MPH 599 Week 2 Baseline Writing Sample Example

Baseline Writing Sample: A 2025 Inspection Summary Memo, Carried Over Unedited, and the Three Patterns a Count Shows in It

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MPH 599: Professional Writing

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Baseline Writing Sample: A 2025 Inspection Summary Memo, Carried Over Unedited, and the Three Patterns a Count Shows in It

The Piece and Where It Came From

The baseline sample is a two-page summary memo I wrote in March 2025 for the Larkin County environmental health division. It went to my supervisor and to the owner of a family restaurant after a follow-up inspection, two weeks after the restaurant had failed its routine inspection. It is reproduced below, unedited, with names removed. I chose it because it is typical of the writing I produced most often, several times a week, for six years, and because its readers, a supervisor and an owner, needed to act on it. Only the first section is reproduced here, about 270 words, because the full memo includes the owner's name and address.

The Sample, Unedited

"Follow-up inspection was conducted on March 14, 2025, in response to the routine inspection of February 27, 2025, at which time multiple priority violations were documented. At the time of follow-up, it was observed that corrective action had been implemented for the majority of previously cited violations. It was observed that the hand sink located in the food preparation area was accessible and stocked with soap and paper towels, with the exception that hand drying provisions were depleted at the time of observation in the dishwashing area. Cold holding temperature verification for the reach-in unit was performed, with product temperatures of 39 to 41 degrees Fahrenheit being recorded. It was noted that the date marking procedure implementation for ready-to-eat potentially hazardous food items was incomplete. Employee knowledge regarding cooling procedure requirements for cooked rice was assessed through interview, with the determination being made that understanding was insufficient. It is recommended that additional food handler training completion be documented prior to the next routine inspection. Failure to achieve compliance may result in further enforcement action being taken in accordance with applicable regulations."

Markup That Names the Construction

I marked every instance of three constructions, using a name and a definition for each, so the count can be repeated.

Pattern A, the hidden observer: a sentence that opens with "it was observed that," "it was noted that" or "it is recommended that," which removes the person who observed or recommends.

Pattern B, the noun stack: three or more nouns in a row acting as one phrase, such as "date marking procedure implementation."

Pattern C, the action buried in a noun: an action expressed as a noun with a weak verb, such as "verification was performed" for "I verified" or "the determination being made" for "I determined."

A Count Is What Makes It a Pattern

Table 1

Counts of Three Patterns in the Baseline Sample

Note. Note. Counts by the writer, checked by a classmate who marked the same passage independently and differed by one instance on pattern C.

Seventeen instances of the three patterns occur in 270 words, about one every 16 words. The classmate's independent count matched on patterns A and B and differed by one on C, which suggests the definitions are clear enough to use.

Three Patterns, Not Fifteen

Other problems exist in the sample. Some sentences are long, the memo never says plainly whether the restaurant passed and "the majority of" could be "most." But I have chosen three patterns because they account for most of what makes the memo hard to read, and because they are the ones I will meet in graduate writing. Williams and Bizup (2017) argue that clarity depends on characters as subjects and actions as verbs, and patterns A and C break exactly that link. Pattern B makes noun phrases that the reader has to unpack. A list of fifteen weaknesses would give me nothing to measure across the term.

What a Revision Would Look Like

For comparison only, here is how the first three sentences might read with the patterns removed: "I returned on March 14, 2025, to check the violations I found on February 27. Most had been corrected. The hand sink in the preparation area was clear and stocked, though the dishwashing area had run out of paper towels." These three sentences use 47 words against the original's 85, and every action has a person doing it.

What Stays Out of the Sample

I have left out the memo's second page, which lists violations by code section, because that list follows a required format and is not my writing. I have also left out other documents I wrote, such as emails, because they follow a different register and would muddy the count. The baseline is the kind of prose I wrote most and that most resembles a paper: a narrative summary meant to inform and persuade.

How the Baseline Will Be Used

I will apply the same three definitions to each graded paper this term, report counts per 100 words and compare them in the week 8 memo. At baseline, the rates are about 1.5 hidden observer frames, 2.2 noun stacks and 2.6 buried actions per 100 words, figures I expect to fall unevenly. A paper style manual will settle format questions (American Psychological Association, 2020), but these counts are the measure of whether the habits themselves change.

What the Original Readers Experienced

The memo had two readers, and the patterns cost each of them something. My supervisor needed to know whether the restaurant had passed the follow-up and whether further action was needed. The memo never says either directly; the supervisor had to infer "mostly passed, training still needed" from a sentence about "corrective action" and another about "food handler training completion." The owner, whose first language is Vietnamese, called me two days later to ask whether the restaurant could stay open. Every answer was in the memo, but buried in noun stacks and passive frames that hid who had to do what. That call is the clearest evidence that the patterns matter beyond style: a reader who needed to act could not tell what to do.

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Williams, J. M., & Bizup, J. (2017). Style: Lessons in clarity and grace (12th ed.). Pearson.