Writing Style in Occupational Therapy

Overview

At the sentence level, every discipline has different expectations in regard to what constitutes "good writing." Some fields, for instance, encourage use of the first-person "I" voice while other fields require that you avoid it entirely. Some disciplines encourage use of the passive voice while others strongly prefer the active voice in almost all situations.

This page addresses sentence-level conventions that are common when writing at the graduate level in the field of Occupational Therapy.

Sentence-Level Writing Conventions

1. Link theory/mode to the research question in your paper.

The following example from a published article shows how you do this sentence-level linking.

Reference:

Chang, Y.-C., Chang, M. C., Chang, Y-J., & Chen, M-D. (2021). Understanding factors relevant to poor sleep and coping methods in people with schizophrenia. BMC Psychiatry, 21, 373-382.

“In this study, we selected the Person-Environment-Occupation (PEO) model [21] as a framework to guide the data analysis. The PEO model is composed of four concepts: Person, Environment, Occupation, and Occupational Performance. Person refers to an individual with a set of attributes, competences, and life experiences. Environment covers the cultural, socio-economic, institutional, physical, and social aspects of the individual’s environment. Occupation, also known as tasks or activities, is defined as the activities in which a person engages during the lifetime [21]. In our study, the targeted occupation is “sleep,” which includes sleep participation and sleep preparation, based on the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework [22]. Occupational Performance is the outcome of the interactions between the person, environment, and occupation. The PEO model has been used to investigate the participation of various populations, such as people with physical disabilities, older adults, and people with mental illness, in various activities [23–25]. The use of the PEO model to discern the factors related to sleep problems in a comprehensive manner can assist mental health professionals with addressing the sleep problems of people with schizophrenia across person, environment, and occupation domains. Accordingly, this study aims to identify factors that influence the quality of sleep guided by the PEO model as well as explore coping methods in people with schizophrenia.”

2. Make sure to describe the purpose of your study clearly.

The following example from a published article shows how to write sentences that describe the purpose.

Reference:

Clark, F., Jackson, J., Carlson, M., Chou, C.-P., Cherry, B. J., Jordan-Marsh, M., Knight, B. G., Mandel, D., Blanchard, J., Granger, D. A., Wilcox, R. R., Lai, M. Y., White, B., Hay, J., Lam, C., Marterella, A., & Azen, S. P. (2012). Effectiveness of a lifestyle intervention in promoting the well-being of independently living older people: results of the Well Elderly 2 Randomised Controlled Trial. Journal of Epidemiological Community Health, 66, 782-790.

“This article reports on the University of Southern California Well Elderly 2 study, which assessed the Lifestyle Redesign intervention’s effectiveness among ethnically diverse elders in community-based settings, the majority of whom are from populations at risk for health disparities. In contrast to efficacy, which pertains to an intervention’s success under favourable conditions that maximise the experimental effect, the effectiveness of an intervention refers to its performance under less tightly controlled but more realistic circumstances that characterise complex real-world settings.12 To assess effectiveness, we (1) sampled elders from 21 locations with wide variation in agency ‘buy-in’; (2) included a 6-month intervention period to be responsive to real-world feasibility concerns and (3) sampled a high proportion of African Americans and Hispanics, the two subgroups of elders at highest risk for experiencing health disparities in the USA.13 We hypothesised that a 6-month lifestyle intervention leads to reduced decline in physical health, mental wellbeing and cognitive functioning among ethnically diverse older people across heterogeneous service delivery contexts and achieves these results in a cost-effective manner.”

3. Provide study design, sample size, and participant characters in one sentence; this information should be provided before comparisons and critique.

See the sample below for information on how to structure your sentences to achieve this goal.

Chang et al. (2022) used XXX study design to examine XXX/issues on XXX participants [adding brief participant characteristics, sample size]. [Add measures related to your research topic.] They discovered XXX [include key findings related to your research question]. The findings are similar to Chen et al (2022) who conducted XXX study on XXX participants using XXX measures [add more info about measures, if different from the previous one]. [Add more details about the findings if needed.]