Effective Writing Skills for Social Work Students

Philip Musson

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780857254177
• eBook ISBN: 9780857254184
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

This concise text is written specifically to help students and practitioners hone their techniques and develop their skills when it comes to writing in a clear, accessible and, above all, rigorous manner. There are sections on good essay writing and how to construct an argument, referencing and plagiarism, and reflective and critical writing. More than just another study skills book, Effective Writing Skills for Social Work is focused on real, day-to-day practice issues and the complex academic demands faced by social work students.

Chapter 1
Writing for university

ACHIEVING A DEGREE IN SOCIAL WORK

This chapter will help you meet the following National Occupational Standards.

Key Role 6: Demonstrate professional competence in social work practice.

It will also introduce you to the academic standards set out in the following social work subject benchmark statement:

5.6 Communication skills.

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Introduction

In this Learning Matters series ‘Transforming Social Work Practice’, it is customary to identify which key roles of the National Occupational Standards and benchmark statements of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education are relevant to the particular chapter under consideration. Accordingly, Key Role 6: Demonstrate professional competence in social work practice and Benchmark Statement 5.6: Write accurately and clearly in styles adapted to the audience, purpose and context of the communication are cited as having specific relevance to this chapter. However, as writing is such a fundamental means of communication, being sufficiently skilled to communicate effectively in writing is an essential generic skill. At the time of writing, social work practices are again under revision. The Social Work Task Force reported in 2009; its recommendations are poised for various levels of implementation, so the key roles and practice curricula are likely to change. Nevertheless, the ability to write to a good professional standard will remain an essential skill whatever changes come about. It may well be that included in the changes is a greater emphasis on the ability to write well. I was talking to two senior managers of a local authority’s children’s services recently and they were bemoaning the fact that they would reject a significant number of applications for social work posts from newly qualified social workers, purely on the grounds of the poor standard of written English. Make sure your application is in the ‘invite for interview’ pile, not in the bin!

The contents of this chapter will help you develop and improve your writing skills. The role your motivation plays in contributing to work of quality is highlighted before the skills required to write well are identified. The opportunity for you to undertake an appraisal of your current skills is presented, which is followed by the requirements for achieving a good standard of written English. The chapter concludes with issues regarding presentation, including addressing the assignment question, plagiarism and preparing your work for submission.

Effort + Time + Application of skills = Work of quality

Unfortunately for those of us who like to cut corners where possible, this equation holds true and there are no substitutes for its factors. Whether you want to work hard to achieve a first class degree or ‘do enough to get by’ and obtain a third, or something in between, you will need to pass assignments to be awarded your degree. Your time and that of your tutors is precious so you might as well try your best to achieve a good pass at the first attempt. However, this will require effort, time and the successful application of a number of skills. If you are unaccustomed to writing for an academic discipline you are unlikely to possess these skills at the point of enrolment, but the good news is that they can be acquired within a short timescale, so long as you understand what is required. Even if you already have these skills, to a basic level, they can usually be improved upon. If you have these skills to a competent level, they can often be honed. If there is no room for improvement, you probably do not need this book, or any other come to that!

In essence, this book suggests that the acquisition of competent academic writing skills is dependent on two variables: effort and time. Effort, in this context, may be described as a determined attempt and a desire to succeed. Effort has the potential to involve hard work and it probably will, but how hard you find this and the extent to which you feel it to be a struggle can be linked to how you feel about the subject and the quality of your final draft. It will be easier if you like or enjoy the subject and you care about the quality of your product. In this sense, effort is inextricably linked to your motivation.

Time, there is never quite enough of it, is there? Today, students are busy people, often balancing demands on their time through work, family and friends, competing modules and having a life! However, achieving a good mark for an assignment will involve reading around the subject and thinking about it as well as writing the assignment. An approximate idea of the amount of study time a subject might require can be calculated by multiplying the academic credit rating of the module by a factor of 10. For example, a module whose assessment is worth 15 academic credits may be considered as requiring 150 hours of study on the part of the student in order to be in a position to achieve a good pass. This figure includes lecture and seminar time spent on the subject.

So, having identified that the acquisition of academic writing skills, like any skill, is a function of time and effort, let us move on to consider these skills in more detail.

Identifying the skills required in writing for university

You will need the following generic skills to write successfully for university. These have been grouped into three skill sets:

1. The ability to write in an academic style.

Students come to university with a range of written communication skills. These may include, for example, texting and writing for pleasure, but may not include a high level of skill in writing in an academic style. This style is characterised by: the focus on specific objectives or learning outcomes; accurate description, a degree of analysis, qualified objectivity and critical appraisal; the absence of colloquial expression; representing and offering informed commentary on the attributed views of others; a good standard of written English. We will consider these characteristics in more detail later on.

2. The ability to comprehend competing theories of explanation or argument.

During your course of study you will come across a range of ideas, some of which claim to offer, to varying degrees, explanations of a variety of phenomena around us. Some of these ideas appear to, and indeed do, conflict, compete and complement each other. Students need to be able to think about such ideas and come to a substantiated view of the contribution they make to our understanding.

3. The ability to find, use and attribute an appropriate and relevant range of source material.

It is vital that students can use learning and library resources effectively. Universities offer information in a variety of modes, and will explain to students how to research and use the learning resources to which students may have access. They will also produce specific information on the system of referencing source material that students are required to use in their assignments. The Harvard referencing system appears to be becoming universally accepted but this cannot be assumed and different universities may use an alternative system or make minor changes in the way their system is applied. Therefore students need to learn how to apply the referencing system used in their particular university so as to not lose marks for poor referencing.

The individual skills contained in these three ‘skill sets’ are not usually acquired quickly but are part of the developmental process students undergo as they become competent in learning to learn in higher education, which usually occurs over the course of study. What should the student concentrate on first? All the skills contained in the skill sets are required at some level to pass the first assignment. Skill set 3 is required at a basic level from the time you start researching for your first assignment. This is why universities include sessions on how to use their library and learning resources within their induction programmes during what are often called ‘Induction’ or ‘Freshers’ Week’. You are strongly advised to attend such sessions. Help with the acquisition of the skills in sets 1 and 2 are often less structured, hence the need for this book.

The words used to describe the skills in set 1 are formal but should not be shied away from as this is the language used in academic study. Any fear they evoke can be dispelled by understanding what the terms mean and scheduling time for you, the student, to become competent in their usage. The classification of the degree a student is awarded is usually calculated from the marks their assignments merited during the second and third or final year. This reflects and is sympathetic toward the developmental process mentioned earlier by allowing time for the student to become a competent learner during the first year, prior to the marks achieved contributing toward the classification of the final degree.

Your degree will comprise 360 academic credit points. This number will be achieved through progressive accumulation over the number of academic years your programme is scheduled to run for and your progress towards this will be ratified at your institution’s exam board held at the end of each academic year. The learning you will be undertaking over the course of your study is likely to be modular in structure. Each of the modules or units you will be studying will be listed in the course structure and timetabled accordingly. The tutors for these modules usually produce a module handbook, which describes the module and its specification, including its academic credit point rating and, equally important, specific objectives or learning outcomes. What do these terms mean: ‘specific objectives or learning outcomes’? Usually the module description, presented in the module handbook, or module specification, will contain a set of anticipated learning outcomes. It will say something like: By the end of your study on this module you will be able to do or understand x, y and z. For example: ‘By the end of your study on Using Theory and Methods in Social Work you will have been introduced to a number of theories of explanation and had the opportunity to apply a variety of methods of intervention to practice scenarios’. What better way for you to demonstrate this than by using the learning outcomes as the criteria, often termed ‘specific assessment criteria’, against which your assignment is marked? So, this is what often happens: the specific objectives you are expected to have learned about upon completing the module are the same or similar to those you are asked to write about in the assessment for that module, which are also the same or similar to the criteria your work will be marked against. This modular approach is an effective method of breaking down the total amount of learning required for a professional qualification, for an occupation such as social work, into bite-size chunks. The module handbooks or specifications are significant documents in the learning process you are undertaking and you are well advised to read them at the beginning of the period of study to which they refer.

It’s all about style: How to make your work look good

Accurate description

This term identifies a skill that most students have acquired by the time they enrol at university. It is the ability to say how something appears to be, or description of what people did or what took place.

A degree of analysis

This term builds on the ability to provide a description by going on to offer an explanation of why something appears to ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Writing for university
• Chapter 2 Placement preparation and practice
• Chapter 3 Writing for your practice placements
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: National Occupational Standards
• Appendix 2: Subject benchmark for social work
• Appendix 3: GSCC’s codes of practice for social care workers
• References
• Index