Come Look over My Shoulder: Writing

Previously we put together an outline for the maternal and child obesity article that I have been asked to write. Today I am going to talk you through beginning to write the paper. Rather than give you my actual writing, I think it may be more helpful to explain why I am approaching it in a certain way.

The first section from the outline was

I. The effects of obesity on the mother in pregnancy and childbirth

                     A. Weight gain in pregnancy

Remember when I talked about writing the literature review (see 4/26 post)? I discussed starting your literature review broadly and narrowing it as you progress, which I will also do my paper. I want to present a case during my review, that the issue is real and should be of concern to the reader. So I will carefully lead them in this direction. First, I need to educate the reader on terms and definitions of what I will be talking about. I will start with explaining what I mean by obesity, and give some definitions. If I have any quotes it would be in this section. Since this paper is for practitioners (midwives and doulas) any guidelines as to how to recognize obesity that I can provide will be useful for them in their practice.

I want to show that obesity is first an issue in the US in general, so it would make sense to look at some stats from the National Institute of Health (NIH) or the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) demonstrating the importance of the issue. Then I will narrow the topic to obesity and pregnancy- how many women are we talking about? This is also where I will discuss what is a normal weight gain during pregnancy and what is abnormal. I’ll discuss the interaction of pre-pregnancy obesity and weight gain during the pregnancy. What are the major health concerns during pregnancy for obese women?

Again, I want you to notice that I am guiding and educating my readers, do not assume that they know anything about the specific subject. Assume your readers are intelligent and experienced in their field, but do not use jargon. They can always skip over info they already know, but you can’t go back and fill in knowledge they are lacking.  Do not feel the need to write “academically,” typically such a style comes across as difficult to follow and makes the reader have to translate it; instead be logical, define terms, and guide them in the direction that you want them to go.

Next in my paper, I will look at the issues related to obesity and childbirth, how does it complicate giving birth? Again, my focus is on the mother, I will switch to the child in the 2^nd section. I keep reminding myself as I go – why do we care about this issue?

I always enter citations/ references as I go, and make notes to myself when I need to find a citation to support a statement I have made. Remember that any facts you state must have a citation. I also make notes (using comments in track changes) of areas that need more literature or need additional support from the literature.

Once I have a section that seems to be taking shape, I start the editing process – rereading and clarifying. I will start my next writing session by rereading what I wrote the last time and seeing if it still makes sense. Have I missed any steps in my logical argument? Have I led my reader to the point that I wanted to make in the section, that obesity is a serious issue for the mother during pregnancy and childbirth?

How does today’s writing relate to your dissertation? You also must educate your reader, build a logical argument, and demonstrate why your reader should care about the topic. As, potentially, a future reader of your paper, I beg you not to try to write “academically!” Your paper should be a careful balance between writing professionally about a technical subject and avoiding the use of the thesaurus just to impress. It does not impress me using convoluted language, I really prefer to understand what you are saying.

Next time I will talk about ways to re-motivate yourself when you are on in a major slump. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu