Creating a Structured Writing Style in Healthcare

Lyric Randall

Antioch University

        In any organization there are many different forms, genres, tones, and ways to create credibility in a writing environment. Writing is an awesome way for someone to express himself or herself, as well as the program or organization that they represent. An employee of the Regional Office of State, Adriana, was kind enough to allow for her written artifacts to be shared and then further analyzed. Adriana has a hard job because in a days work she tries to reach out to different demographic of people to trying to further educate them. Her written work is an important key factor in creating a successful beneficial program for women and creating writing style that is factual but also easily understandable. To achieve logos, pathos, and create a structured style of writing when communicating through writing is an necessary style in the healthcare profession, but in communication the Every Woman Counts Program has a challenge of demonstrating the value of the program to people who are not well versed in the domain of healthcare.

        For this project the woman that was interviewed works with the regional office of the State’s Every Woman Counts program, which provides free breast and cervical cancer screening, diagnostic services, and public education to low income, and uninsured women age 40+. This program reaches out to women through a network of local community and public clinics, including Planned Parenthood and Public Health Clinics. Mammograms and other diagnostic imaging are provided at all imaging centers that accept Medi-Cal.  The Every Woman Counts program is open to any individuals regardless of their residency status. This program also serves women with high deductibles/co-payments at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, who may need help obtaining a diagnostic service that is not covered by their regular insurance. This program also has a short educational class that features low literacy and is easy to understand information about breast and cervical cancer, as well as the overall concepts of the program. The Department of Health Care Services program also offers basic information about the Affordable Care Act and referrals to Covered California.  This program has bilingual, bicultural staff who speaks English, Spanish, and Mixtec working for them. This allows for all women with different cultural background to seek help and more information. Yet another wonderful service that this program provides is that they regularly attend community events, such as health fairs and food pantries. They go out into the community so they can handout different brochures, flyers, information packets, and other information that they want women to have. All of these artifacts that they handout are factual, linear, and easily understandable.

        When first analyzing artifacts the genera of the work should be noted. From what was observed the genera of these documents and web pages were primarily structured with pathos, ethos, and logic as well as being educational, friendly, and creating a sense of community. The artifacts that were received was t their web page, as well as informative handouts and flyers that Adriana’s program give to people. The documents are that were reviewed were all educational and visually were extreme linear. There are many different facts embedded in the text about breast and cervical cancer in regards to how to prevent, how to treat, and how to qualify through the Every Woman Counts program. The flyers display the educational information in a very clear and concise way that allows for the reader to easily comprehend the information displayed. Because of the friendly style that these artifacts display, it could draw the attention of the target audience and create a sense of support and demonstrate the willingness and want to help. These documents show the reader that the program is friendly and there to help. Being friendly to an audience is important when trying to reach out to a specific group. On the other hand, if the flyers were filled with boring and dry text, it is probable that not as many people would choose to read it, therefore dismissing what the program has to offer. The flyers present information that the program is friendly by displaying numerous pictures of happy women, naturally smiling in a group of other women; intern symbolizing the support of each other. When a woman want and is choosing to become educated on a subject that they are unfamiliar with, it is important for them to feel like they are being supported and part of a family, or a part of a specific group that is welcoming to them. Because of the friendly vibe that the documents project, the Every Woman Counts program is able to create a sense of community, as well as demonstrating to the community of women that are not alone, but rather that they are being supported.

        Next let’s address the writing style and appeal of the documents: ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is the most predominant style of writing in all of the written artifacts that were analyzed. The Every Woman Counts program chose to write in a way that convinces the reader of the character or credibility of their program. This is important for the program to do because once again, they are trying to make themselves credible so that uneducated women can become more informed. They want to persuade the reader that the program is credible and capable of helping the reader. Supporting ethos in the writing style of the Every Woman Counts program is pathos. Pathos is a way of creating a way to convince an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response. This is accomplished in Adriana’s writing artifacts by showing personable stories. Brief stories are shared about people who haven’t taken advantage of the program or staid up to date on their physical testing, and how their life has changed since they were not safe. “The bottom line is they caught the cancer early, but the complications continued to impact my life and my family”. By quickly telling someone’s hardships like this really persuades an audience to look further into the program so that a story like this doesn’t happen to them. The program is allowing for the readers to create reason within themselves by acknowledging a hardship in someone’s life. Lastly there is pathos. Pathos is a writing style that creates emotion within the reader by convincing the audience of an argument through creating an emotional response. All of the flyers and handouts for the Every Woman Counts program also uses logos, which is a writing style that persuades the audience by reason. This writing style is slightly harder to depict but it is still there: “cancer is a disease in which cells in the body grow out of control. When cancer starts in the breast it is called breast cancer. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in California women”. This statement is very clear and concise, allowing for the audience to be persuaded by reason and logic. Using these three forms of writing is essential in a healthcare profession, because without having a document that is convincing, creates credibility, persuades the audience, generates emotion, and demonstrating the logic behind the concepts of the document, than the Every Woman Counts program would not be credible and thrive like it currently does.

The tone of writing in a healthcare profession, from what has been studied, hasn’t had very much of a dramatic variation. In terms of healthcare, they have a wide ranged audience. They achieve reaching out to this wide range of people through rhetorical appeal and by compiling an extensive amount of research. Adriana was asked, “Where do you get the information to support the claims on your brochures and websites?” Her reply was, “we get our information from a credible source. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control), State of California Every Woman Counts Program, and professional peer reviewed studies”. So as you can see, an extensive amount of research has to be done in order for the Every Woman Counts Program to be credible. They show their credibility throughout their forms by creating very structured documents. The structure is apparent due to the bullet points, boxy, linear fashion of the forms. When looking at the handouts every document is laid out in categories (in boxes), so that the reader can easily compartmentalize the data and better understand the text. Because the text is not too wordy, the Every Woman Counts Programs is able to tackle the challenge of educating women who are not educated. Being able to tailor a message to a specific audience, ultimately, plays a part in effective communication.


Side note... Where I want to go with the rest of this paper.... I want to discuss more about why the Every Woman Counts Program has a challenging task to demonstrate the value of their program. I will be concluding with a few more references to the informative interview I did as well as from the documents I was given.