In my years of teaching OET, I have marked many referral letters and I have found two key features that distinguishes the truly excellent writers from the not so excellent writers. The two features are 1. CLARITY and 2. ORDER.

When students write legibly, use correct spelling, punctuation, syntax, letter format, paragraphing, grammar and expression of their ideas there is CLARITY. I can not emphasis enough, though these aspects may seem minor and therefore unimportant, they are not. This is what differentiates between a winning writer and a non-A grade. Furthermore, for a marker with hundreds of papers to grade, anything to make it easier for the examiner to read is CONSIDERATE. This in turn will ultimately win the favour of your examiner over the hundreds of candidates who do not take these things into consideration.

Secondly, when students are able to organise the list of patient file information into clear paragraphs, that contain only the most relevant and grouped information, it is ORDERED. Think of it like cleaning. When you clean, you sort the socks into one pile, the shirts in another etc. In the same way, even though there maybe a whole list of medical history or presenting complaints, consider,

– if it is a lengthy chronic disease history, to place the most significant turn of events into each paragraph chronologically,

– if it is multiple disease states, to group their progression, treatment and outcomes in each paragraph per disease.

There are many other ways of ordering the body of the letter, which we teach you at OET because each patient file is so different. All in all, the most sophisticated writings are the ones where there is a logical order in which the patient’s case is depicted.

My last tip for today is that as with anything in life, begin every act with love for the other person in mind. In the case of OET, mindfulness of the circumstances and desires of the examiner. They want to read through a letter quickly and smoothly without having to stop here and there because they can not understand something. So make sure, if you have time at the end, to proof read and check that all the above mentioned is done. Clear understanding, isn’t that the core of communication?