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Yvonne Hendrie

SACH  Soundings
 No 10 June 2002

Page 2

Writing for Publication

Yvonne Hendrie 
Chaplain, Roxburghe House Dundee

Last August, the editors of our parish magazine were appealing for contributions. As people are always asking me about my work as Chaplain at Roxburghe House, I thought it would be good to write an article. My aim was to inform readers about the kind of place it is and the type of work I do, because people often have the wrong ideas about both. Needless to say, one article did not suffice. Nine months later, I'm still writing a monthly article, and the minister of another local church has also requested them for his parish magazine. The level of interest I've received has been tremendous. 

This encouraged me to broaden my horizons, and so in October last year, I embarked on a course run by Dundee University entitled ‘Writing for Publication’. It was to take place over four sessions between October 2001 and April 2002, and was advertised as being for anybody who wanted to write, no matter the reason - for the in-house rag, for a major publication, to publish research etc. The aim was to work on an article over the six months of the course, and submit it at the end. 

There were three teacher/tutors on the course, all of whom had experience of writing and being published many times - and who, as they kept reminding us, had received just as many rejections! The teaching sessions covered such topics as ‘Strategies for Successful Writing’, ‘Referencing Techniques’, ‘Structuring a Paper, ‘Different Articles for Different Readership’, ‘Writing Styles’, ‘The Role of Reviewers’, ‘The Rules of Submission", "Reshaping an Article’, and ‘Maintaining Motivation’. Between sessions, we worked on our articles. There was a ‘buddy’ system for mutual support, we were each allowed two one-to-one tutorials, and had e-mail access to our tutor throughout. The cost was £50, which my manager was happy to fund. 

To be fair, as can be seen from the topics involved, the course did lean heavily towards more formal writing, and was perhaps encouraging us to go further than the in-house rag (or parish magazine!). Most of the students were nurses who wished to publish research. I was the first Chaplain to do the course, and the leaders had never seen a chaplaincy publication. My tutor initially said that I couldn't write in the first person, until I proved to her that most people writing on chaplaincy do exactly that! The Editors of ‘The Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy’ were kind enough to accept my article in January, making me the first student to complete, submit, and have an article accepted! However, my subject matter was not as weighty as others. 

I find that the course has helped me to be a lot more disciplined in my writing. The last few submissions to the parish magazine certainly flowed better than the first. I've also now written for the last edition of ‘Soundings’ and NHS Tayside's Staff Newsletter. All of this is good for the profile of chaplaincy, as was the fact that I did a course along with other professions in the first place. I would encourage all chaplains to take up their pens and write - or keyboards and type (!) - as we have something worthwhile to say. That was certainly the opinion of both my tutors and fellow students on the course, who felt they would view the chaplains in their places of work in a different light, after reading my article. Even doing as I did at first, and writing for your own parish or church magazine, would be invaluable in spreading understanding of our task. I believe that other universities run the kind of course that I undertook, so why not give it a try? 

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Study Days

There are full reports on the Training Website of two Study Days for Chaplains held recently. Alister Bull , the chaplain at Yorkhill has written about the Maternity Day held in Paisley in March. www.chaplains.co.uk/matty.htm 

Euan Macleod of Allanbank Wellcare Home in Dumfries has written about the day held in Perth in May entitled, “When I’m 64” - about caring for older people. www.chaplains.co.uk/older2002_report.htm 

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