Higher – Discursive Writing

Guidance for Writing

Types of Discursive Writing• Argumentative

- Examine opposing viewpoints objectively using formal and neutral language.

- You should use authoritative sources.

• Persuasive

- Trying to convince the reader to accept your subjective view.

- Research is important but you should combine this with persuasive language.

- Balance is not essential BUT it is a good idea to acknowledge the opposing view.

• Report Writing

- Present research based information accurately and concisely.

- Clarity and quality of structure is very important.

Objective / Subjective• Objective – An objective view is based on fact

(evidence)

E.g. – According to a New York Times poll, with an approval rating on only 22%, George W. Bush was the most unpopular departing president since records began 70 years ago.

• Subjective – A subjective view is based on personal response (opinion)

E.g. – Nobody had any time for George W. Bush. He was the most unpopular president ever.

Authoritative Sources?• Articles in quality newspapers – Guardian, The Times,

The Independent, Scotsman, Herald, Daily Telegraph…• Articles in industry journals or trade specific publications• Essays, extracts from research papers or scientific texts.• Carefully selected websites – Official sites? Recognised

news organisations, Government sites?

Persuasive?• Handouts or leaflets from pressure groups or groups with

a specific interest – be aware of bias.• “Comment” features or articles in newspapers tend to

give more extreme or opinionated views than main articles.

Researching / Selecting Information

• Focus on a topic you are likely to enjoy researching and writing about.

• Quickly make short notes of the types of ideas and arguments that surround it – positive, negative, neutral…

• Try to prioritise the strongest ideas and arguments

• Arrange your ideas into rough groupings – This will start to form the structure of the essay.

Example - Minimum Alcohol Pricing in Scotland

• WHY?

• What will it achieve / stop?

• Arguments for?

• Arguments against?

• How will it work? When will it happen?

Formal & Neutral Language• To give your writing a sense of confidence and authority

you should use formal, sophisticated language (we will look at examples later)

• AVOID phrases such as:

“All sorts of things” “Worth the hassle”

“Students may head up to Scotland”

“a lot of” “nowadays” “all sorts”

“all that much” “sort of”

“which it usually does” “back in the day”

Tools for Writing1. Give illustrative examples

WHY – To assist reader’s understanding

2. Quoting / Criticising expert opinions

WHY – To show expertise / understanding of the topic

3. Using analogies (comparing the situation to a similar one)

WHY – To point out this is a wide issue – show understanding.

4. Mentioning & responding to opposing views

WHY – Shows your skill in argument

5. Indicating consequences / outcomes

WHY – Show understanding of impact of your arguments / evidence.

Tools for Writing (2)

6. Neutral language

WHY – To show you can present information impartially

7. Emotive language

WHY – To appeal to reader’s feelings

8. Rhetorical questions

WHy – To invite reader to consider your point then agree with you.

9. Attitude markers – Clearly, surely, obviously…

WHY – To show commitment to your point / evidence.

Structuring Your Essay

1. Introduction • Capture the reader’s attention• Make the topic clear including relevant background information.• DON’T presume the reader knows what you are talking about.• If you are writing a persuasive piece you should set out your

stance.

2. Body Paragraphs• Set out your ideas in a logical sequence • Time based? Past, present, future?• Start with minor arguments, progress to powerful points.• MAKE ONE CLEAR POINT PER PARAGRAPH• Use connecting phrases to link paragraphs.

Structuring Your Essay (Cont)• Body Paragraphs Structure – PEEL

Point – Make a clear statement of the point or argument you are about to explore – TOPIC SENTENCE (it may need more than one sentence to make your point clear)

Evidence – Statistics, information from an article, comments by experts, surveys.

Explain – Help the reader understand why this evidence or information is important – “These statistics make it clear that…”

LINK – Comment on the significance of this argument to the topic as a whole and link to the following paragraph if possible.

Structuring Your Essay (Cont)

3. Conclusion • Remind the reader of the subject and the strongest

points you have examined.• Try to use fresh or varied expression so you don’t repeat

yourself.• DON’T introduce new material• Leave the reader feeling as though you have explored

the subject carefully and with authority.

Examples – What Type? What Does it Do Well?

We must be smarter with renewable energy options

As more wind farms stride across the hills and moors, it is difficult to believe the total amount of electricity generated by wind and hydro power schemes in Scotland fell last year.

Figures from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) show the extra turbines did increase power but only 6% more than in 2009. The drop was due to a reduction in hydro power as a result of exceptionally dry weather. This is the real shock in a country which has regarded hydro electricity as a stable source of energy since it famously brought power from the glens in the 1940s.

This underlines the variable nature of generation from all renewable natural resources. In 2010 the number of sites producing energy from wind or wave power more than doubled from 135 to 339 but the figures confirm that the number of turbines does not always equate to the amount of power.

Business leaders and conservationists are increasingly united in supporting a mix of energy sources including renewables. The industrial and commercial priority is security of supply while conservationists and guardians want to restrict the proliferation of wind farms intruding on the landscape. In areas where tourism is the main business, the two coincide.

The warning earlier this week from Mike Salter, chairman of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, that the cost base for renewable energy must be right if it is not to become an unsupportable burden on other businesses should not fall on deaf ears. Part of the reason for the rise in the cost of electricity is the Westminster Government’s renewables obligation, a charge through which consumers subsidise the start-up costs of green energy generation.

There is a consensus that the best way to stabilise production and guarantee renewable energy supply is to diversify the mix of technologies installed and develop storage capacity. At present, most renewables developments are wind farms because that technology is furthest advanced, yet the potential for wave and tide power is enormous and it would provide a more predictable and stable supply. It is time to consider slanting the renewables obligation towards marine technologies.

Plans for electricity connectors between the National Grid and other European countries offer the prospect of a back-up supply, by which Scotland could export surplus wind power on gusty days and import hydro or solar power on calm ones.

In the meantime, the requirement for constant, reliable and affordable electricity for homes and businesses means the energy mix must continue to include nuclear until the technology to take advantage of a greater variety of natural resources has been sufficiently developed to guarantee that the lights will not go out.

Ambulance deal must be agreedIMAGINE that your nearest and dearest has collapsed and is lying unconscious before you.

You dial 999, then start counting the seconds until you hear the welcome sound of an ambulance siren. Now imagine that your partner/parent/child died while you waited for more than half an hour and it subsequently emerges that an ambulance crew had been sitting 10 minutes away, downing tea and biscuits.

That is more or less what has happened in several instances as a result of ambulance crews being obliged to take 30-minute unpaid rest breaks. Mrs Mandy Mathieson, aged 33, died in Tomintoul while an ambulance based in Grantown-on-Spey responded to the call because a local ambulance technician was on a break. Toddler Martyn Gray from Crieff died in similar circumstances. Though this is a UK issue, it is particularly relevant to Scotland because of the scattered rural population and challenging topography north and south of the central belt.

The three unions representing ambulance staff have voted decisively to reject what appears to be a fair offer to resolve the rest break dispute. All three unions had recommended acceptance.

The margin of rejection suggests that this dispute is more complex than it appears. It goes back to the decision to reduce the number of Scottish ambulance call centres from eight to three, a move which many ambulance staff believed put patients at risk. In addition unpaid rest breaks were imposed on the workforce following the signing of the European Working Time Directive in 2004. Under the agreement control room staff are not permitted to contact crews about emergency calls until their break is completed. Understandably, ambulance staff, who devote themselves to saving lives, resent being demonised in cases where working practices result in loss of life.

This dispute has been framed by Eurosceptics as all the fault of Brussels bureaucrats. In fact, the legislation allows for flexibility in the terms for particular groups of workers. For instance, because police and firefighters are classed as “emergency workers”, they are entitled to paid meal breaks. For no obvious reason, ambulance staff are classed simply as an “essential service”. Arguably, they too should qualify for paid meal breaks, which can then be interrupted when a 999 call comes in. It should have been obvious at the time that making unpaid meals breaks mandatory could damage the service.

For the most part ambulance workers do a great job in often extremely stressful circumstances. They need to be fresh and alert and deserve to be properly remunerated.

However, on the face of it, the offer on the table of an extra £4.80 a week, plus an extra £50 fee per call-out, looks reasonable.

Their legitimate concern about the level of cover in rural areas deserves a better hearing but meanwhile this dispute must be resolved before more patients die needlessly.

Trump accused of using police as his private security force

DONALD Trump may be trying to bring a touch of jet-set glamour to Scotland’s north-east with his golf resort playground for the rich and famous.

But it seems the US property tycoon is also trying to secure himself the type of protection reserved for Hollywood stars by turning the local constabulary into his own private police force.

Trump has come under attack from Grampian Police for repeatedly demanding tougher security at his controversial golf resort, under construction at the Menie estate in Aberdeenshire, according to internal police reports seen by the Sunday Herald.

The billionaire has piled pressure on the police to increase protection of the estate by making more patrols and by responding more rapidly when called. Over the last two years, Trump and his aides have held numerous meetings and discussions with senior police officers, urging them to do more.

A series of memos marked “restricted” show that the police have struggled to resist this pressure, and have become worried that their impartiality could be damaged. Trump had “unrealistic expectations” that Grampian Police would behave like the New York Police Department (NYPD), Scots officers said.

The revelations come against a background of growing disillusionment about the police’s relationship with the Trump Organisation. Two documentary film-makers were arrested and imprisoned after interviewing one of Trump’s staff, but the charges were dropped.

Health and Wellbeing in Schools Project The Health and Well-being in Schools project, which ran from September

2008 to March 2011, was a Scottish Government-funded initiative designed to complement the national effort to improve the health and well-being of children and young people in Scotland. It aspired to harness existing skills, develop new roles, expand capacity and work in partnerships with a range of agencies to promote the health and well-being of school-aged children and young people within the Curriculum for Excellence [9] cohort (aged 3-18 years) and their families, particularly at key transition stages.

The aim of the project was to increase health care capacity in schools by providing improved health care services designed to meet the needs of individuals, families and communities. It also aimed to develop a range of models and initiatives that could be implemented across Scotland in a safe, efficient and effective manner to support the implementation of Better Health, Better Care[10] and Equally Well. [11]

The project was firmly based in a partnership approach that involved participation from health, education and local authority staff, voluntary organisations, children, young people and their families and communities.

While there was no formal evaluation of the outcomes of the project, it nevertheless generated a wide range of evidence sources that were accessed to demonstrate the impact it had on the health and well-being of children and young people within the demonstration sites. These evidence sources included:

• reports prepared for the national steering group; • reports prepared for local steering groups; • intelligence gathered by project officers at local level and the national programme

manager nationally; • reflective diaries maintained by the project officers; and • the report and source materials emerging from the Open Space series of events. [12]

The Health and Well-being in Schools project provided an opportunity to review current ways of working and develop new models of practice to achieve positive impacts on the health and well-being of children, young people and their families.

The key messages and learning points from the project clearly demonstrate the importance of strong clinical leadership. They also emphasise the benefits of partnership working in developing multidisciplinary, multi-agency teams to address the health and well-being needs of school-age children and young people at local level. The new practice models emerging from the project will support teachers in meeting Curriculum for Excellence learning outcomes that are designed to positively influence children's and young people's development by increasing their understanding of what good health and well-being means.

Better utilisation of, and investment in, support worker staff has brought added value to health teams in schools. In addition to reinforcing key health messages by acting as the link health professional between home and school, support workers undertook screening and surveillance roles normally carried out by registered professionals. Registered professionals were consequently able to spend more quality time with vulnerable children and young people with identified health and well-being needs, particularly at key transitional stages: it is recognised that early intervention and prevention programmes that target the most vulnerable at key transitional stages will have a more positive impact on reducing health inequalities than crisis interventions delivered downstream.

Health professionals and partnership agencies play a crucial role in promoting the health and well-being of school-age children and young people. The project has shown that the greatest benefits lie in professionals identifying the health needs, assets and strengths of their local school communities and matching these with the skills and the workforce required to enable children and young people to reach their full potential.

Conclusion