Hello, I'm Jo from Specialist Language Courses, I'm here to help you work towards success in the
OET Writing exam. So, in this video we're going to look at how to express purpose in the OET Writing
paper, we will look at what the purpose is, how to identify it in the OET case notes, and how to
express it in your letter. So, what is the purpose of the letter? The purpose of the letter tells the
reader the reason for writing for example, to request ongoing care, to inform the reader of
the condition of the patient, or to transfer the care of a patient. It is typical of formal
letters and usually stated at the beginning. So, how can you fulfil the purpose criterion
in the OET exam? To fulfil the OET criterion for this area, the purpose must be immediately clear
and easily identified. Healthcare professionals typically have limited time, so they need to be
able to find the important information quickly, so what does this mean for you? It means you should
write the purpose in the first paragraph. The criterion also states that the purpose should
be sufficiently expanded, so you need to include specific details of the purpose later in the
letter for example, how specifically the reader should support the patient. Flexibility is key,
both the general purpose and the details, should be adapted to each specific case. So,
how do you know what the purpose of the letter is? Well, in each set of case notes there will
be some information on the context, there will be some notes on your role in the case and also
the writing task. Look at this example, if we look here, we can see that you are the nurse
in a hospital and a patient in your care is being discharged today. Looking at the task,
we can see that we need to write a discharge letter to Mrs Emma Humphry, who is the nurse
at Summerton Retirement Home. We can also find a bit more detail about the purpose of the letter,
it explains that you need to inform the reader of the patient's current situation and care required.
Here, we can see that Mr Smith is resident at the retirement home, which is important,
because it tells you that the reader knows the patient already. You would also find some more
information about the reason for writing towards the beginning of the case notes for example,
the patient's name, age and the main medical issue. To make the purpose immediately clear,
you should explain in the first paragraph the patient's name, how they're connected to you and
the reason for writing. So, for this case you can write something like, I am writing regarding Mr
Jane Smith, who underwent a total hip replacement on February 7th, he is ready for discharge today
and ongoing care is required. So, in this example, the first paragraph immediately informs the reader
of the patient's name, what happened to him and when, what is happening now - discharged, and
what needs to happen next - ongoing care. We also need to expand the general purpose, just saying
"ongoing care" is not enough, we need to expand with details. In this case, these details are
presented in the discharge plan, notice that there are several pieces of information to include, for
some information, you will need to request action for example, I would appreciate it if you could
monitor his wound, but for other information, you need to inform, not request for example,
the physiotherapy sessions. He has been referred to the physiotherapist who will be in touch to
arrange visits twice a week. Top tips for purpose, always look at the task at the bottom of the case
notes first, to find out who you are writing to and why, make sure you express the purpose
clearly in the first paragraph, and expand the details later. Remember that no one set of case
notes will be the same as another, so "I'm writing to refer" will not be appropriate for all letters,
you need to be flexible and approach each set of case notes individually, remember that for each
letter the general purpose and the details will be different. So, thanks for watching,
if you'd like more tips and strategies on how to prepare for 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!