International Journal of Nursing Studies 38 (2001) 683
Book review
Sociology and nursing
Peter Morrall, Routledge, ISBN 0415202280, P/B, price
£15.99
This book was a puzzle to me in a number of ways. I
was not entirely clear about the intended readership
because the cover ‘blurb’ says that it aims to provide
‘nurses’ with ‘the foundations of a sociological under-
standing of health issues which they will find of great
help in thinking about their work and the role of their
profession’. But it also identifies ‘the student’ as a
potential reader, and lecturers are expected to find it
helpful ‘for generating discussions in tutorials and
seminars, as a type of formative assessment and in the
preparation of summative assignments’. Therefore I was
expecting a format that included triggers for discussions,
problems or case studies to be explored, and similar aids
to student-centred learning.
However, the format is a conventional one, with 10
chapters each focussing on a particular topic, some of
which have unexpected titles such as ‘Imagination’, ‘Sex’
and ‘Madness’. ‘Imagination’ opened the book and I
soon realised that this title was a teaser because the
chapter actually turned out to be an answer to the
question, ‘What is Sociology?’ and covered fairly
conventional material about the ‘founding fathers’ of
sociology. C Wright Mills, after whose book ‘The
Sociological Imagination’ this chapter is presumably
named, was named Mills and listed as Mills, CW in the
bibliography. ‘Madness’ is not my professional field and
so I checked out with a mental health colleague my
surprise at the language used in this chapter. His view
was that it was quite acceptable and common for people
diagnosed with a mental health disorder to talk about
themselves as ‘mad’ but that it was a dubious practice
for professionals to talk about their clients as ‘mad’.
There is not enough scope within a review to consider
the full range of chapters, but there is much material in
the book that is stimulating and approached from the
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questioning, critical stance that characterises sociology
and so annoys those not sympathetic to the approach.
However, I found the writing style very contrived
throughout the book and not very user-friendly for
those new to sociology or to academic study. It is
liberally peppered with phrases such as ‘ontological
unease’, ‘mediated through theoretical conjecture’ (p.
47) and ‘exegetic paradigm’(p. 48). These look to me like
the fruits of a search through a thesaurus in order to give
an impression of ‘academic writing’. Sometimes this
approach has led to very awkward expressions}
‘research into the cancer-smoking vinculum’ (p. 39) or
usage that is definitely wrong, such as ‘testing hypoth-
eses with the view of deducing universal laws’ (p. 48) or ‘a
technique designed to furnish the doctor’s influence’
(p. 69). ‘Vinculum’ does not even appear in my Oxford
Compact English Dictionary (Thompson, 1996), despite
its claim to include ‘over 187,000 outstandingly clear
definitions and entries’.
All in all, I regret to say that in my opinion the book
does not achieve its aim of promoting a sociological
understanding because the way in which it is written
detracts from its readability and even gives readers a
misleading impression of what scholarly writing is. I
have often written about the importance of writing
clearly and using a style without unnecessarily compli-
cated devices such as the use of the third person and
over-long and convoluted words and sentences. Un-
fortunately, this book is evidence that I cannot yet cast
aside my infamous red pen and ‘slash and burn’ editing
technique!
Thompson, D. (Ed.), 1996. The Oxford Compact
English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
C. Webb
44, Chandlers Walk, Exeter
Devon, EX2 8BA, UK
E-mail address: cwebb@webbc.u-net.com