Peer Tutor Training

28 December 2022
The Beginning of a Tutoring Session

 Establish a rapport with the student

 Say “hi” and introduce yourself
 State that you also are a student
 Ask questions
 Show that a tutoring session is collaborative in nature--the student should maintain control of
the paper.
 How are your classes going?
 What would you like to work on today?
 Ask your peer how you can help him or her. In other words, does the person want help
with the content, organization, language, or all?
Global concerns should be focused on first

 Questions to help a student focus on global concerns:

 Does the paper fulfill the requirements of the assignment?
 Is the paper long enough?
 Is the correct format being used?
 If the paper is a research paper, does it have the required number and kinds of sources?
 Is there a clear and logical organisational structure?
 Are the thesis and topic sentences directly and clearly stated? If not, are the key ideas
indirectly stated and obvious to the reader?
 Do the topic sentences directly connect to the thesis?
 Do the details directly connect to and support the topic sentences?
 Are the ideas smoothly connected with enough connections and transitions?
 Are the ideas well developed?
 Are there any errors in logic or content?
Local (smaller) concerns of the paper

 Here are some typical problem areas that can be revised:

 a lack of variety in sentence structures
 fragments
 run-ons
 punctuation errors
 verb tense errors and/or a lack of consistency in verb tenses
 subject/verb agreement errors
 pronoun errors or a lack of clarity in the use of pronouns
 parallel structure errors
 incorrect use of articles and/or prepositions
 incorrect or unclear word choices
 too much repetition in the wording and/or content
Resources

 Peer Tutor Guide (rwu.edu)

 CCRI, Knight Campus, Room 6532
Genres of Writing

 a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterised by a particular

style, form, or content
 (Genre Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

 categories of written texts that have recognisable patterns, syntax, techniques,

and/or conventions.
 list representing genres students can expect to encounter during their studies
 Genres of Writing | Thompson Writing Program (duke.edu)
 Abstract (UNC)
Finding a genre conventions

 Digital resources: Search “information elements” AND “genre/ section name (e.g.,
abstract of a scientific paper”
 information elements in abstracts
 Abstract (UNC)
 tense in abstracts
 Which Tense Should Be Used in Abstracts: Past or Present? – Wordvice

 Typically, in the assignment briefs

 Discuss to highlight the requirements

 Rubrics
 Use to discuss the expectations for each level
 Identify the current level
 Set goals
An integrative literature review must contain
1. Background/ Introduction explaining the scientific background/
context of the study & the rationale for the study- i.e., an explanation
as to why the review is necessary.
2. Specific objectives & criteria for choosing certain research papers
3. A thorough analysis of the quality of research of each included
research paper or report
4. A summary interpreting and synthesizing the findings of all the
individual studies in an unbiased way
Writing the background/ introduction

CARS model Swales (1990)

 Background / Introduction
“Patient safety is one of the most important elements of
health care today. Hospitals are focused on creating safe, M1.Establishing a
healthy environments within their organizations. A safe research territory- general
research area is important
environment starts with an atmosphere that is free of harm to
patients seeking health care (American Hospital Association,
2004)”.
“A culture of safety and healthy work environment for nurses
has become more visible in recent years with the release of
research studies detailing heath care errors. The Institute of M1.Showing it’s
Medicine (IOM) report released in November of 1999 (To Err problematic by reviewing
is Human) indicated that medical errors contributed to a large previous research
number of deaths in the United States alone. In fact, many
experts were shocked to find out that more people die each
year 3 from medical errors in US hospitals than from traffic M2. Indicating a gap
accidents, breast cancer or acquired immune deficiency
syndrome (AIDS). This report called for the transformation of
nurse work environments to protect patients from preventable
health care errors (Institute of Medicine, Committee on M3. Occupying the niche
Quality Health Care in America, 1999)”.
 Objectives & criteria for choosing studies
“The goal of the data collection stage was to conduct an M1 Statement of
exhaustive review of the literature and collect a set of objectives
relevant articles that meet specific inclusion criteria. A
systematic plan was devised for data collection and the
method of collection clearly described and accurately
documented (Randolph, 2009)”.
“Each article title and abstract was reviewed to determine M2 Details of
inclusion criteria, if an article could not be eliminated by operationalizing
reading the abstract; the article was reviewed in further objectives
detail.
The first criterion established was to include research
studies measuring the outcome of a healthy work
environment (HWE) on nursing-sensitive patient outcomes M3 Statement of Criteria
(NSPO) in an in-patient hospital setting. …There was an
overwhelming body of research comparing nurse staffing to
patient outcomes. In order to focus on healthy work
environment rather than staffing or individual nursing
qualities such as level of education, the literature review
excluded studies focused primarily on staffing measures or M4 Explanation of
rationale for exclusions
Objectives & criteria for choosing studies (cont’d)
“This study assessed the relationship between healthy work M1 Re-stating the
environments and nursing-sensitive patient outcomes. research aim
Donabedian’s theoretical framework, Structure, Process, and
Outcome (S-P-O) was applied to explain these relationships. M2 Statement of the
Florence Nightingale’s theoretical foundation was used as a guiding theoretical
principle.”
framework used to
“For this study, the Structure (S) includes the components of a evaluate studies
healthy work environment. The Process (P) includes the activity
items for the components of the healthy work environment. The
Outcomes (O) measurement includes the nursing-sensitive patient
outcome measures.” M3 Statement of the
rationale for using
“The Structure-Process-Outcome framework served to identify and
establish a relationship between the healthy work environment and the particular
nursing-sensitive patient outcomes.” framework
 Analysis of findings in research papers
“The results showed a possible relationship M1 Generalization
between healthy work environment and patient
sensitive outcomes.”
“Wolfe et al., (2008) compared a presumably
healthy work environment to patient centered care M2 Making connections,
strategies implemented on a similar unit within the drawing relationships
same hospital and concluded that the difference across studies
between the two units’ work environments may not
have been significant enough to yield results.”
“The positive relationship between caregiver
interaction and evaluated technical quality of care M3 Drawing conclusions
suggests that physicians and nurses believe that based on analyses
technical quality is higher when a team-oriented
culture and supportive leadership exists along with
effective communication, coordination, and problem- *Note the reporting verbs and
use of ‘hedging’
solving approaches.”
Summarizing and synthesizing the findings
“It is challenging to control all the differences present in M1 Summarizing
health care environments and many of them, aside from
nursing care, impact patient outcomes. While nursing-
sensitive patient outcomes have been identified, it is
problematic to control for all the variables including
patient health, age, diagnosis and culture, medical care, M2 Expressing
hospital characteristics, and medical treatment, limitations
technology, devices and equipment available. Many of
the studies relied on convenience data, which limits
generalizability.”
Each research study found in this integrative literature M3 Explaining
review compared different work environment factors and problems arising
different patient outcomes. There is little consistency in from limitations
the research, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions
*Concession-Refutation
sentence structure to
express limitations
 Concluding
“There is a lack of literature documenting the M1 Re-stating the gap in
effect of a healthy work environment on nursing- the literature
sensitive patient outcomes. The more studies are
done about this relationship, the more effective it
can be in promoting a healthy work environment
and establishing a culture of safety within an
organization.”
“This research is important to nurses, patients and M2 Expressing the
organizations to justify making changes to the significance of this ILR
environment of care. There are many factors
involved in patient outcomes, with a healthy work
environment being only one of them. However, a
change to a healthy work environment could help
in so many ways, for health care workers
organizations and patients.
Combining & Synthesizing data from multiple
sources
When you synthesize data from multiple articles in one
paragraph, note the shared issue across the articles that you
want to call attention to.

Note also any important differences that are relevant to your

study and describe each article briefly in ways relevant to your
study
Combining & Synthesizing data from multiple
sources
Several investigators in this area of research claim the data Reporting verbs
provided by audiometric testing (pure-tone thresholds) is Concession-Refutation
limited. While it provides a measure that may reflect the sentence structure to
degenerative changes in the auditory system, it does not offer
data about hearing loss in everyday situations or the extent of show gap or limitation
the handicap caused by hearing loss (Saito et al., 2010). Connector for flow
Therefore, they advocate the use of self-report measures as an
adjunct to the traditional audiogram to aid in hearing
assessment. The Hearing Handicap Inventory (HHI), evaluates
self-perceived hearing handicap (Newman, Weinstein,
Jacobson, & Hug, 1990). Data from two longitudinal surveys Combining and
concluded the HHI is a measure not only for the detection of synthesizing
hearing impairment but may also predict future depression and information from
social isolation in the older adult with hearing loss (Gopinath
etal., 2012; Saito et al., 2010). In contrast, Hidalgo et al., (2009)
multiple sources +
reported the HHI was less sensitive than audiometric measures “hedging”
when screening for hearing loss. However, the audiometric
criteria they used for their study was a threshold level ≥ 40 dB
at 1 and 2 kHz, excluding individuals with mild hearing Evaluative take on the
impairment data