’ Engagement in Interprofessional Collaborative Practice in Schools: Identifying Predictive Factors and Barriers to Implementation.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, vol. 50, no. 4, 10 Oct. 2019, pp. 639–655. EBSCOhost, pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2019_LSHSS-18-0100.

Throughout this article, Pfeiffer argues that there should be more learning opportunities through education in order for students to grasp an understanding of speech and communication. Furthermore, Pfeiffer believes that changing the educational setting could create nurse related environments that are good for practice and collaboration. Therefore, Pfeiffer is focusing on the educational sphere’s ability to enhance the social capacity of nursing students in order to create good communication for the future. This article is beneficial to the research essay because it can give out some potential solutions for the problems that exist within the communication of nurses. Specifically, I could use evidence on some methods that could be used to educate nurses about how to take part in proper communication tactics to lessen the gap between a nurse and a patient.

Influence of The Annotate Bibliography On My Growth and Course Learning Outcomes?

The annotated bibliography relates to my growth because it allowed me to synthesize the effectiveness of the source in relation to my thesis statement of the research critical analysis essay. Also, when researching for this assignment I learned to research without a bias which made me find a lot of sources that had multiple ideas / viewpoints around the thesis statement. One beneficial role that the annotated bibliography did for me was help me know where I need to put the sources. By explaining how the sources will be used, it allowed me to organize my essay more effectively. To add on, I believe that the annotated bibliography helped me find the main idea of articles and journals more easily because I need to see if they relate to the topic of my essay.

The course learning outcome of “Practicing systematic application of citation conventions “was beneficial to my growth of properly citing journals and texts because in order to cite you need to know the proper order and conventions of mla citation. Using proper citation also helps me figure out if a source is trustable because if I cannot find information such as the date or author’s name, I would need to reevaluate the credibility by doing research.

Another CLO that reflects my growth is “Locate research sources… and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, and more.” When doing the annotated bibliography, I looked for new sources that had various amounts of ideas and text. To add on, when looking for sources in the annotated bibliography I searched the text to see if the authors lean towards one side of an argument. If so, I would drop it and look for sources that acknowledge a wide range of views. Furthermore, when searching for specific articles it was helpful in terms of figuring out the source’s connection to the thesis statement and how it will be used in the essay based on the text’s main idea.

Research Critical Analysis Draft

Adam Chouman

FIQWS 10103

Prof. Rodwell

11//20/2020

The Interconnection Between Language and Communication in the Nursing field

In the healthcare system, nurses fulfill multiple roles to ensure that patients understand their health complications and to create a healthy/ safe society. Nurses must constantly establish positive relationships with patients in order to ensure proper health decisions in the future. One important feature to nursing is communicating the English language because it is essential for patients to understand their health without being confused. Health literacy pertains to an individual’s ability to read and understand information about their health in order to get on the road for proper treatment. Health literacy in many ways is dependent on nurse communication because there are many ways of communicating health information such as written reports, oral communication, and the communication through images. In society today there is a communication gap within nurses and patients within the healthcare system. However, the use of language in the nursing field has a direct impact on nurse- patient communication as it correlates with their patients’ health literacy and overall health.

Whether it is a daily checkup or medical examination nurses use language to properly explain and report a patient’s health complications/ diagnosis on paper. These reports are used to ensure that patients could have a record of their health and fully understand what needs to be done for the future. In terms of the consistency of nursing communication low health literacy

“in patients is associated with lower disease specific knowledge and even higher mortality” (qtd. in Bittner 1137). In other words, when nurses reinterpret a disease and don’t specify it clearly it could leave the patient without much knowledge to understand health complications. The word “mortality” suggests that those who lack a proper understanding of their health have a higher risk of dying. Therefore, language must be communicated in a way that explains nursing terminology and more. Specifically, layperson language is when nurses translate medical language into the use of everyday language so that others could comprehend the material. When nurses write reports, it is important for them to distinguish key words and phrases that highlight a certain issue with health. Therefore, within communicating the language nurses use the ability to ‘‘jump back and forth between medical terminology and plain language very easily’’(Bittner 1140). This is important to recognize because if nurses use the medical terminology to explain a symptom or illness to a patient then it would decrease patient health literacy. When switching between everyday language and nursing language it decreases the communicational barrier because it gives a chance to patients in the healthcare system to have effective care. That is why a diagnosis must be explained and laid out effectively by using proper language skills.

When nurses communicate language to patients, they need to use a patient centered approach in order to ensure that the patients are getting their needs fulfilled. When nurses focus on only completing tasks, they tend to revert away from using proper language and communicating to their best ability. In nursing, communication is not only tailored to a patient’s health, but it is about forming a bond to further elaborate and combat all health-related concerns/ feelings. Furthermore, “it also involves transmitting feelings, recognizing these feelings and letting the patient know that their feelings have been recognized” (McCabe). Therefore, in nurses communicating feelings is an important form of language, as it allows patients- nurses to form a connection and too relieve any stress from having a sickness/ illness. When communicating nurses don’t only tell patients their health complications but they should keep asking questions to see if the nurses can understand their complication. To add on, with patient center communication patients negotiate in decision‐making regarding their own care” (McCabe). Therefore, when nurses just use basic communication and don’t go above and beyond to communicate to patients, many could be disadvantaged in making positive decisions for their health. When nurses are focused on the tasks that they are supposed to fulfill throughout the day they tend to avoid communication. Furthermore, it isn’t always a nurse’s fault for poor communication, it could be an organizational barrier that makes nurses fulfill their role of helping patients without further communicating/ engaging in conversations. Therefore, organizations must recognize the cause of not allowing nurses to communicate everything in their will.

In terms of nursing language, there is a set procedure in communicating health symptoms to patients. This procedure involves nurses to understand and break down key terminologies with the use of proper grammar. Through oral and non- oral communication nurses “can convey or interpret deeper meanings, distinguish themes, voice opinion, and follow directions precisely” (Hull 158). Using language that voices opinion is important in a nurse-patient context because the language used to give the opinion could benefit a patient when suggesting medication or health plans. Without the ability to interpret nursing language meanings it would be hard to communicate and break down health concerns to a patient. However, if all the info is laid out clearly the directions could help patients have a speedy recovery. Therefore, if language isn’t understood through meaning then it would be hard for patients to recover and alleviate stress in a clinical context. To add on, nurses have a specific way to communicate and converse to patients. For instance, nurses “constantly learn an expected pattern of responses, a ‘‘routine’’… not knowing the appropriate conversational routines can lead to miscommunication” (O’Neill 1121). There are many different and important parts to a nurse’s conversational routine. With an expected pattern of responses nurses communicate specifically towards the goal of their patients. Through these routines, nurses communicate numbers to tell patients how much dosage of a medicine they should take and other health related concerns. This demonstrates that if nurses are able to follow the routines patients would understand and effectively comprehend their diagnosis. This relates specifically to patient health literacy because they could make proper decisions if they aren’t confused about the basic health information pertaining to the health complication.

Through communication, it is the nurse’s role to make sure that they are communicating advice effectively in order to not push the patient into a negative direction.

“One patient described how a misunderstanding about a request relating to her diet made her less ready to communicate with nurses when she was in doubt about the medication administered by the nurse” (Chan 4). In other words when the patients develop a misunderstand about what they are being told to do from the nurses, then less trust develops. In this case, the poor communication of medical jargon and advice directly confused the patient which further caused the patient to communicate less when in need of health advice/ decisions which demonstrates low health literacy. This demonstrates that it is important for nurses to use vocabulary and words that can help patients understand. If phrases don’t seem accurate then patients could be disadvantaged in the healthcare system.

Nursing education could be one of the alleyways to improving language communication in the medical field between a nurse and patient. For instance, medical “pre-professional students need collaborative opportunities that are integrated across programs and colleges”( Pfeiffer 642). This is one potential that could help increase the language proficiency and communication of nursing students. This is beneficial because the communication of nursing language takes time to digest and break down due to the patients needing to understand the material. If nursing students do not practice and understand how to communicate the language to a different audience, then it would be hard to fulfill a patient’s needs. If this procedure is implemented within the educational system, the patients in the future could develop a further understanding of their health and could understand the language that nurses feel. This would also be beneficial in cutting down the language barriers that exist within the healthcare system because there are many patients that speak or know English as their second language (immigrants, etc.).

Although language centered communication is important for nurses, many nurses are restricted from properly communicating to patients due to high prolonged stress throughout a shift. Specifically, it is tough for nurses to communicate to those who do not understand English as a second language. For instance, 65% of nurses and only 25% of physicians considered the barrier to be a very significant impediment to quality of care” (Bernard 356). This demonstrates that nurse communication could be affected by the language barrier and having too much stress. The phrase “impediment” shows that stress can hinder the ability to communicate effectively to patients and quality care. Therefore, if stress gets in the way of quality care then patient health literacy would be very low because the language that is communicated won’t be easy to understand and patients would not comprehend it. One suggestion that this article hints at is ensuring that nurses have minimal stress in order to communicate effectively through patient – centered care.

Ultimately, when language is properly used in nurse – patient communication, patients will have a direct understanding of their health implications and would be able to make proper health decisions for the future. When relating this to societal issues today such as the coronavirus, it is important for nurses to communicate language by translating medical terminology because it would allow people to understand all of the health complications relating to the virus. To add on, if many communities in this society have low health literacy then many would be surrounded with low hygiene and bad health implications. It is important to ensure that patients can comprehend and understand health illnesses in order to create a healthy and aware society.

Work Cited :

Bittner, Anja, et al. “Translating Medical Documents into Plain Language Enhances Communication Skills in Medical Students – A Pilot Study.” Patient Education and Counseling, vol. 22, no. 6, 2015, pp. 1137–1141. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.pec.2015.05.024.

O’Neill, F. “From language classroom to clinical context: The role of language and culture in communication for nurses using English as a second language.” International Journal of Nursing Studies, Vol 48(9), 28 Feb. 2011, pp. 1120-1128. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2011.02.008.

Pfeiffer , Danika , et al. “A National Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists’ Engagement in Interprofessional Collaborative Practice in Schools: Identifying Predictive Factors and Barriers to Implementation.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, vol. 50, no. 4, 10 Oct. 2019, pp. 639–655. EBSCOhost, pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2019_LSHSS-18-0100.

Effect Of The Research Critical Analysis Draft On My Growth and Course Learning Outcome?

The research critical analysis is another essay that required a heavy writing process. In terms of creating the thesis statement, I have some trouble when analyzing all of the sources into one definitive sentence. To add on, this is different from a normal research paper because it requires more analysis and synthesis of ideas to see the relation between 2 factors language and nursing. Also, there is some repetition of ideas in the draft that need to be cut out to not confuse the reader. Therefore, in the drafting process this essay taught me how to reread my work from the perspective of a reader to identify if it makes sense or not.

A portion of a CLO that was used was “developing strategies for revising and editing.” When revising my RCA, I made sure to delete the repetition of ideas throughout my essay by rereading it twice or three times to eliminate phrases that are repetitive or do not make sense. In that case, it would give me more room to analyze the connection between the topic which would make it much more of a stronger essay. To add on, when editing I used the strategy of reading the text aloud to fix the meaning of phrases that don’t make sense in terms of the synthesis of the evidence.

Final Research Critical Analysis Essay

Adam Chouman

FIQWS 10103

Prof. Rodwell

12/08/2020

The Interconnection Between Language and Communication in the Nursing field

In the healthcare system, nurses fulfill multiple roles to ensure that patients understand their health complications and to create a healthy/ safe society. Nurses must constantly establish positive relationships with patients in order to ensure proper health decisions in the future. One important feature to nursing is communicating the English language because it is essential for patients to understand their health without being confused. Health literacy pertains to an individual’s ability to read and understand information about their health in order to get on the road for proper treatment. Health literacy in many ways is dependent on nurse communication because there are many ways of communicating health information such as written reports, oral communication, and the communication through images. In society today there is a communication gap within nurses and patients within the healthcare system. However, the use of language in the nursing field during nurse- patient communication has a direct impact on the patients’ health literacy because it serves as a guide to acknowledge/treat all heath complications.

“in patients is associated with lower disease specific knowledge and even higher mortality” (qtd. in Bittner 1137). In other words, when nurses reinterpret a disease and don’t specify it clearly it could leave the patient without much knowledge to understand health complications. The word “mortality” suggests that those who lack a proper understanding of their health have a higher risk of dying. Therefore, language must be communicated in a way that explains nursing terminology and more. Specifically, layperson language is when nurses translate medical language into the use of everyday language so that others could comprehend the material. When nurses write reports, it is important for them to distinguish key words and phrases that highlight a certain issue with health. Therefore, within communicating the language nurses use the ability to ‘‘jump back and forth between medical terminology and plain language very easily’’ (Bittner 1140). This is important to recognize because if nurses use the medical terminology to explain a symptom or illness to a patient then it would decrease patient health literacy. When switching between everyday language and nursing language it decreases the communicational barrier because it gives a chance to patients in the healthcare system to have effective care. To add on, by explaining material in everyday terms it can give the patients more chances to understand. That is why a diagnosis must be explained and laid out effectively by using proper language skillsets.

When nurses communicate language to patients, they need to use a patient centered approach in order to ensure that the patients are getting their needs fulfilled. When nurses focus on only completing tasks, they tend to revert away from using proper language and communicating to their best ability. In nursing, communication is not only tailored to a patient’s health, but it is about forming a bond to further elaborate and combat all health-related concerns/ feelings. Furthermore, “it also involves transmitting feelings, recognizing these feelings and letting the patient know that their feelings have been recognized” (McCabe). Therefore, nurses communicating feelings is an important form of language, as it allows patients- nurses to form a connection and to relieve any stress from having a sickness/ illness. When nurses communicate their role is to not only tell patients about their health complications but should keep asking questions to see if the patient can understand their complication. To add on, with patient center communication patients negotiate in decision‐making regarding their own care” (McCabe). Therefore, when nurses just use basic communication and do not go above and beyond to communicate to patients, many could be disadvantaged in making positive decisions for their health. When nurses are focused on the tasks that they are supposed to fulfill throughout the day they tend to avoid communication. Furthermore, it is not always a nurse’s fault for poor communication, it could be an organizational barrier that makes nurses fulfill their role of helping patients without further communicating/ engaging in conversations due to a time factor. Therefore, health organizations and clinics must recognize the cause of not allowing nurses to communicate everything in their will.

In terms of nursing language, there is a set procedure in communicating health symptoms to patients. This procedure involves nurses to understand and break down key terminologies with the use of proper grammar. Through oral and non- oral communication nurses “can convey or interpret deeper meanings, distinguish themes, voice opinion, and follow directions precisely” (Hull 158). Using language that voices opinion is important in a nurse-patient context because the language used to give the opinion could benefit a patient when suggesting medication or health plans. Without the ability to interpret nursing language meanings it would be hard to communicate and break down health concerns to a patient. However, if all the info is laid out clearly the directions could help patients have a speedy recovery. Therefore, if language is not understood through meaning then it would be hard for patients to recover and alleviate stress in a clinical context. To add on, nurses have a specific way to communicate and converse to patients. For instance, nurses “constantly learn an expected pattern of responses, a ‘‘routine’’… not knowing the appropriate conversational routines can lead to miscommunication” (O’Neill 1121). There are many different and important parts to a nurse’s conversational routine. With an expected pattern of responses nurses communicate specifically towards the goal of their patients. Through these routines, nurses communicate numbers to tell patients how much dosage of a medicine they should take and other health related concerns. This demonstrates that if nurses can follow the routines patients would understand and effectively comprehend their diagnosis. This relates specifically to patient health literacy because they could make proper decisions if they are not confused about the basic health information pertaining to the health complication.

Through communication, it is the nurse’s role to make sure that they are communicating advice effectively to not push the patient into a negative direction. For example, “One patient described how a misunderstanding about a request relating to her diet made her less ready to communicate with nurses when she was in doubt about the medication administered by the nurse” (Chan 4). In other words when the patients develop a misunderstand about what they are being told to do from the nurses, then less trust develops. In this case, the poor communication of medical jargon and advice directly confused the patient which further caused the patient to communicate less when in need of health advice/ decisions which demonstrates low health literacy. This demonstrates that it is important for nurses to use vocabulary and words that can help patients understand. If phrases do not seem accurate then patients could be disadvantaged in the healthcare system. Furthermore, if advice is properly communicated by using proper words nurses could create a bond with patients to strike out other health related issues.

Nursing education could be one of the alleyways to improving language communication in the medical field between a nurse and patient. For instance, medical “pre professional students need collaborative opportunities that are integrated across programs and colleges”( Pfeiffer 642). This is one potential that could help increase the language proficiency and communication of nursing students. This is beneficial because the communication of nursing language takes time to digest and break down due to the patients needing to understand the material. If nursing students do not practice and understand how to communicate the language to a different audience such as patients with different cultural backgrounds, then it would be hard to fulfill a patient’s needs. If this procedure is implemented within the educational system, the patients in the future could develop a further understanding of their health and could understand the language that nurses communicate. This would also be beneficial in cutting down the language barriers that exist within the healthcare system because there are many patients that speak or know English as their second language (immigrants, etc.) but have a hard time comprehending the health complication related to themselves or family members.

Although language centered communication is important for nurses, many nurses are restricted from properly communicating to patients due to high prolonged stress throughout a shift. Specifically, it is tough for nurses to communicate to those who do not understand English as a second language. For instance, “65% of nurses and only 25% of physicians considered the barrier to be a very significant impediment to quality of care” (Bernard 356). This demonstrates that nurse communication could be affected by the language barrier and having too much stress. The phrase “impediment” shows that stress can hinder the ability to communicate effectively to patients and could reduce quality care. Therefore, if stress gets in the way of quality care then patient health literacy would be very low because the language that is communicated will not be easy to understand and patients would not comprehend it. One suggestion that this article hints at is ensuring that nurses have minimal stress to communicate effectively through patient – centered care.

Ultimately, when language is properly used in nurse – patient communication, patients will have a direct understanding of their health implications and would be able to make proper health decisions for the future due to increased comprehension/ health literacy. In terms of the language barrier that exists in the healthcare system, a new linguistic approach should be taken to try to satisfy the comprehension and understanding of health patients across the health care system. When relating this to societal issues today such as the coronavirus, it is important for nurses to communicate language by translating medical terminology because it would allow people to understand all the health complications relating to the virus. To add on, if many communities in this society have low health literacy then many would be surrounded with low hygiene and bad health implications. It is important to ensure that patients can comprehend and understand health illnesses, in order to create a healthy society that is always making positive health decisions while staying connected through communicating with nurses.

Work Cited:

Pfeiffer , Danika , et al. “A National Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists’ Engagement in Interprofessional Collaborative Practice in Schools: Identifying Predictive Factors and Barriers to Implementation.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, vol. 50, no. 4, 10 Oct. 2019, pp. 639–655. EBSCOhost, pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2019_LSHSS-18-0100. Accessed 9 Nov. 2020

Course Learning Outcomes Fulfilled:

Part of CLO # 7 that was used is “Compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using critical analysis” because a stance is being developed by using the strategy of critical analysis. Specifically, when trying to analyze the connection to my topic in the research critical analysis essay I made sure that I took the sources into consideration. By analyzing and synthesizing the sources all into one thesis statement it allowed me to create an essay that would be organized and easy to follow.

RCA- Self Reflection Essay

Adam Chouman

FIQWS 10103

Prof. Rodwell

12/8/2020

RCA- Self Reflection Essay

The research critical analysis essay is much different than a classical research paper where you analyze and state your position. Instead, you are critiquing and analyzing the many different viewpoints/ evidence that was found through research. The process of this essay took very long compared to the previous essays in this course due to putting together an outline, annotated bibliography, drafts, peer review, and more.

Research was a key component in this essay because it required a lot of unbiased and scholarly texts. With the first batch of research, I collected many articles that were one sided and didn’t explore multiple sides to the argument connecting language communication and nursing. This skewed my thesis statement and made it sound very one sided. For example, my first thesis statement leaned toward the side of nurses needing to properly communicate language in order to narrow the communicational gap. This sentence seems very one sided because I already decided on the main points of my evidence. However, that influenced me to put time into finding research that went further into the different facets in language and nurse communication such as the different forms of communication the nurses use, and the communication procedures used to speak with patients. After doing this, I was able to formulate a thesis statement that could be arguable from multiple viewpoints and unbiased. Therefore, part of the course learning outcome I succeeded in was “locating research sources and evaluating them for accuracy and bias” because if it were not for evaluating sources on whether it was opinionated or had multiple views my thesis statement would have been misleading.

Peer review was another component that helped me get assistance from another set of eyes. In the peer review of the RCA draft the reader was confused because there was a lot of repetition in terms of explaining the connection of language to nursing communication. In my essay I kept on repeating the phrase “health complications” or “communication”. This forced me to reread my essay from a reader’s viewpoint and change up my word choice by finding other synonyms in order to not make the reader bored. I also needed to clarify if the topic was about nurses as a whole or nurses communication language to patients. Therefore, I made it clear in my thesis statement what the central focus was in the essay such as language and the communication between nursing and patients.

For the rhetorical situation, I needed to give some context and define key terms which may be confusing for the reader. In my intro, I defined health literacy because it was a term that was stated in my thesis statement and throughout the RCA essay. Without defining this term, the readers would have been confused. In terms of the audience, I made it generalized towards the students and professors because I did not want to make it seem like it was an essay only for nurses. In this genre style of writing, I was forced to write differently than the exploratory essay. I chose to use some more nuanced word choice to bring out my analysis on the connection of the topic.

This assignment will impact my future writing assignments greatly because now I have a better understanding of how to evaluate sources for credibility and arguments. That idea specifically would help me outline for future essay assignments and research. To add on, in terms of future writing assignments I learned how to create a thesis statement that is arguable and unbiased. Furthermore, I believe that I am better at analyzing and synthesizing quotes and evidence whether it supports or denies my thesis statement.

How Did The Self Reflection Essay Impact My Growth and Course Learning Outcomes?

Part of CLO #4 that helped address my growth was “engage in social aspects of writing processes because when writing self-reflection essays, I tend to analyze my writing decisions in a way to allow the audience to understand my writing process and the connection of my writing to my topic. This represents the social aspects of writing because we are explaining to the audience how we wrote the essay and the potential factors/ decisions that impacted the whole research critical analysis essay itself. By communicating it properly, the true meaning and analysis behind the writing decisions can be found.