Public health professionals write all the time. Writing is an important tool for bringing about changes in policy, practice, public understanding, and health behaviors. You may create exciting and effective methods for addressing these matters, but if you cannot effectively communicate those ideas it is as if they do not exist at all. Furthermore, the process of writing helps to sharpen one’s ideas; good writing requires good thinking.
Writing assignments in SPH courses have a variety of goals: to test your knowledge, to foster critical thinking, to enhance your research skills, to assess your communication skills and to prepare you for the myriad writing tasks you will encounter in your professional work. We expect you to carry out writing assignments with the thought and skill consistent with graduate level work, and we believe the improvement of writing skills is essential for the health of our profession. An MPH degree implies that you are equipped with the many competencies that are required to be a successful public health practitioner; effective writing is one of the essential competencies.
Lucy Honig, Associate Professor of International Health, has been the writing specialist for that department for seven years, working with students on IH's required concentration paper and developing a departmental writing program. Professor Honig is also a prize-winning author (read her recent book entitled “Open Season” if you wish to see an example of superb writing). Although her direct work with students is restricted to IH concentrators and those registered in IH810 (Public Health Writing), she has compiled this valuable resource guide for the benefit of all students enrolled in the Boston University School of Public Health. She considers it a work in progress and welcomes suggestions for future editions.
I hope you will take the time to thoroughly review this guide, and I suggest you keep it handy so that you may refer to it as you tackle your writing assignments.
Leonard Glantz
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs