Hello, I'm Jo from Specialist Language Courses, we are OET Premium Preparation Providers which
means we are experienced and skilled in what we do, helping people achieve success in the
OET exam. So, in this video we're going to look at OET writing and how to approach the writing exam,
we will look at what to expect in the OET exam, how you will be assessed, how to approach the
writing paper, what types of letters you might write and how to select and organise the relevant
information. So, in the writing paper you'll be given five minutes reading time and you're not
allowed to write in this time, and then you have 40 minutes to write. You will always be given a
set of case notes and you need to write a letter. You will always write as your profession,
so if you're a nurse, you're writing as a nurse in the exam and you could be writing to another
nurse or perhaps another healthcare profession and if you're a doctor, you usually write to
another doctor or perhaps a specialist, such as a neurologist or cardiologist. So,
in the exam you are assessed on six criteria: purpose, content, conciseness and clarity,
genre and style, organisation and layout and language. Purpose is always out of three marks
and the others get a maximum of seven. If you'd like more information about
the criteria, please click here. So, how should you approach the writing
paper? Here are some steps you can follow. Step one, you should read the case notes and find out
who you are writing to, and most importantly, why. Step two, decide what information is relevant and
what information the reader does not need to know. Step three, make a plan, decide on the logical way
to group the relevant information together in paragraphs. Step four, is write your letter,
use clear language to summarise the gotten information and leave a line between paragraphs,
and Step five is check your letter, check your letter for errors and make sure you have included
the key information. So, what type of letter will you be writing? In the OET exam you might write a
referral letter, a discharge letter or perhaps a transfer letter, the most common ones are referral
letters, but it's important to work out which type of letter you are writing and to who. So
for nursing, there are many different people you might write to, the most common is another nurse
such as a community nurse or you might write to another healthcare professional, such as
occupational therapists, physiotherapists or maybe even a GP. So, in medicine you might be writing as
a GP to a specialist, for example neurologist, cardiologist, gastroenterologist or you might
be writing as a specialist to the GP or you might be writing like in nursing, to another healthcare
professional, such as a dietitian occupational therapist or a physiotherapist. So, it's really,
really important that you know who you're writing to, reader awareness is key, knowing who you're
writing to will affect the information you're going to select, for example a social worker
won't need information about medication and a physiotherapist will probably only one information
relating to mobility and physiotherapy sessions, they won't want information about wound care.
So, how do you decide what information to include? It's important to analyse the case notes, one
option is to use guiding questions for example, who are you and who are you writing to?, why are
you writing?, what is the purpose of the letter?, what information is important to include?,
the essential key information and what information is not relevant to the purpose of this letter?
Option two is used a tool such as ISBAR. ISBAR stands for: Identify, the patient's name,
age and how they're connected to you, for example they've been a patient in your care. Situation
is why you are writing about this person, for example to transfer a patient into the care of
another facility, it's an overview of their health status and any other relevant information such as
admission dates. Background, any relevant parts of the patient's medical history and
social or family background. Assessment, how is the patient now and what treatment are they
receiving? Recommendation or Request, what do you want the other person to do?, for example
monitor their diet, refer to the occupational therapist and any other information they need to
know for ongoing care. The most important thing when selecting relevant information is who you
are writing to and the purpose of the letter, for more help on identifying on writing the
purpose in OET letters, check out this video. How should you organise the information? So,
once you've decided on the relevant information to include, you need to make a plan and think about
how you're going to organise that information. It should be clear and logical, you need to write in
clear paragraphs and leave a space between each one, key information needs to be highlighted so
that important information is easy to find by the reader, you can connect your ideas together using
some linking expressions but don't overdo it and don't use formal academic linkers like "moreover".
How should you check your letter? So, when you finish writing it's important to try and leave
some time to check your letter, make sure you have made the purpose clear, all key information is
included, especially any action you want readers take. You have not included any irrelevancies,
you have written in clear paragraphs and you've used clear and accurate language.
Top tips for OET writing. Approach each task individually, you need to be flexible and adapt
to each case, always keep in mind the reader and the purpose of the letter, make sure each letter
focuses on the most important information, plan your letter and leave time to check your letter.
So, thanks for watching, for more tips and strategies on the OET exam check out our website,
link below. Please, like and share with your friends so we can help more people
achieve success in the OET exam, don't forget to subscribe for more videos like this, bye!