Assignment Guide: The Personal Narrative

Assignment Prompt

For this assignment, you will be writing a personal narrative–a story–illustrating an event or experience exemplifying gratitude. In other words, share a colorful story about an experience or event for which–either during or after the event– you feel or felt thankful.  

An example might be writing about your experience as a senior in high school and the teacher who  helped you to achieve your goal of graduating and attending college.  Another example might be writing a story about your experience growing up in a rural community, acknowledging that it was this small, but mighty, community that made you who you are today, and for this, you are thankful.  Sharing a story about a loved one whose influence has been meaningful to you in some way, and thus, you feel so very thankful for their role in your life, or in that particular experience, would also be an example. FInally, 
drafting a story about any experience in your life for which you are thankful it occured would be a great topic to explore for this narrative assignment. 

Assignment-Specific Requirements:

Length: This assignment should be at least 550 words. 

Thesis

: Underline your descriptive 
thesis statement or the point of your story.

Sources/

Evidence

 Needed:  No outside/
secondary sources are needed.

Page Formatting: See 
Appendix C – Formatting and Submitting Your Work

MLA

 Requirements: See 
Formatting your Essay: MLA 8th Edition

Rhetorical Mode

A personal narrative is a story about you. Narrative, from the Latin 
narrare, means to narrate a tale or a story. The narrative you will write will be a “personal” narrative.  Thus, the story will be written by you, about you, and in a lot of ways, for you. What makes a personal narrative so interesting is that it’s a story with a point or purpose.   In other words, a personal narrative is detailed, descriptive, 
dialogue-driven, and determined to make a point. 

Rhetorical Considerations

Purpose:

There needs to be a reason, not only for writing the narrative, but also for why the 
reader should read it. The purpose of the personal narrative is to share a meaningful experience and the lesson learned from the experience. Specifically, the purpose of this essay is to share a story about a time you experienced gratitude.

Audience:

In many ways, we write a personal narrative for ourselves to reflect upon an experience, to grow from an event. However, we want you to imagine that your 
audience is not only you but someone else. The writer needs to know who their 
audience is and how their needs will affect the way the narrative is composed and presented. For example, in addition to writing this story as an opportunity for personal reflection, you may also choose a family member or friend group as your real or imagined 
audience.  Selecting a real or imagined 
audience will help you develop your essay with the right 
tone. The 
tone for a personal narrative can be formal or informal; it really depends on your chosen 
audience. 

Form:

This piece of writing will be presented using a story format.  It will have a beginning, middle, and end.  The story will be written with a clear 
introduction paragraph, a body of 
story-development paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph. While a personal narrative is less “formal” than traditional academic writing, your story should have a 
thesis statement. Thus allowing the 
reader to truly understand the point of your story.

Six Features of a Personal Narrative

1.
Essay 

Organization

: The Personal Narrative is organized with a clear beginning, middle, and end. It should read like a story–with an 
exposition, a 
rise action, a 
climax, a 
falling action and a 
resolution or denouement.  While the Personal Narrative is certainly less formal than other academic essays, the point or moral of the story (i.e. the 
thesis) should be very clear to the 
reader.

2.

Transition

s: The Personal Narrative utilizes 
paragraph breaks and 
transitional words and phrases that help the 
audience (or 
reader) flow in and around the story. Read more about paragraph 
transitions in Appendix A. 

3.
Character 

Description

:  Develop the 
characters in the story so that the 
reader has a clear understanding of the people in the story–even if the one person in the story is YOU. Help your 
reader learn about the 
characters both by what they say and by what they do.

4.
Sensory Details: Develop a sense of 
imagery within the story using sensory-driven details. In other words, create a vivid story by helping the 
reader to see, hear, taste and touch just as the 
characters in your story do. Sensory details bring your readers into the story–into the experience you are sharing with them.

5.

Dialogue

: Use internal and/or external 
dialogue to connect the 
characters and help propel the story forward. 
Dialogue helps the writer to “show” rather than “tell” the story to the 
reader.  Tips for formatting 
dialogue can be found in Appendix C. 

6.
The 

Thesis
 (the message driving your story): Your story’s point or purpose should be structured as a 
thesis statement. And this statement should be underlined.  As the direction of your story must be made clear to the 
reader, it would naturally make sense that the point of your story or 
thesis appear somewhere within the first paragraph.   

Last modified: Friday, February 25, 2022, 1:58 PM

LITERATURE REVIEW: THE USE OF CLINICAL SYSTEMS TO IMPROVE OUTCOMES AND EFFICIENCIES

New technology—and the application of existing technology—only appears in healthcare settings after careful and significant research. The stakes are high, and new clinical systems need to offer evidence of positive impact on outcomes or efficiencies.

Nurse informaticists and healthcare leaders formulate clinical system strategies. As these strategies are often based on technological trends, informaticists and others have then benefited from consulting existing research to inform their thinking.

In this Assignment, you will review existing research focused on the application of clinical systems. After reviewing, you will summarize your findings.

To Prepare:

· Review the Resources and reflect on the impact of clinical systems on outcomes and efficiencies within the context of nursing practice and healthcare delivery.

· Conduct a search for recent (within the last 5 years) research focused on the application of clinical systems. The research should provide evidence to support the use of one type of clinical system to improve outcomes and/or efficiencies, such as “the use of personal health records or portals to support patients newly diagnosed with diabetes.”

· Identify and select 4 peer-reviewed research articles from your research.

· For information about annotated bibliographies, visit 

https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/assignments/annotatedbibliographiesLinks to an external site.

The Assignment: (4-5 pages not including the title and reference page)

In a 4- to 5-page paper, synthesize the peer-reviewed research you reviewed. Format your Assignment as an Annotated Bibliography. Be sure to address the following:

· Identify the 4 peer-reviewed research articles you reviewed, citing each in APA format.

· Include an introduction explaining the purpose of the paper.

· Summarize each study, explaining the improvement to outcomes, efficiencies, and lessons learned from the application of the clinical system each peer-reviewed article described. Be specific and provide examples.

· In your conclusion, synthesize the findings from the 4 peer-reviewed research articles.

· Use APA format and include a title page.

· Use the Safe Assign Drafts to check your match percentage before submitting your work.

LEARNING RESOURCES

Required Readings

· McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2022). 
Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

· Chapter 14, “The Electronic Health Record and Clinical Informatics” (pp. 293–316)

· Chapter 15, “Informatics Tools to Promote Patient Safety, Quality Outcomes, and Interdisciplinary Collaboration” (pp. 323–349)

· Chapter 16, “Patient Engagement and Connected Health” (pp. 357–378)

· Chapter 17, “Using Informatics to Promote Community/Population Health” (pp. 383–397)

· Chapter 18, “Telenursing and Remote Access Telehealth” (pp. 403–432)

· Benda, N. C., Veinot, T. C., Sieck, C. J., & Ancker, J. S. (2020). 

Broadband internet access is a social determinant of health!Links to an external site.
. 
American Journal of Public Health, 
110(8), 1123-1125. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305784 

· Dykes, P. C., Rozenblum, R., Dalal, A., Massaro, A., Chang, F., Clements, M., Collins, S. …Bates, D. W. (2017). 

Prospective evaluation of a multifaceted intervention to improve outcomes in intensive care: The Promoting Respect and Ongoing Safety Through Patient Engagement Communication and Technology Study


 Download Prospective evaluation of a multifaceted intervention to improve outcomes in intensive care: The Promoting Respect and Ongoing Safety Through Patient Engagement Communication and Technology Study
. 
Critical Care Medicine, 45(8), e806–e813. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000002449

· HealthIT.gov. (2018c). 


What is an electronic health record (EHR)

?Links to an external site.
 Retrieved from 
https://www.healthit.gov/faq/what-electronic-health-record-ehr

· Rao-Gupta, S., Kruger, D. Leak, L. D., Tieman, L. A., & Manworren, R. C. B. (2018). 

Leveraging interactive patient care technology to Improve pain management engagementLinks to an external site.
. 
Pain Management Nursing, 19(3), 212–221. 

· Sieck, C. J., Sheon, A., Ancker, J. S., Castek, J., Callahan, B., & Siefer, A. (2021). 

Digital inclusion as a social determinant of healthLinks to an external site.
. 
NPJ Digital Medicine, 
4(1), 52.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-021-00413-8 

· Skiba, D. (2017). 

Evaluation tools to appraise social media and mobile applicationsLinks to an external site.
. 
Informatics, 4(3), 32–40. 

· Sharma, P., & Patten, C. A. (2022). 

A need for digitally inclusive health care service in the United States: Recommendations for clinicians and health care systemsLinks to an external site.
. 
Permanente Journal, 
26(3). https://doi.org/10.7812/TPP/21.156 

Soap Note “ADULT”  Wellness check-up (10 points)

Follow the MRU Soap Note Rubric as a guide:

Use APA format and must include mia minimum of 2 Scholarly Citations.

Soap notes will be uploaded to Moodle and put through TURN-It-In (anti-Plagiarism program)

Turn it in’ s Score must be less than 25% or will not be accepted for credit; it must be your own work and in your own words. You can resubmit, Final submission will be accepted if less than 25%. Copy-paste from websites or textbooks will not be accepted or tolerated and will receive a grade of 0 (zero) with no resubmissions allowed.

Please see College Handbook regarding Academic Misconduct Statement.

Must use the sample templates for your soap note. Keep this template for when you start clinicals. 

The use of templates is ok with regards to Turn it in, but the Patient History, CC, HPI, Assessment, and Plan should be of your own work and individualized to your made-up patient. 

MRU Soap Note Rubric 2021-1.docx  September 4 2023, 10:25 AM

Assistance with developing PICOT question