Alexis Trejo

September 15, 2019

SWA 2
SWA 2: Reflection
Once I received this assignment, I read the prompt and made of a list of the topic or
information that had to be included in this assignment. Once done with the list and wrote down
everything in a web format for example I wrote the genre and how it related to the discourse
community, then I moved on to the values, goals, and shared assumptions. I will admit there was
some history digging that had to be done, for me to allow the audience to have a better
understanding of my discourse community. When I completed the web, I began to write the
assignment. Something that really helped mw when writing this assignment was creating the
web, because it helped me be more organized. While completing this assignment it made me
realize how big my discourse community is and how important it has been for me. During this
assignment I was also able to realize role this discourse community has in the world. The usage
guide contains a list of words most nurses would only know the meaning to it and it is crazy how
someone in New York or Toronto would know exactly what that words means because this
discourse community is so big. When doing this assignment, I was able to reflect on my other
assignments and realize how my writing has grown. In this assignment I had to create a usage
guide but also talk about my discourse community’s genre, goals, values, and shared
assumptions, which has helped me enhance my writing. This assignment will play a big part in
the MWA 1 because for someone to have great understanding of your discourse community you
need to provide an introduction. Also, the usage guide will give the audience a view of how
nurses community and hopefully get a better understanding of what being in this discourse
community is. Everything I did for SWA 2 is information that is needed for MWA 1 for the
audience to feel intrigued by this discourse community.
 The Nursing Discourse Community
Nursing was once viewed as an untrained profession for only woman, but then came a
young lady named Florence Nightingale which changed the face of nursing. Nursing was now
viewed as a well-respected medical profession, nurses where now viewed with respect. Florence
Nightingale did not just change how others viewed nursing, but she established the first nursing
school in the world. Florence Nightingale began to change the face of nursing, but there are still
many assumptions others have about nurses. One of the latest assumptions is that they are not as
reliable as a doctor, many people will assume that nurses just provide hygiene care and are not
informed on the diseases or diagnosis. Although the nurse is much more informed about the
patient diagnosis and orders, than a doctor. Many patients will usually ask us to call the doctor
because they have a question about their orders or medications, because they assume, we do not
know that information, they assume we are not educated enough. Another assumption many have
about nursing is that it is only for women, but nursing has grown to be a profession for men as
well. When one hears about nursing, they automatically think of women. Even if there are many
assumptions about nurses, it does not stop them from achieving their goals. Nurses will always
have the common goal of providing excellent patient care and many other goals which are to
provide the best education to their patients, provide a safe environment, and to promote health.
Many of our values are compassion, strength, privacy, education, and honestly, which are all
important to have when working in this profession especially when others are trusting you with
their loved one. Nurses are constantly changing patients, so how do they know how this patient
has been or know the normal for the patient, well they are able to find all that through the
charting. Charting is a form of writing in many health professions, nursing relay manly on
charting because it provides documentation of the medical records of the patients, it has
procedures, assessments diagnosis, test result, and many other information. Charting is a form in
which nurses are able to communicate with one another about the patients’ health status and also
with other healthcare professionals.
The Nursing Discourse Community Usage Guide
Nursing has been around for many years which has allowed them to form a community in
which they have developed certain terms that would lead others to think one thing when it means
something completely different to a nurse.
1. Frequent flyers: In the hospital or clinic frequent flyers is a word you will commonly hear
in the emergency room at the hospital or in the check in of a clinic. Which is often used
to refer to a patient who goes to the hospital or clinic frequently
2. Tachy: Will usually be used when giving report about a patient, they will usually say
“He or she is tachy since last night”. Tachy is a term short for tachycardia, which refers
to a heartbeat over 100 beats per minute.
3. Code brown: Is a term commonly used in a nursing facility, which mean that a patient
needs to be cleaned up after a bowel movement, not as scary as a code blue.
4. Rose Cottage: one that is not familiar with this term will automatically think of roses,
many roses, but it is a term nurses use to refer to the morgue. Many nurses will usually
use this term when they are done providing hospice care to a patient.
5. Vegetative state: is the world used to refer to a person who has woken up from a coma
but still has not regained awareness. Many nurses will use this term when giving report
about the status of the patient.