1.3 Approaching writing
It is important to approach each new writing task by thinking carefully about what you are being asked to write and the function of this. You may find similarities between how you should approach some types of writing that you might be familiar with, such as ‘essays’ or ‘reflective writing’ but in any task you will need to read guidance carefully and understand the purpose.
Many of the writing skills that social workers develop as a student can be transferred to practice writing. Rai and Lillis (2012) interviewed final year social work students who suggested that they had been able to transfer their learning, even if it was difficult to pinpoint where or how. The following two quotes are from two of the students who participated in this study:
I’m really sure that having to sit down and agonise over those essays has helped me but I can’t identify or pinpoint exactly where. But it has to have helped me because I do all sorts of reports for work and although it’s nowhere near like writing an essay I think the fact that you have to focus on a certain point and draw out the significance of it helps you somewhere.
Definitely adaption is key, and I think from the variety of the writing skills throughout the three year programme. If there’s something I’ve taken from it is having that variety of writing skills and being able to, to use that in practice.
These quotes from students suggest that they found that their academic assignments helped them learn to write as social workers, but that the learning needed to be transferred as there were still important differences. Some of the ways in which the learning needed to be transferred were not very clear to them.
Activity 2 Differences between writing activities
What do you think are the main differences between writing as a student and writing as a social worker, again using CAPS? Make a few notes about what these differences are before exploring the summary box that follows.
Student writing |
Social work writing |
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|---|---|---|
Context |
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Audience |
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Purpose |
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Self |
Answer
Student writing |
Social work writing |
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|---|---|---|
Context |
You are writing within a university in order to be assessed on a specific module. |
You are writing within your role and on behalf of your employer. The documents you write may have a statutory function and the outcome can have a life changing impact on the people using the service. |
Audience |
You tutor or script marker. |
Multiple and very diverse audiences. These may be known or unknown at the time of writing, but some may only read the document in the future. |
Purpose |
Assessment of your learning and feedback to help you develop your learning. |
Multiple purposes including recording actions and decisions, detailing assessment, expressing professional judgements and recommendations, communication with service users and other professionals. |
Self |
You are a student, learning both about your subject and how to write. |
You are a qualified professional with legal and ethical responsibilities to your employer and to the public. |
Student social workers are still learning with support and guidance and so do not have the full responsibilities expected of a qualified social worker. However, they are still accountable for their writing within a student role. Consequently, an important element of your learning will be how to write the documents required within your own practice setting. The service users you work with (such as children and families, adults with mental health needs or older people) and also the setting will all impact on the kinds of documents you will write and how you are expected to write them. In the following section you will learn more about the different functions of social work writing.